Newspaper industry in ‘good place’ and not at risk from digital media, awards ceremony told

THE Irish newspaper industry is in “a good place” and not in danger of being consumed by digital media, according to the sector’s representative body.

Speaking at last night’s Press Ad of the Year awards, at Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel, National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) chairman, Paul Cooke, pointed out that more than 84% of the adult population regularly reads a national newspaper and Irish advertisers spent more than €200 million of their marketing budgets with newspapers last year, to support his claim.

“Of course, there’s a wider economic issue, but we’re very comfortable with our place in the world. Our readership and circulation figures back that up, as does the fact that newspaper companies still get the bulk of their revenues from print,” he said.

“The digital world is expanding and, naturally, we’re going with that, but only newspaper publishers can offer print as part of a multimedia advertising package. That’s a critical issue for advertisers and agencies and it’s a key contributor to press advertising effectiveness, as well as audience loyalty,” Mr Cooke added.

“Even in difficult economic times, Irish people are still reading more newspapers than almost any other country on earth,” he said.

Ironically, a television company won the NNI’s first ever Press Ad of the Year award at last night’s ceremony. The ‘Seven Signatures’ campaign — created by Publicis — for TG4’s Seachtar an Casca series, telling the story of the seven men who led the 1916 Easter Rising (the campaign showed them blindfolded, wearing their civilian clothes) took the gong.

International judge, Julian Borra of Team Saatchi in the UK, said the campaign “stopped me in my tracks”.

Mr Borra added that all the night’s winning campaigns — other winners included Publicis’ Beamish & Crawford ‘ship’ ad and Ogilvy & Mather’s National Gallery ‘Metsu’ and ISPCC ‘Bloomsday’ ads — “captured unique strengths of the newspaper advertising medium.”