Usa Today Marketing Strategy Case

1. What opportunities in the marketing environment did Gannett seize in launching USA Today? How did the company learn about and respond to these opportunities? Answer these same questions for USAToday.com.

Gannett noticed the below opportunities in the marketing environment that he took advantage of:

• An increasingly short attention span among a generation nurtured on television

• A growing hunger for more information.

Research suggested that USA Today should target achievement-oriented men in professional and managerial positions who were heavy newspaper readers and frequent travelers. After sending out prototype versions, it became obvious that this newspaper was enjoyable to the public, informative to national readers, and attractive to advertisers. The typical reader turned out to be a professional, about 40 years old, well educated or a news or sports junkie.

USA Today responded by laying its papers out for easy access and quick comprehension.

The company knew about opportunities by closely communicating with their customers on a personal level very quickly, clearly, and directly; in an upbeat and positive manner. They worked continuously on re-innovating and adding values to fit the reader’s lifestyle and interests. They also changed the width, made the paper slimmer and easier to handle to fit in airplanes and tight spaces. In addition, they published USA Today International, which helped them reach as many ambiences as they could get.

With regards to the case of USAToday.com, they were able to take advantage of the below marketing environment opportunities:

• Rising distribution and promotion costs

• The broad use of the Internet and the ease of using online news sites instead of hard copies.

Newsprint costs are a key challenge for the newspaper industry as a whole which forced all newspaper firms to add online news as a means to increase readership and cut distribution costs. The company responded to its customers by committing to...