A regional publisher is to launch a new fortnightly supplement on pets across all of its newspapers.
Archant has announced the launch of the Love Your Pet supplement, which will form part of a new drive to offer more content aimed at animal lovers.
The supplement, which will appear in print and online, will include coverage of a range of subjects including pet care, training, how to travel with pets and pet gifts, as well as animal photographs submitted by readers.
It will launch across the company’s titles, which include the four East Anglian dailies as well as numerous weekly titles in London and the South West, in the New Year.
Craig Nayman, Archant’s chief commercial officer, said: “This subject has always been hugely popular with our active and affluent family audiences.
“We know that half of the UK own at least one pet, and this, combined with the value of the UK pet industry currently standing at £2.7bn per year, makes Love Your Pet a really exciting new launch for us.
“It is another proof point of our commitment to engaging communities by consistently producing content of the highest quality.
“It offers brands an outstanding opportunity to reach 9.96 million consumers across the UK, aligning with one of the country’s most loved subjects across a variety of channels and brands.”
The campaign will launch in December and will also see monthly supplements appear in the company’s magazine titles.
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I’m sorry – did I miss half a year? Is it April 1 already? Perhaps the company concerned could try publishing decent newspapers instead of pets’R’us or paying for ice rinks, or rubbish TV stations. Keep it up guys, lovin’ your work!
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If Archant loved their staff as much as they obviously love their pets, then we might get somewhere.
But, seriously, it’s hardly an idea forged on the hotbed of the internet revolution.
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Felix or Whiskas? I feel a full-scale probe by the might of the investigations team coming on.
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Desperate times call for desperate actions and they don’t get must desperate than this. Lassie to the rescue.
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OMG !
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Glad I’m out of it. I went into journalism to write about news and sport – not some wishy washy features about cats and dogs. If I’d wanted to do that I would have started a glossy magazine devoted to the subject – oh wait, there already are such magazines doing a much better job. Don’t they realise most cat lovers don’t particularly care for dogs and vice versa. Daft idea.
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Never mind the news.. we’re Archant. What next, Dogs on Ice?
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With “animal photographs submitted by readers”?! FFS. Not paying for content again, Archant?!
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Another pointless PA-led feature, wonder how long the ‘local content will last for?. Possibly one week.
Interesting that the raison d’etre is
“form part of a new drive to offer more content aimed at animal lovers.” yet the quote in the press release comes from the chief commercial officer. Guessing the point might really be to might just be to flog underpriced ads to pet shops.
Hardly says much about quality journalism does it. Maybe the Investigations Unit should have a look into it.
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WTF. I knew local newspapers had gone down the pan, but I wasn’t aware it was this bad.
This was the sort of dross we used to have to suffer when a tele-ad girl had been scraping the barrel in order to hit her sales targets by the end of the month. It got no fanfare; far from it. Rubbish like this was packaged in as low-key a way as possible and tucked away at the back of the paper. Now crap like this is presented as the saviour of the newspaper industry. It’s depressing beyond words.
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I stopped buying the EDP years ago and I don’t see this attracting me back. Likely as not it will be a collection of advertising puffs surrounding pictures of readers’ smiley pets taken on a phone camera.
Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs, but it’s a big no to cats.
Please Archant, can we have our regional NEWSpaper back?
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“It is another proof point of our commitment to engaging communities by consistently producing content of the highest quality.’
Yep, bring on the out of focus pics of dogs/hamsters/goldfish etc.
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This is the future sadly. Dumbed-down local newspapers for the X Factor/Britain’s Got Talent masses. The kind of people who would rather read about a juggling cat than council corruption. Of course newspaper companies love it because you don’t need good, investigative journos to write this tripe. Just some lovee who calls everyone ‘darling’. The kind of writer who uses ‘that’ 100 times in every sentence and refers to councils, government agencies etc as ‘them’ rather than ‘it’.
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Next up, an attempt to make money out of a pet exhibition at a county showground. Bombard what readers you have left with junk about the event and try to charge visitors and exhibitors a fortune. Didn’t JP try that a few years ago?
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I give up
If it’s not enough to sponsor wifi from the top of a cathedral spire, waste money on an ice rink for Norwich and throw money to the wind on the abomination that’s Mustard tv they’ve now trawled up years old readership info on ‘what our readers spend their money on’ and have decided to milk this tired and jaded ‘pets’ cash cow
It used to be that when any title had run out of sd fest ideas to sell they’d get the telesales lot to put on a pets feature, twenty years on the worlds moved on but nothing’s changed st Archant.
can I suggest on behalf of the staff that they spend more time and effort on paying for quality staff, and investing in the papers themselves and leave ridiculous pet ad feats to school newspaper project teams
If this is the best initiative that the commercial chief can come up with then I think the end of the line is in sight.
Another week another joke
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Almost as ridiculous as their olympics 2012 series of pull out in paper supplements that quickly ran out of steam and content long before the series ended.
Just who comes up with these tired old chestnuts that were old hat 10 years ago?
However I think the real reason they’re doing it isn’t out of a love of pet care more a grasping at £££££ when they say ” popular with our affluent audience”
Let’s be honest affluent pet owners or even hard up ones aren’t going to see newspaper ad grabber supplements as essential reading on pet care, the market is chock full of pet care magazines as it is so no ones going to rush out and buy the local rag to get this comnercial pull out, especially in a paper that’s just had its cover price increased the week previously.
At least they’ll incur no photographic costs as they’re touting reader supplied photos I see.
Now if they could only get a banjo playing poodle skating on ice as a feature for Mustard TV then it might just work
Is this really the extent of the commercial inventiveness there these days?
