Marketing Analysis for Trinity Mirror Plc Companys The New Daily - Report Example

Trinity Mirror Plc Company’s The New Daily

Trinity Mirror plc is the largest newspaper, digital, and magazine publishers in Britain. Its acquisition of its main rival, the Local World in late 2015 made to be the biggest newspaper group in Britain. Currently, it publishes nearly 250 regional and national papers including the Daily Mirror, the people, and the Sunday Mirror. Trinity Mirror also prints the Scottish Daily Records and Sunday Mails. Since its acquisition of the Local World, Trinity Mirror has gained nearly 83 print publications (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). The corporation has its operation headquarter at Canary Wharf, London. Trinity Mirror is listed on the London Stock Exchange on the FTSE SmallCap Index.

The company has two main divisions, the digital and paper print. The company’s digital division was launched in 2013 with a content website on an experimental basis. However, it later developed websites that included the Buzzfeed that focuses on flash games and quizzes, the data journalism, and the WordPress platforms. However, both websites platforms were close in 2015. Therefore, the print division remained the company’s main business platform. Trinity Mirror has nine operational sites in the UK for its print media. It prints and distributes nearly thirty -six (36) major newspapers across the United Kingdom including Britain and Scotland (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). This wide experience, expertise, and involvement in the print media are clear indications that the Trinity Mirror can achieve its market target for its new print media product, The New Day newspaper.

Market Segmentation

Marketing and selling print media in the contemporary digitalized world is like selling ice to the Eskimos. Therefore, succeeding in such a venture will require a profound understanding of the targeted market. According to Trinity Mirror, The New Day newspaper targets the entire UK market regions. However, because of the effects of digital media, the product will target customers who are relatively affected by digital media. Therefore, the product targets the population of the age groups between 35 to 45 and 45 to 55. The first group is noted to be partially influenced by digital media (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). Consumers between the ages 45 and 55 have a moderate addiction to the digital media, and because most of them are just spending most of their time at home, they are likely to convert them to reading the newspaper.

Consumers between ages 35 and 45 have a unique lifestyle; digital media is likely to influence their way of life, but they would like to get extra information other than those slimy patched trends on the social media. Thus, coupling analysis with what trends in the print will influence their purchasing decisions. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the product targets all classes of consumers, but the target remains on those who are likely to purchase the products (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). Notably, young consumers are likely to buy the products since they pegged most of the times in the formulation, sharing, or consuming digital information.

Pest Analysis

PEST is a vital tool for understanding the market for those who intend to introduce or enhance the sales of the product within a market domain. PEST helps in understanding the political, economic, social, and technological factors that are likely to affect the performance of the product in the market. From the designing and editing points, it has been noted that The New Day newspaper will be politically neutral (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). This means that changes in the political environment within the UK among other target areas will not affect its reception from targeted consumers. However, economic, social, and technological changes in the market are likely to affect its consumption. Variations in the economic situation are likely to influence the consumers’ purchasing power. For instance, an increase in taxation is likely to increase the production costs thereby affecting the price of the product in the market. Therefore, despite the newspaper being politically neutral, changes in political policies including taxation policies among others are likely to affect the sales of the paper (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). Additionally, some consumers are highly interested in political news or changes; thus, lack of such information in the newspaper is likely to affect their purchasing decisions.

Some Social behaviors within the society are also factors to consider in analyzing the market against the products. The contemporary female of between ages 20 and 45 are increasingly concerned about their images particular weight. Therefore, if the paper may incorporate some of such information on weight management or health issues, then it is likely to be consumed by such consumers thereby increasing the market domain. Other social aspects that likely favor the products is the growing population, the growth in population in the UK is likely to provide a continuous ready market to read the paper. Moreover, there seems to be a balance between the youths and the old people. Since the UK has high life expectancy, targeted elderly consumers of ages between 45 and 55 are increasing thereby giving a promising market for the New Daily. Finally, the current growth in technology may be considered a threat to the New Daily; however, the New Daily can use the platform for marketing. It is worth noting that new information trends very fast in the digital media (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). However, they are never comprehensive data sets; hence, if the New Daily can capitalize on giving an in-depth analysis of trends and highlighting such on their digital media adverts, then digital media can be a success platform for the New Daily other than a threat it is currently considered (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). It is also worth noting that reading from print media is more relaxing than digital platforms; therefore, if the New Daily can be unique in its printing hours, then it can fetch more clients than printing at night and distributing in the morning.

