M ARKET A NALYSIS T HE T HUNDERER *

Irina Bucsa 0913156 Alexandra Dobocan 0910323 Urszula Kulak 0913060 Hammarskjold Chidawanyika - 0911671 Kudzai Nyatsine - 0903857

22/02/2011

TABLE

OF

C ONTENTS

1 2 3 4 5 6

Background Information & Market Position P.E.S.T. Analysis S.W.O.T. Analysis Target Market Analysis Conclusions & Recommendations References

B ACKGROUND I NFORMATION & M ARKET P OSITION

 The Times and The Sunday Times, The Sun and The News of the World in the UK and Ireland - Sales of these four newspapers account for approximately one-third of all national newspapers sold in the UK. The average paid circulation for first half of 2009 forThe Times was approximately 600 thousand.  The Times, renowned to deliver accurate and engaging information, has positioned itself as a leading quality newspaper. Targeting the business orientated and the upper class, The Times is selling around 541 thousand copies daily. (Datamonitor, 2010)

 Newspapers world expands into virtual world.  The Times has already taken the leap in the industry by shifting from a traditional way of doing newspapers to a modern one, promoting The Times pay-wall.  New competition and new conflicts arise Google global scandal (search engines) To aggregate stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it is theft (Rupert Murdoch, as cited in Clark, 2009). Times Newspapers did manage to halve its losses in the 12 months up to the end of June 2010 compared to the same period the year before. Even so, the pre-tax loss reported for 2010 was of 45m, while in 2009, they have recorded a 87.7m.

P.E.S.T. A NALYSIS

ECONOMIC
 Constant reinvention - moving from a digital model to one more balanced (Rupert Murdoch)  Positive correlation between newspapers advertising revenues and their quality (Resende, 2088)  Economic competitive advantage in the newspapers industry dependent on various trends supplier negotiation, economies of scale.  Newspapers are in the group of products with zero VAT rate (www.direct.gov.uk).

POLITI
 Mai R les: Truth and Freedo of Speech

 The Ti es under pressure to follo UK and European Union Laws: The Defa ation Act 1996, The Data Protection Act 1998, Freedo of Infor ation Act 2000 etc.  Controlled by regulatory bodies: Press Co plaints Co ission, Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Co ittee.

SOCIAL
 Shifting the nature of business to fit the status quo; Trend T insumers & Social-lites - different usage of Internet, making the company to go online as consumers are becoming ever-more dependent on Peer-2-Peer comments and experiences ( .trend atching.com);  Growth of a precedent Loyal readers of The Times ne spaper ill be the first to go online, then others ill follo the trend.

TECHNOLOGICAL
 Hard copy newspaper overtaken by online version card payment;  Technological shift affects increases quality and reduces costs; Viewership and readership increase, hence the possibility of increasing advertising fees, as demand increases as well;  Innovation will make the online brand increase market share;  Technology will make reading news more engaging.

S.W.O.T. A NALYSIS

 Strong brand equity & touchpoints; Industry pioneer variety of tools; Industry leader; Strong audience insights; Strong partnerships.

Financial losses - weak operating performance; Decline in online readership; Decline in web traffic; Heavily-reliant on advertising.

 MISSION: to deliver accurate, intelligent and engaging information to an ever larger, ever more discerning audience (www.brandrepublic.com);  Touchpoints - fabrication of the Times New Roman typeface, now the most successful in history;  Pioneer - 2003 introduced two different formats of the newspaper broadsheet and compact.

 A series of inter-dependent variables triggered by the introduction of the paid-for online news content a loss of 90% of online readership;  Advertising as a main revenue stream general weakness of the newspapers industry.

 Threatening factors of The Times newspapers come from the same channel that opens new horizons, i.e. the Internet online portals;  Since it is not yet sure whether online paid-for content would take off as hoped for, free-of-charge newspaper websites.  The value of UGC to the mainstream or professional media journalists cannot be every here,at all times (McNair, 2009);  Emerging trend of collaborative consumers and cocreation seekers - opportunity for The Times to become a starfish organisation - to have no head, but to be more like groups of cells working together (Kotler et. al, 2010).

