Marketing Concepts Unit 2 Complete

USA Today has always faced challenges and opportunities. There are several challenges have affected USA Today. The newspaper has been in the adapt quick or die stage for quite some time. Most businesses in today’s economy are facing power shifts to customers, massive increase in product selection, shifting demand patterns, and privacy, security, and ethical concerns (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). USA Today’s biggest challenges are shifting demand patterns, changing demographic of readers, competition, distribution, production costs, and technological advances, but within these challenges there are great opportunities.

In chapter 2 of The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser, after discussing how although two newspapers still create the base of almost all news stories that get shared online, newspapers are failing daily. He then explains how news became centered around “public opinion” instead of just information about the outside world. Pariser reminds us that:

I do not know about you, but our baby boomers are the most known for still reading the newspaper only because a lot of them still cannot adapt to the computerized world. Citizens that are somewhat uneducated, unemployed, live in rural areas, new to the area, younger than 20 or older than 60, have isolated themselves from social activities and social communications, and are strongly committed to a specific political party (Wanta & Yu-Wei & Yi-Chen, 1995). That information still fits to this day. The most interesting part is that the ones who really read the newspapers are the business people. For instance, “The Wall Street Journal is read by people who run the country, the Washington Post is read by people who think they run the

Tom and the USA today team faced a new rapidly developing internet information boom. News was not just becoming accessed more by digital sources, but it was being created or changed into digital sources of information. The internet had created, in the context of the news industry, a disruptive outlet to the newspaper production, sales, and distribution. Whole new infrastructures and business strategy focused on web design, rapid information updates, media outlets, and becoming more up to date with the current technological trends in news, information, and communications. With that, Tom realized that the business expand and use its core competencies in content distribution into three formats, which would allow USA today to impact different market segments with one of three particular product/service changes. With the new divisions, the overall strategy would need to become more ambidextrous to guide and coordinate the branches under a single

Therefore, to correct the direction of the company and protect their future the company should start evaluating itself, to find ways to recover a trustworthy image and study the target niche of the market they are focusing on. In the reality, it is widespread knowledge that certain newspapers focus on different types of news because they are targeting a specific type of public, such as economy or entertainment, and the newspaper that doesn't evolve in this way are the ones that don´t capture a certain amount of viewers being fated to

USA Today was founded in 1982 and is a newspaper that brings in the ideas of a modern day world. The newspaper also brings in new ideas and facts about how the world is evolving from writing, to technology or other things that show evolution is the human mind and way of processing things. The company is owned by Gannett Company. Gannett has many other smaller companies under it’s belt and has a revenue of over five billion dollars. Including USA Today, Gannett Company owns 41 smaller companies that help build up their revenue. Basically, USA Today is a company owned by another company bigger than them. Gannett owning USA Today can affect the material the news source gives out because of how the other smaller companies inside

USA Today has been able to differentiate itself and stay away from commodity status of most news sources by they were a newspaper that was considerably set apart from other newspapers. USA Today had many distinct and unique features that were incorporated. USA Today has content and an appearance that is as bold and fearless as its mission (Stein, 2015, p. 78). The features included such as the newspaper was laid out and provided easy and quick access, quick comprehension for a hastily reader (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). Furthemore, there were only four sections that were offered in the newspaper with information that was very concise, clear, succinct, and included short writeups.

An example of USA Today’s relevance in the marketplace was in 1998 when the NBA had a lockout and players refused to play and USA Today used this scenario to modify their newspaper (Stoldt, Smetana & Miller,

In the wave of information explosion appeared in 90’ last century, the channels to obtain information among people have apparently been diversified due to the rise of new media outlets through the medium of the Internet. Although some advantage of newspaper has been overshadowed by the excellent performance of new media, newspaper is actively adapting to social and economic transformation based on maintaining its existing advantages. For this reason, the essay will describe newspapers’ prospects and explore whether newspaper have been outdated in the globalised era.

Tom Curley, president and CEO of USA Today, realizes that becoming a successful player in the new digital marketplace requires his staffs accept the reality of the digital challenge. However, by February 2000, there is no senior staff members agree Curley’s ideas that transforms USAT from a traditional newspaper business to a news company in the broadest sense. The reason senior staff members disagree is concerning that Online will become a treat to their future.

USA Today is a well-known newspaper company who dominates print news in the United States. Currently reaching nearly three million readers, USA Today has climbed their way to the top by evaluating and consistently re-evaluating their strategies to maintain and grow their consumer base, which consists of businessmen, professionals, and politicians (About USA Today). One of their greatest strengths is the wide range of their distribution. USA Today distributes newspapers in all fifty of the United States as well as parts of Canada and the United Kingdom (About USA Today). Their content is styled in an easy to read and understand way, making it more desirable to their readership versus other competitors’ newspapers. The company has established a well-recognized design for their newspaper, making it stand out among its competitors. USA Today is a “go-to” choice for consumers who daily read the newspaper.

In summary, despite all the obstacles USA Today has encountered they have survived the cultural changes and demands of their customers. While other company’s close their doors because they are unable to transform, or keep up with technology USA Today continues to keep it customers all while generating and collaborating with businesses to maintain as the top newspaper seller. Bland or not, USA Today has climbed in circulation from no place to 2nd place right behind The Wall Street Journal (Ludlow,

USA Today has been able to differentiate itself and stay away from the commodity status of most news sources by being innovators (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). USA Today’s primary focus is to provide and deliver a product that meets the consumers’ needs (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). Therefore, their newspaper and e-newspaper provide an intangible service to consumers (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). The ideas presented in the USA Today’s newspaper are issues aimed at promoting a benefit to the reader (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). Whether the benefit is increasing awareness of the number of adults that are becoming diabetics or the increase in teen suicides due to bullying (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). The ideas or content marketing provides much value

Opportunity is the key word for the newspaper industry right now. According to experts, neither digital advertisement revenues nor paywall subscriptions are the answer. Innovation needs to be present in order to define the future of the industry. For example, some added value needs to be present to merit the payment for content that was previously free or can be found using numerous substitute products free of charge.

Most of the time the news content is available in real time and can be accessed anytime and almost anywhere in the world. The majority of the online news providers do not require a fee. As a result, the number of readers willing to pay for the news has gone down, causing a direct impact on the sales of the printed newspapers.