Competitor Analysis

Trinity Mirror has numerous competitors but with only 3 ranked the top competitors including the New Corp UK & Ireland Ltd, the Daily Main & General Trust Plc, and Guardian Media Group Plc. The New Corp UK & Ireland Ltd print products cover international news. The company has its subsidiary in the United States. It circulates nearly 500,000 daily of the Times’ international published national news. Other than the Daily national and international New Corp UK & Ireland Ltd, have other products with perfect market response including The Sunday Times, and the London tabloid The Sun among others. The company also has international publications including the “The Australian, the Wall Street Journal (owned by Dow Jones) and the New York Post” (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). The Daily Main & General Trust Plc is the United Kingdom largest media holding organization. Its associates include “The Daily Mail” (circulates nearly 2 million prints papers daily) and “The Mail on Sunday” (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

It also published close to 100 local financial and business magazines. Finally, it is worth noting that 20% of the company’s take is in the Independent TV News. Notably, TV broadcaster ITV controls The Daily Main & General Trust Plc Company’s TV stake. Guardian Media Group Plc Company is the last top three competitor of Trinity Mirror (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). The Guardian Media Group Plc Company has assets including newspapers, magazines, and websites. Its main print media include The Observer and the Guardian that are operated by the Guardian News & Media. The company has also ventured into real estate software managed through its GMG Property services. It has a partnership in paper and website advertisement. Therefore, since these competitors are deeply rooted in the business with mega financial foundations, they offer real business and competition threats to Trinity (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

Financial Analysis

Despite the challenges that Trinity Mirror has faced, the company is optimistic that with the introduction of The News Daily, it will recover from its dwindling sales. The company has only been having increasing growth in its digital division with 2015 financial report indicating a 44% growth in digital ad revenue and 27% growth in the publishing revenue (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). However, the overall Trinity Mirror company’s 2015 adjusted profit tax declined by 2.5% to £47.0 million. The 2015 share prices of Trinity Mirror Company also decreased by 1.3% making them trade at 15.3 pence. Its 2015 overall pre-tax profit dropped by 18% to £67.2M and the revenue decline by 7%, to £592.7M (London stock exchange, 2016, p. 01). Despite these records, the company still had the overall benefit of £23.9M (Trinity Mirror Plc., 2015, p. 01). Nonetheless, the company remains optimistic that with the positive response of the New Daily, the company revenues will grow above its ever-recorded high values (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

Graph 1: the Performance of Trinity Mirror in the stock market for the last one month

(London stock exchange, 2016, p. 01)

Graph 1b: the Performance of Trinity Mirror in the stock market for the last three months (London stock exchange, 2016, p. 01)

This is 2016 trading trend of Trinity in the market. The figure shows that things might not be well for the company since it shows decline in its traded share. The worst of it is that the trend is not smooth, but ragged with the sunlight of every day. The financial indicators of the company are somewhat depicting that the product, the New daily, is not performing as was earlier projected. However, according to the Financial Times, the Trinity Mirror’s market share is increasing steadily (see Graph 2 below). This information is only based on days’ analyses; thus, Trinity Mirror should check on some of the activities that may be affecting it market performances (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

Graph 2: Market Share (Financial Times, 2016, p. 01)

Brand Overview

The New Daily is the newest brand of the Trinity Mirror. It was launched on February 29, 2016. This product is not a version of any other Trinity Mirror’s products, but it is a new product that intended to boost the company's financial sales; hence, increasing its overall economic growth. The print is to remain politically neutral and targets women mainly. Its designers believe that it will seal the widening gap between the print and digital media. Its market target is 500,000 readers annually (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). The 40-paged newspaper is regarded as the upbeat modern newspaper that targets a class of its kind.