O
UGC (user-generated content); Co-creation (starfish metaphor); Platform - integration of sub-brands; Design of a precedent;

T
Online portals; Free ne spapers. U ne spaper market consumption expected to fall; Market performance forecasted to decelerate.

TARGET M ARKET A NALYSIS

Demographic Segmentation (income, age etc.)

 Mostly read by middle and upper income class readers, unlike other

newspapers such as The Sun or Daily Mirror which are common with the working class (The Consumer Eye Project) The Times offers its audience quality editorial content and supplements, e.g. Sports handbook.  The price for the newspaper is slightly higher than other newspapers at 1 paying online, whereas it is free to access other newspapers online, therefore price could be one of factors of why it is purchased by middle and upper class consumers.

TABLE 1 SOU

CE:

BBS 2008 #N S, AP -SEPT 2010

Geographic Segmentation

 According to property websites such as www.upmystreet.co.uk The Times is popular in elite areas such as Richmond, London where the wealthy reside and where there is also higher interest in current affairs.  On the other side, residents from poorer areas such as those from Hackney or Lewisham in London, do not normally concentrate on current affairs and therefore are more prone to buy newspapers like The Daily Mirror.

C ONCLUSIONS & R ECOMMENDATIONS

TABLE 2 SOU

CE (ADAPTED FROM): CHAFFEY ET. AL. (2009) INTERNET MARKETING: STRATEGY, IMPLEMENTATION AND

PRACTICE FT-PRENTICE HALL 3RD EDITION

R EFERENCES
 Armstrong et. al (2009) Marketing: An Introduction (8th Ed) Pearson Prentice-Hall;  Banks, D., Hanna, M. (2009) McNaes essential law for journalists (20th Edition), Oxford University Press Inc;  Keeble, R. (1998) The newspapers handbook (2nd Edition), Routledge;  Richardson, J.E. (2007) Analyzing Newspapers: an approach from critical discourse analysis (1st Edition), Palgrave Macmillan;  Evans, H. (1994) Good times, bad times (3rd Edition), Phoenix;  McNair, B (2009) Ne s and Journalism in the UK (5th Ed) Routledge;  Chaffey et. al (2009) Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice(3rd Ed) FT Prentice-Hall, last accessed via www.smartinsights.com and www.books.google.co.uk, on 13/02/2011;  Kotler et. al (2010) Marketing 3.0: From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit John Wiley & Sons, Inc;  Keynote Database: Newspapers Market Report 2010, last accessed via The Library Catalogue on 13/02/2011;  Keynote Database: Newspaper Industry Market Assessment 2005, last accessed via The Library Catalogue on 13/02/2011;  Datamonitor Plc: Newspapers Industry Profile: United Kingdom July 2010, last accessed via Business Source premier on 13/02/2011;  News Corp. Annual Report 2010, last accessed via www.newscorp.com on 13/02/2011;  11 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2011, www.trendwatching.com, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  www.thetimes.co.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  www.nicommercial.com, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  www.upmystreet.co.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  www.direct.gov.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  Superbrands case studies: The Times (25 April 2005) www.brandrepublic.com, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  Greenslade, R (15 January 2011), The old story remains true the profitable Sun funds the loss-making Times, www.guardian.co.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  Halliday, J (20 July 2010) Times loses almost 90% of online readership, www.guardian.co.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011;  Clark, N (4 Dec 2009) The Big Question: Could Rupert Murdochs battle ith Google save the ne spaper industry?, www.independent.co.uk, last accessed on 13/02/2011  Resende, J (2008) The Economic Advantage of Being the Voice of the Majority, Journal of Media Economics 21:158-190, last accessed via Business Source Premier on 13/02/2011.