Rival newspapers offer collective ad sales

The UK’s biggest national newspapers are joining together to provide brands with a collective advertising package that will see them sell ads on their own and rivals’ titles for the first time.

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The new strategy is being tested around the Wimbledon tennis tournament. The package guarantees brands positioning alongside Wimbledon editorial across a broad reach of titles, from tabloid to broadsheet.

The Sun, Daily Mail, The Independent, The Guardian, Daily Mirror, The Times, Daily Telegraph and all their sister and Sunday titles are involved.

It is also hoped the discounted rates for the package will encourage brands that would not usually advertise around the tournament to place spots in newspapers.

Guardian News & Media sales director Simon Kilby says: “This is about bringing new clients and more money into the newspaper sector. Different newspapers have different issues and pressures but we have worked well as a group on many projects over the past few years. This is just the latest.”

The offer aims to simplify the buying process and will enable advertisers to buy across a range of newspapers within one invoice.

The newspaper groups could potentially exploit editorial opportunities around the Olympics, Christmas and the autumn fashion shows if the test is successful.

The test package comes at a time when print ad revenues are down across the newspaper sector.

The Daily Mail & General Trust recently warned of “continued uncertainty” over the medium term advertising market after reporting its ad revenue growth had slowed by 4% since December.

The package was conceived by the Newspaper Marketing Agency.