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“…… proof point of our commitment to engaging communities by consistently producing content of the highest quality”
if a pets ad supplement is an example of what the chief commercial guy (not an editor i note?) believe to be “content of the highest quality” then my how the mighty have fallen.
To quote someone
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It seems odd or maybe telling that the person being quoted here is a commercial one rather than an editor which indicates where the real motiovation for producing this series of Pet themed ad grabbers has come from.
i suppose with money being wasted on ice rinks,sponsoring a catherdral spire wi fi and the infamous Mustard tv theyve got to get some ad revenue from somewhere ,however stretching out a glorified Pets feature over their whole portfolio of papers,websites and such forth seems like a desperate measure in the extreme.
is this really the best they can come up with?
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Barking.
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All newspaper groups have hog pet projects – some worse than the worst of the others!
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Typical Archant! Everything done on the cheap.
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‘ a really exciting new launch for us” who’s ‘us’ ?
It certainly isn’t the editorial people I work with, all know it’s a thinly disguised excuse to flog cheap ads to local pet shops using genetic content and user supplied phone pix, ‘ one Archant’ in all its shared content glory
Love the way the spokes person has felt the need to get in as many out dated facts that his research crew have emailed him, facts that have been knocking around for years which basically indicate that people love animals, spend money on them and lots have one, facts enough for Archant to put on a company wide adfeat aimed purely at catching cash before year end.
Will look forward to reading about the huge increase in paid for copies sold at next ABC as a result of this ‘exciting ubutusyrcdc
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Forget space filler ad grabbers and concentrate more on improving the papers,funding proper resources to handle the work and instilling some pride back into the business by taking the main business seriously.
If the board think this type of out dated pull out is ‘exciting’ and the way forward then we are in worse trouble than most of us thought we were, and that’s saying something
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Don’t forget ‘ a desperate grab for any ad revenue it can get its hands on is for life, not just for Christmas’
‘Exciting’
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Is it any wonder that people no longer buy archants papers if this is typical of the ‘exciting’ content they can expect to find in their recently price increased newspaper.
For the commercial spokesman to come out and try to justify this as anything other than an ad led desperate drive for money before January is farcical and loses him any credibility he might have thought he had up until now.
It’s also noticeable that none of the many levels of editor are quoted in this piece? You’d almost think they weren’t buying into it.
But if I’m wrong we can expect to see vast paper sales increases on the back of this because as he says himself thousands of people love pets and thousands of ‘ brands’ will be keen to advertise so no excuses for not recording huge ABC increases in the second half year reports as a result.
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I live in hope of one day reading a HTFP piece about Archant investing in its newspapers,getting quality staff in to help drive the business forward and of them spending money on content that people want to read and would be prepared to pay for, until then it looks like I’ll have to settle for ice skating rinks,aerials on cathedral spires,putting the price of the papers up that no ones buying , losses by mustard TV and now ‘ multi platform ‘pets supplements in all their papers.
Must be their idea of a ‘lead’ story these days
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This ‘exciting’ reader appealer must be one last ditch attempt at damage limitation for year end ad revenues as I can see no other reason for doing it other than to clasp at any loose ad spend that may be going spare in the run up to Christmas.
As the spokesperson in this piece is from the ad department i think we have a clear indication of where this latest next big thing has come from.
And one final point , should they really be encouraging people to buy pets at a time when the rspca are urging people to think seriously before buying a pet for Christmas ?
Sadly I doubt that’s even crossed their minds
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What a joke, yet another old fashioned, tactical, bottom of barrel cash grab from hard working local pet businesses.
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Well i for one think it’s a brilliant initiative and it’s good to see Archant doing their bit for recycling as the pull outs will be ideal for lining cat litter trays or dog kennel floors and in these austere times such a thoughtful move as this in the lead up to Christmas should be applauded.
Nice one Archant!
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Mr Nyman
With an eye on the great and genuine help you’re giving to businesses in the pet sector with this brilliant and exciting initiative can I suggest you may need to rethink promoting these mighty tomes in places other than your own papers and on your very own television show: Mustard tv.
with so few people reading the papers and virtually no none watching your telly offering you may be better off advertising in some of your competitor publications across the areas of you really want to get this furry friends special seen.
I’m sure your many advertising sponsors will appreciate the benefit of having their adverts seen by some potential customers so using the best methods available and the most effective mediums to do so in my opinion is the way to go.
.
Good luck and thanks for all the support to the pet sector that this eagerly awaited ‘special pull out’ will no doubt give and all of this without any self serving aims for your own company, fantastic!
Oh yes, one further thought,as its all about carrying Dorme pets why not donate say 90% of the ad revenue to the RSPCA ?
Insure they’d appreciate it.
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In my excitement about this exciting series of pet pull out specials I appear to have sent a few typos!
It should read; ‘ caring for your pets’
I can only apologise for these cat-astrophic errors
J R
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Sadly there are plenty of so-called journalists willing to write the drivel that appears in these sort of supplements.
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Proof, if any proof were needed, that regional papers are going to the dogs.
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Did I read that right?
” A drive to offer more content aimed at animal lovers “?
So presumably disgruntled Archant readers have lobbied to get more pet related content in their recently price increased papers have they?
Readership surveys have seen Archant titles score less than satisfactory in the ‘ are you satisfied with the amount of coverage given to our furry friends’ question
These affluent families that they speak of have contacted the editors demanding a better presence for pooch related features?
And there was me reading this and thinking it was just a thinly disguised ad department led scrap round for period twelve revenues, silly me
It would be nice to hear from an editor,any editor will do, confirming that this is an editorial and customer led initiative and not a smash and grab sales blitz on the pet shops at what is the most inappropriate time of year to be urging people to buy a Christmas puppy
Any editor care to comment?
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