Daily Sport to hand out samples at festivals
Sport Media Group is planning to launch sampling campaigns at this year’s summer music festivals, to boost promotional activity behind the Daily Sport.
The push comes after the Daily Sport suffered the biggest fall of any of the national dailies, down 10.54% month-on-month to 85,043, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation’s latest figures. The report, which covered the six months to May, also showed that The Sunday Sport fell by 3.74% month-on-month to 82,977.
SMG chief executive Andrew Fickling says it is still in early discussion stages with several music festivals, but will look to push sampling activity as soon as possible, and will give the paper out at key travel points, such as busy motorway junctions.
He adds: “We’ve done very little in terms of promotions in the newspaper’s lifetime. They [music festivals] contain large parts of our target audience.”
The plan follows the launch of the newspaper’s first TV ad in April. Fickling says it is not likely to launch any further TV work this year, but is running ads on the radio and will look to continue above-the-line advertising in the future.
The Daily Sports’ circulation fell despite a revamp in April, which aimed to move the paper away from its smutty and salacious image. Fickling says it is not planning any major changes, but adds there will be tweaks and it will continue to “evolve”.
The renewed marketing activity also comes as the company undertakes a strategic review.
Fickling denies it could result in the part or full sale of the company. “There is no intention at this stage to sell the company and there is no one lined up to buy the company,” he says.
