Helping farmers in time of need

The Daily Telegraph and its Sunday edition have launched a campaign aiming to alleviate the suffering of drought stricken farmers in NSW.

In partnership with Commonwealth Bank, 2GB and the NSW Farmers Association the public will be encouraged by newspapers and radio hosts to enter Commonwealth Bank branches and donate to the appeal.

Commonwealth Bank has already donated $50,000 to kickstart the campaign and all proceeds will go to the Salvation Army that will distribute vouchers to farmers to redeem at IGA supermarkets and CRT Country Stores.

News Corp Australia and 2GB have also donated $25,000 each, and Metcash and its independently owned IGA NSW stores have pledged $15,000.

“We have been inspired to tell the stories and support our readers across NSW who are doing it tough because of the ongoing drought that is affecting so much of this great state,” Brett Clegg, News Corp’s executive general manager, said.

“The economic and social impacts are more far-reaching than many realise and it is time that we all step up to help our fellow citizens out in their time of need.”

The campaign appears on the front page of The Daily Telegraph today .

th3ÔøΩ iÔøΩ pÔøΩ so-bidi-font-style:normal'>SMH and The Age will now be colour coded to aid reader navigation and the Good Weekend magazine will be redesigned slightly to read ‘Good Weekend’ instead of the former GW logo.

In the SMH PS Private Sydney will move to a double spread at the back of the main newspaper after the news section where it will be joined by Column 8.

The Age’s Life&Style section will also undergo a transformation, relaunching as Spectrum, Fairfax’s national entertainment and lifestyle brand.

In terms of the Sunday editions, The Sunday Age will feature a brand new design for its compact general news section as well as a redesign of the masthead logo.

M Magazine, focusing on Melbourne life, art and culture, will remain after undergoing a complete redesign.

The back page of the newspaper and social pages will now come under the banner of Metro.

The Sunday edition will also feature new sections such as “My Place” where readers share their secret inspiring places, and “The Sunday Explainer” that dissects some of the news stories of that week

“This is about the continued evolution of our products to meet reader expectations and we are very pleased with the look and content of the new compact weekend edition,” Darren Goodsir, The Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-chief, said.

“Our Monday to Friday compact editions have received a lot of positive reader feedback, with many readers actually expecting the change for many years. So we are confident, as long as we still continue to produce our quality, independent journalism, we will still appeal to our readers.”

Following extensive research into consumer insights over the weekends, conducted by GFK in September last year, the research found six key insights that prompted the changeup to the newspapers.

According to the release, the six key insights are:

Weekend reading is about relaxing and is the second most popular weekend activity of our readers (74%), just behind the internet and ahead of watching television

• Weekends provide the opportunity to communicate deeper information with readers, because they have a more open mindset and have the time to learn

• There is a strong emotional attachment to and engagement with Fairfax Media’s weekend papers, with seven in 10 people agreeing that if they miss reading The Sydney

Morning Herald or The Age they feel like ‘something is missing from their weekend’

• 70% of weekend readers say they are thinking about holidays/travel, events/shows and new furniture, whitegoods and cars, giving advertisers the opportunity to influence consumers in the early stages of purchase decision making

• More than eight in 10 people read at least some part of their weekend newspaper before midday giving advertisers the opportunity to use weekend papers to drive in-store traffic or other immediate action over the weekend

• Weekends are when readers are most likely to make purchases such as furniture, whitegoods, hobby and leisure equipment and cars.