


	IFRA XMA Cross Media Awards 2008 projects





	Company: South West Media Group Ltd
	Project name: Nigel Green Recruit/Yes Factor

	Topical category of the project

	A: Cross media campaigns for individual advertising customers

	General information about the publication

	The Herald Express is South West Media Group’s Torquay-based daily newspaper. It serves a wide surrounding area of coastal and inland communities in South Devon which attracts millions of tourists each year to swell its 100,000-plus resident population. The Herald Express was born out of the rivalry between two evening papers, each of which produced local editions for Torbay – an area which includes Torquay, Paignton, Newton Abbot and Brixham – and first appeared in its own right as a title on Monday, July 13, 1925, when the two sensibly decided to amalgamate. We produce three separate and individual editions for each of the three main areas of our location, the most recent of which – a Brixham edition – has proven hugely successful and coincided with a period of great change in the fishing port. The Herald Express prides itself on being at the heart of the local community, including promoting and supporting our commercial partners and advertisers. In an increasingly competitive and fractured market, we have to find ways of delivering that service to existing and new consumers which are innovative, pioneering, refreshing and, overall, eye-catching. Three of our most projects – Mod My Motor, The Nigel Green Recruit and Yes Factor – tick all those boxes. All departments of the newspaper have been brought together to work as one unit, including our editorial, online, advertising and newspaper sales teams. That has enabled us to deliver a first-class, modern service to our advertisers where in-print publicity/promotions/coupons have been run alongside and complemented online coverage and texting capabilities to yield hugely successful results. As a result we have reached new audiences and achieved impressive increases in newspaper sales and revenue streams.

	Project description

	Both promotions were designed to play on themes of popular television programmes. The Nigel Green Recruit was an Apprentice-style contest, while the Yes Factor was our take on the X-Factor show and used the various plot devices made famous by the television talent search. In addition to the close approximation of the campaigns' names, we also tried to make the logos and style of them mirror the TV shows as closely as possible. By doing this, our readers were made instantly aware of our intentions and were familiar with both concepts, which meant we did not have to keep running lengthy explanations of each campaign. As a result we immediately placed our campaigns in the contemporary and used the goodwill factor associated with them to our advantage. Readers were able to associate with our aims and, with the advertiser happy to play along with the central themes and tone of the television shows, we created a strong and familiar brand.

	The basic idea of the project

	The idea behind both projects was to find a new sales negotiator for Nigel Green Property Sales and Rentals using an innovative marketing and recruitment campaign. The Recruit winner was to be selected by Mr Green from a group of applicants after a number of tasks, as in The Apprentice, while the Yes Factor was a talent-based search, with the winner selected after a grand final in front of an audience. These initiatives grew out of discussions with the client regarding genuine positions that he had for a sales negotiator within his estate agency business. We were required to provide a novel recruitment campaign with the added challenge of creating and sustaining a strong identity for Nigel Green. The campaigns realised the potential for convergence between online and offline media by exploiting the opportunity for an advertising campaign to exist alongside an ongoing news story. This was an entirely new concept for the regional press and ably demonstrated the possibility for print and online media to complement one another by using strong branding and a captivating, ongoing story. Both campaigns created quite a stir among existing readers but we also planned to attract new consumers by making our internet content fun and accessible and using contemporary interactivity devices such as blogs. The client, Nigel Green, was involved in each stage of the campaign process and his brand was promoted every time we carried editorial content. As Nigel Green was the only advertiser involved we were able to provide him with the strongest possible brand awareness across our region. Mr Green was, and is, a regular advertiser with our newspaper but wanted something more from his input. The client’s investment for the entire Recruit campaign was £8,750, on top of his usual weekly input in our property section. This represented excellent value for him, as a bespoke campaign such as this would ordinarily cost over £13,000. For this he got exposure above and beyond what he could expect from an average marketing or advertising campaign and, in a market with increasingly small margins, this gave his business a crucial and unique edge.

	Used media channels


	Newspaper		Event(s)

	Online		Web-TV / Video

	Radio

Other:

Online - blog

The implementation

Once the advertising department had secured the customer and established the parameters of the campaigns, the editorial department drove their overall style and content.
An integrated approach was taken to both campaigns, taking advantage of the media opportunities provided by South West Media Group. Visitors were driven to the websites through a range of media. Awareness was generated in printed publications using display advertising, editorial and recruitment advertisements while a section on the www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk homepage also directed traffic to the sites. Nigel Green also gained radio exposure for the campaign, appearing himself on various radio stations, including national Radio 2, promoting the campaign and creating a truly innovative and integrated approach.
Both websites made great use of video and audio. The Recruit site opened with a TV-style introduction and followed that up with regular video updates as well as regular editorial and photo updates.
The Yes Factor site plays on the talent show theme, using green screen filming to create an iconic image of Mr Green as the show's presenter. Both are of industry standard and far exceeded the expectations of the client.
For the Yes Factor campaign, we ran two major media days at the Grand Hotel, Torquay. The first was the open audition, from which three finalists were selected by Mr Green and his panel of judges. The second was the finals night, also at the Grand Hotel, which attracted almost 300 members of the public. With Herald Express and Nigel Green livery extensively used in both events, we further exposed both brands to a wide and brand new audience.

Image(s)

June02.jpg (1505 KB)

June08.jpg (837 KB)

May05.jpg (711 KB)

June27.jpg (819 KB)

yeslaunch.jpg (294 KB)

yesfinal.jpg (774 KB)

Links

www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/nigelgreen
www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/theyesfactor
content.thisis.co.uk/southdevon07/nigelgreen/radio ...

Project results

The Nigel Green Recruit campaign proved a popular story among our readers and the sales figures for the period of the campaign were up compared with the weeks immediately preceding and following it. In April and July 2007, the Herald Express average daily sale was 25,234, during May and June, on the days when the paper carried editorial on the campaign, the average daily sale was 25,454.
The marketing/recruitment campaign ran for a total period of four weeks followed by a four-week editorial campaign. Throughout the four weeks of the marketing/recruitment campaign it generated £6,500, which equates to average weekly revenue figure of £1,625. The website generated interest from its launch on May 31, 2007. From May to July the website received 3,236 visitors, 5,831 visits and 9,719 page views (Intellitracker, May 31 – July 16, 2007).
The Yes Factor generated £8,750 advertising revenue from the client and again we had a lot of interest in the companion website, with just under 800 unique users during the selection process (Intellitracker, May 10 – March 10, 2008).
The client, Nigel Green, was delighted with the results of both campaigns. A worthy candidate was recruited for both, while the campaigns created huge public interest for his business and the way in which he recruits and values his employees. As a result of the Recruit competition, the final three candidates were eventually all offered positions within Mr Green's company. Following the final of the Yes Factor, Mr Green offered both finalists a job with his company.
The campaigns not only highlighted his business but also heavily promoted the www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk brand, which was promoted across the South West Media Group websites and generated traffic for them all. With national media coverage also secured, the results far outweighed the client's expectations and set a blueprint for future campaigns for our advertising and editorial teams.
As Mr Green was a central character in both campaigns he gained a great deal of publicity, both personal and professional, from the exposure.