Concept: Rekord Newspaper now also delivers your online goods to your door

Rekord newspapers has been the community noticeboard for over 30 years. Carrying credible, hyper local news and advertising to people living in communities in the capital city of South Africa, Pretoria. The brand Rekord is a household brand. People feel that they own the newspaper even through it is delivered to them for free every week without fail for the last 30 years.

This is my pitch proposal for a potential growth strategy for this “TraditionalMedia”. I have selected an extension strategy for Rekord that will leverage on the parent brand Rekord and also keep within what the target market would benefit from so that I am “on brand”. This extension strategy will add value to the reader and the advertiser.

The extension strategy best suited for Rekord its readers and advertisers is a Brand Extension Strategy. The category I would like to propose as new category Rekord could pursue is the ecommerce fulfilment category or industry. 

How and what value will this bring to the Rekord brand and the organisation at large?

Brand extension is when an existing brand creates a new product, in this case a service, in a different category or market. Rekord is in the business of producing quality, credible content in a form of newspaper accompanied by advertising. This newspaper is delivered to the reader, who is most likely to be interested in the content or the advertising. This will be the best corporate Brand extension strategy for Rekord as the brand name is already top of mind and the positive associations to the new extension will be perceived in a favourable manner. 

What is Ecommerce fulfilment and how will this category be ideal to stretch the brand Rekord and will it benefit the parent brand and also prove to be successful as a brand in an industry or category that Rekord has no experience in? 

Ecommerce fulfilment, is the delivery of products purchased online to its customer. The logistics of fulfilment can be tricky as they carry risk of handling the product from the seller to the buyer.

Launching a Rekord Fulfilment extension to the Rekord Newspaper. Rekord currently has advertisers selling products online, this extension strategy is aligned with the core of the business strategy of Rekord which is to connect readers to advertisers so that advertisers can convert readers into customers. The extra mile Rekord will be going with this New Extension – Call it Rekord Delivery connects the parent brand Rekord newspapers with the legacy it holds and the reliable delivery ‘record’. 

This extension is “on brand” and will be beneficial not only to the new extension but to the parent brand as well. – Not only can you read your papers and plan your shopping, now you can also buy the products online and we will deliver it to your door like we do your newspaper. 

How will this work and will it bring a tangible growth to the Rekord business? Is it a viable strategy to consider? 

The Newspapers industry is under huge scrutiny when it comes to valuing a return on investment on advertising spend. Consumers of news or of content in general are easily accounted for online when they read a website and can easily be profiled and categorised into consumer groups. Newspapers unfortunately can’t do that. They are seen as a “spray and pray” approach on media buying. Therefore, this strategy would in essence develop a different consumption pattern from the people reading the paper and then purchasing products online. 

The reader behaviour will now be encouraged to embrace ecommerce (which is still a new concept in South Africa). The readers of Rekord will now have the opportunity of taking what is trusted (Rekord) and explore a different behaviour (online shopping). 

The relationship between the reader and the Advertisers will strengthen as the reader starts sharing more information about who they are. This will all the advertiser to target the readers better online, on social media, and through the Printed adverts. Therefore, the potential growth for Rekord will be realised through the revenue stream in commission for Deliveryof purchased goods online and the advertising spend.

The question any person reading this idea will be posing is, where is the risk in all this? What benefit is there to all the stakeholders in order to realise the possible growth. 

Risk to this strategy is in the relationship between the advertisers / ecommerce platform and the buyer. Rendering such a service and also leveraging the brand name Rekord can be a risk. The transaction between consumer and advertiser could course conflict if we as the Rekord Delivery deliver the incorrect goods or damaged goods. The name Rekord Delivery will be top of mind and not the vendor. 

In conclusion, Rekord as a brand would benefit from having it stretch into another category by adapting a corporate Brand extension strategy that is “on brand” and adds value to the customer and the stakeholders with very little risk of doing damage to the parent brand.