Freesheet deal puts newspaper groups on the same page

MEDIA & MARKETING:THE LAUNCH of the Metro Heraldfreesheet newspaper in the new year will be a landmark in Irish newspaper publishing. The title – the result of the merger of the Metro and Herald AM titles – will be the first time that The Irish TimesLtd and Independent Newspapers(Ireland) Ltd have co-operated in a publishing venture, writes SIOBHÁN O'CONNELL

The third shareholder in Metro Heraldwill be DMG Ireland Holdings, publishers of the Irish Daily Mail. Exiting from the Dublin freesheet scene is Metro International, which was a minority shareholder with The Irish TimesLtd and the Mailin the standalone Metrotitle.

The Competition Authority has sanctioned the merger, albeit with a number of caveats.

The authority has insisted that Metro Heraldoperates as a completely standalone business to its newspaper shareholders. So much so that the management of Metro Heraldwill be prohibited from providing its shareholders with any commercially sensitive information, such as what sort of deals on advertising rates Metro Heraldstrikes with its customers.

Furthermore, the shareholders are prohibited from nominating to the Metro Heraldboard executives who have day-to-day responsibility for advertising in their own titles.

Clearly, the authority’s desire is that the freesheet will continue to offer robust advertising competition to paid-for newspapers. That should be good for advertisers. Whether the outcome is equally good for the shareholders, remains to be seen.

Carlsberg ad looks for can-do attitude

Carlsberg don’t do magic but, if they did, Diageo’s marketing communications boss Garbhan O’Bric would be able to turn Carlsberg into the best-selling lager in the State, ahead of market leader Heineken.

Instead, O'Bric is hoping that Carlsberg's new television commercial The Secretwill narrow the gap on its Dutch rival.

Out goes Carlsberg’s previous advertising theme, “It’s not always A or B, it’s probably C”.

In comes a new strategy that stresses the brand’s heritage, in response to a supposed yearning by consumers for authenticity.

The advertising campaign, developed by agency Peter Owens specifically for the Irish market, centres on how Carlsberg perfected the secret to brewing consistently quality lager in 1883.

Says O’Bric: “Our message in this ad is that Carlsberg gave away the details of its secret yeast, knowing that the original can often be imitated but never bettered. So the story today is that Carlsberg is the original lager.”

Carlsberg has been available in Ireland since 1955 and has been brewed and marketed by Diageo in Ireland under licence since 1988.

Like all its competitors, Carlsberg’s big challenge is to get thirty-something men up off their couches and down to the pub.

O’Bric adds: “It’s a very challenging market at the moment. People are visiting the pub less often, and the market landscape is not what it was before. It’s a market where consumers are looking for greater value. It isn’t just about price, but does the brand make the consumer look like they are making the right choice?

“No one today wants to be seen to be making frivolous purchases. People want to look as if they are making informed choices.”

While earlier this year Carlsberg’s creative idea was three lads using their thatching skills to make hula skirts on a beautiful paradise island, with The Secret commercial it has opted for a more back-to-basics approach. This is because the recession has had a profound impact on consumer values, according to O’Bric.

“We spend a lot of money trying to understand consumers better and we have identified a number of ways in which this shift has manifested itself. Consumers are looking for a break from the gloom, they are interrogating all areas of their spend in a way they never did before and they are looking for substance over style,” he says.

That may explain why the Harp lager brand, big in the North but more or less abandoned by Diageo marketing in the South, is enjoying a slight resurgence in the Republic. While the new advertising looks back to the olden days too, using Budapest as a backdrop, Carlsberg is up to speed with more modern marketing ploys too.

With beer mat advertising, the lager encourages drinkers to sign up to its events guide, which they can access on their mobile phone. The upside for O’Bric and Carlsberg is that they have your number.