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The Philadelphia Inquirer unveiled a multiplatform, multi-month brand marketing campaign today, part of a broader effort from the 194-year-old publisher to reintroduce itself to readers following a brand refresh spearheaded by chief executive and publisher Lisa Hughes.
The campaign, created by Philadelphia media agency Red Tettemer O’Connell, centers around the sense of pride Philadelphians have in their city. The core messaging explores the competing notions of subscribing and unsubscribing—key concepts, in their literal sense, to the publisher, which now has 90,000 digital paying readers.
The campaign plays on the perception that Philadelphia is perpetually misunderstood by outsiders, and that The Inquirer serves as a vehicle for residents to “feed their Philly bias,” according to Hughes.
“We know we ask people to subscribe all the time,” Hughes said. “So we turned that on its head and asked them to unsubscribe—to antiquated notions about Philly, to their preconceptions of the news and to what others think about the city. Then we asked them to subscribe to something authentic.”
The campaign is the first brand marketing effort from the publisher in decades, and it aims to raise awareness of the newly revamped product among its target demographic.
The Inquirer, like other publishers, has compensated for the challenging economics of digital advertising by investing in its subscription business. By tying that awareness closely to the concept of subscription, the publisher hopes to bring new, potentially paying readers into its ecosystem.
Feeding the Philly bias
Beginning today, The Inquirer will roll out its campaign across 60 billboards, a buy-out of the print and digital properties and on buses throughout the city.
The campaign will last for four months, although the creative will rotate after the initial takeover. It will also include paid digital ads that The Inquirer team will optimize depending on what resonates with audiences.
Visually, the campaign consists of two primary elements. The first, the subscribe-unsubscribe dichotomy, will play on inside jokes that Philadelphians cherish. For instance, one line of copy reads: Unsubscribe from “weird accent.” Subscribe to “what accent?” Another reads: Unsubscribe from “Did you eat?” Subscribe to “Jeet?”
To accompany the copy, Red Tettemer O’Connell created a series of images based on the distinctive font—and famous “I”—of The Inquirer brand. The agency created a dozen different “I” images, which themselves reflect beloved Philadelphian traditions.
One, for example, has the shag rug texture of Gritty, the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers. Another resembles the iconic Love sculpture created by Robert Indiana.
The interplay between the copy and the “I” adds additional context to the inside jokes. The “weird accent” text, for example, appears next to an “I” that resembles a water ice—an iconic Philadelphia treat and a phrase that native Philadelphians pronounce distinctly.
The throughline of the campaign is a desire to communicate a shared sense of community and authenticity, according to Hughes.
Amplifying subscription growth and branded content
To measure the efficacy of the campaign, The Inquirer will measure incremental increases in brand affinity, familiarity and likelihood to start reading, based on data sourced from the Harris Poll, according to Hughes.
Readers inspired by the campaign to visit the website will be able to read several articles before hitting the paywall, as the publisher uses a dynamic technology that only gates content after repeat visits.
Once on the site, the reader can familiarize themselves with the new products introduced by The Inquirer in recent years, including its live blog, Wordle copycat Birdle, podcast suite and more.
The publisher hopes to translate this potential uptick in readership into new digital subscribers—its paid readership has grown 50% since Hughes joined in January 2020—as well as advertising revenue.
Compared to other publishers, advertising is a smaller portion of The Inquirer’s revenue, according to Hughes. Still, the publisher is pacing to be 2% below its ad revenue last year.
The Inquirer has seen success with its nascent branded content offering, however, which it launched in 2021. Called Inq Studio, the offering has become a seven-figure business, working primarily with clients interested in corporate reputation messaging, according to Hughes.
“Growth does not follow the Field of Dreams playbook,” Hughes said. “First you need great content, but then you need eyeballs, and that is where marketing comes in.”