At its interception, the New Daily targeted 200,000 readers per day countrywide; however, it has managed to reach 150,000 users per day hitting a target low by 50,000 readers per day. Moreover, the product initial market price was 25p, but there are intentions to adjust the amount to what was originally designated price of 50p (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

Pre Campaign or Current Strategies

The pre campaign strategy distributes The New Daily through Trinity Mirror’s 40,000-retail outlets countrywide. The product has been marketed through various marketing platforms including weekend aired TV ads that run for 30 seconds (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). The ad usually run in between entertaining TV shows; therefore, it is apparent that larger population has been introduced to the product.

The TV advert concentrates of telling prospective customers that the new product will provide “new approach, new outlook, a new style” (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01) to the readers. It further promises users of a “new set of writers with a new conversation” (Cookson, 2016, p. 01). However, there are feelings that ad with highly persuasive data will increase the influence on the purchasing decision of the targeted and prospective consumers. Strongly persuasive data will make them feel that the paper is what they need to read, and they have to read. This kind of zeal and drive will increase the sales above the targeted 200,000 pieces in circulation per days, regardless of the increase in price from 20p to 50p (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

New Campaign Strategies & Impact Evaluation

Trinity Mirror should adopt effective digital marketing where it ensures that the New Daily main items are in the digital ads. These main items must be similar to things trending in digital media. However, they must assure the readers that other than the trends, the paper offers critical analysis and coverage of trends as opposed to the mere listing (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01).

Additionally, the New Daily must have a different approach to distribution. Many papers are usually distributed in the morning hours. New Daily may opt for the evening delivery and daytime printing. This strategy will ensure that many trending features and items of the day are captured in the paper. Furthermore, consumers targeted with the digital media ads are the working class (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01); their days are usually busy; thus, they can only have the highlights of the paper in their offices and grab a copy of the paper later in the evening. They will enjoy reading while relaxed either in the comfort of their homes or at restaurant over a cup of coffee.

The New Daily TV ads may also be restructured to involve analysis of what should be expected of the paper. For example, if the paper is to be distributed in the morning, Trinity Mirror should book for morning or early breakfast TV shows to peruse over the paper. The early morning TV shows will make audients feel the need of having their copies (Cosgrove, 2016, p. 01). The same can be done over radio stations. These adjustments in mainstream media will increase sales thereby enabling the New Daily hit its anticipated circulation of 200,000 copies per day at 50p per copy.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis: the New Day

Strengths

Weaknesses

• The product is new in the market
• It has new approach in content and deliverables
• Contain trending items as digital data
• Has proper analysis of trending items over and above those in digital media
• Sound financial base

• It is just a newspaper like any other
• It is difficult to differentiate the newspaper from its right-wing competitors
• The company is currently trading on low revenue; thus, concentrating on new product may increase injuries to its books of account

Opportunity

Threats

• The consumers need new explorative forms of information other than show data
• The company has long standing print media It can take advantage of the online audience
• The forget consumer will feel appreciated; the 45 to 55+ consumer
• UK has stable market economy
• It can take the advantage of the social market to advertise and reach its market target

• The company has dwindling economic times
• Technology is offering cheap trends or instant news
• External Competitors offering alternative sources of daily information or news
• Internal competition from other Trinity Mirror print media
• Reduction in paper production since the introduction and intensive use of technology may hick the cost of production

Campaign Budget

Media

Frequency

Cost per advertisement

Total

Newspaper

Roadshows

Weekly

£50,000.00

£200,000

Morning Radio newspaper analysis and updates

Daily

£500.00

£150,000

Digital media ads and updates

Daily

£500.00

£150,000

Morning TV newspaper analysis & ads

The BBC

Morning Analysis

Daily

£500.00

£150,000

Ads

Daily

£2,000.00

£600,000

Budget Evaluation

The campaign will run for 1 month, roadshows will be conducted alternatively between Sundays and Saturdays. Therefore, for the whole campaign period, only 2 Sundays and 2 Saturdays will captured. The roadshows will be hyped and celebrities will be hired to participate. Area far away from city centers will be the main target of the campaign.

The editions of the New Daily will conduct the morning TV and radio shows

Experts will design the TV Ads to counter loops in the current ads.