Sydney’s ‘Red Dawn’ proves anything but ‘Doomsday’ for newspapers and advertisers

Major brands seize unique tactical opportunity offered by the medium – 

While Sydney was waking up to a thick fog of red dust yesterday morning, many of Australia’s biggest advertisers were wide awake to the unique tactical advertising opportunities offered by newspapers.  

Specially created ads for major brands were splashed across Sydney newspapers this morning, all referring specifically to the dust storm, and all proving that there is no other medium like newspapers when it comes to tactical advertising. 

National advertisers including Telstra, Visa, Omo, Windex, NapiSan and Bankwest all raced to take advantage of the dust storm both to get their brand messages out to newspaper readers and to put on show their advertising creativity. 

Telstra’s ad, for instance, carried the copy lines “How do you get red dust out of white pants? Time to call your Mum?” set on a photo of the Sydney Harbour Bridge smothered by the dust storm. Omo used a similar photo and proclaimed that “A little dirt isn’t the end of the world”, while NapiSan declared the product “Great for stains. And dust storms” with an image of washing hanging on a line against a red sky. 

“If Sydney’s newspaper editors went to town with headlines this morning such as “red dawn”, “great wall of rust” and “life on Mars”, then so did the creative agencies behind today’s excellent tactical advertising,” The Newspaper Works CEO, Tony Hale, said. 

“This is a perfect example of how newspapers stand out as the best advertising medium for advertisers to use major news events as instant opportunities to deliver smart, relevant messages that can be turned around literally overnight,” he said. 

Hale said that when major news stories like the dust storm happen, Australians turn to newspapers for authoritative coverage and advertisers recognise that.

“It’s only in newspapers that you can really take advantage of topical events like these because of the unique side-by-side quality of editorial and advertising, leveraging the newsworthy environment,” Hale said.