The QR code as a death notice

By now we already know the outcome, but the battle dominated all media in recent months. Even COVID-19 actually had to take a back seat every now and then. The US presidential elections are peak times for all newspaper editorial offices.

Stateside a step behind

But for Belgian editorial offices, the election results from the States are not straightforward material to deliver. The time difference complicates reporting. A print editorial office closes around 11 PM. Otherwise, the newspapers won’t be printed on time and therefore won’t be delivered on time. Meanwhile, at that moment in early November, everything was still about to happen.

The first results only come in when we are at the breakfast table. With a newspaper that tells us nothing about those first results at that moment. Simply because not a single vote had been counted at the time of printing.

How do you handle that as a newspaper?

If you are Het Nieuwsblad: place a giant QR code on your cover. And absolutely nothing else on that important page 1. Only that QR code that takes you to your website via your smartphone.

Which, of course, does provide the latest state of affairs.

Digital surrender

What does that choice imply? What does it mean?

The poster of the LinkedIn message – a digital strategist at a marketing agency – summarized it as ‘The day the newspaper died’. A bold statement. But the choice for this cover is striking to say the least. Because as a print newspaper, you are bowing down to your online editorial team. As a printed medium, you can indeed never beat the internet for speed. That is an uneven battle.

But why ignore the strengths you do have? Online, you skim the headlines. For a newspaper, you take your time. On your smartphone, you read short titles diagonally. On paper, you look for depth, background, and context for those same news facts. On your laptop screen, almost everything screams for attention; in a magazine, there is only that one article.

With this QR code, you sweep all those advantages under the rug. A newspaper then becomes nothing more than a slow version of your website.

Sidelined

What must a portion of your readership think of that QR code? That part for whom the print newspaper is the information source par excellence. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I can’t imagine that print plays second fiddle for absolutely everyone. What message are you sending then? ‘Just take out a digital subscription; it’ll soon be over for your paper’.

What about the other news? Those items where it’s not about how up-to-date the results are, but about that scoop you have as a newspaper that others don’t. The other news that is important to your audience. Or must all of that make way for news you don’t have? In this way, you degrade all subsequent pages to trivialities.

And what about the function of a cover? To let your reader see at a glance what has happened in the world. But also to make him or her want to read more. If there really was nothing else but Trump versus Biden, fine. But you don’t exactly feel like browsing further, do you? You achieve the exact opposite effect with this cover: scan the QR code and set the paper aside.

Going all-in is not the standard answer

What can you learn from this for your marketing? The question Print or digital? frequently comes up in marketing issues.

Well, it’s important to take into account what both can do. And what they can’t do. To consider where print has an edge over digital, and vice versa. Interesting ideas often arise when you go for an interaction—when you let both complement each other.

But in my eyes, that didn’t succeed at all with this cover. It does an injustice to one and underestimates the power of the other.

As a company, don’t make the same mistake for your marketing. 100% digital is not the right answer for everyone. Keep your goal and target audience in mind. And don’t judge print solely on its weaknesses.