900072827
MKTG 480
Case 1
Dr. Hegazy
USA Today: innovation and Evoultion in a Troubled Industry
1) What Opportunities in the marketing environment did Gannett seize in launching USA Today? How did the company learn about and respond to the opportunities?
Answer these same questions for USATODAY.COM
On its debut in 1982, USA Today was reckoned as America’s first National general-interest daily newspaper. Being the global information juggernaut that he is, Gannett managed to identify a gap in the market that he identified as an opportunity for the leading to-be newspaper of the united States. The opportunity was the void gap in the market. Attention to the business traveler was the least attended to which gave Gannett the opportunity to target such a sector and be the leading supplier of such traveler needs in terms of information. The launch of USA Today was based on two perspectives; the increasingly short attention span as well as the continuous hunger for more information. With both perspectives in mind, the paper was positioned to be a source of information that delivered “more news in less time”. In response to their customer needs, and the opportunistic gap in the market, USA Today was designed to be a unique paper with easy access to articles and concern for their time-pressed readers through the introduction of columns and snippets that presented the most salient topics of the story. In addition to their colorful contemporary look, USA Today’s ability to be dependably consistent added great value to the paper that lead to a stuttering over-a-million circulation in just seven months.
In an era when most of the major media outlets were suffering from a decline in readership, USA Today enjoyed continuous growth. To offset the rising distributional and promotional costs, USA today ventured in introducing spin offs to increase demand of the print sector. USA.com was one of Gannett’s spin-offs of responding to the