But every wave must wash ashore. For newspapers, the second half of this century has been a story of technological explosions, rapidly evolving markets, and our attempts at positioning our medium at the forefront of lives. We are not steering the boat anymore. Our consumers are. And advertisers are watching carefully to see if we realise this.
Newspapers there take a packaged-goods approach to marketing.
In North America, full-fledged marketing is beginning to take hold, though a unique historical culture of promotions and sales still retards efforts to move toward full integrated marketing to readers and advertisers. In Latin America, a mix of the two cultures can be found, though this area of the world is riding a demographic wave of young people that will impact its development, perhaps, more than any media or marketing strategy. This is making the local newspaper more of an asset to be managed than a local brand to cherish, and these companies are beginning to come to grips with this reality. In most of continental Europe and Latin America, newspapers are still mostly locally owned and managed. In the United States, newspapers are not allowed to own other local media.