Fairfax revamps The Age and The Herald's image

Fairfax has kicked off large-scale marketing campaigns for The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Age, describing the campaigns as the biggest “in the history of the mastheads”.

The multi-platform advertising campaigns introduce distinct positionings for each paper with ‘Forever Curious’ for Victoria’s The Age and ‘Know No Boundaries’ for New South Wales’ SMH.

The positionings were created following extensive consumer analysis, according to Robert Whitehead, Fairfax Metro Media’s head of marketing and communications, who said the review comes ahead of significant product changes.

Those product changes include moving the SMH and The Age to a tabloid-sized format in March this year.

“We have done a great deal of work not only to understand the needs of our audiences around news consumption but also to get insight into how we can also best position our mastheads into this exciting and challenging time for media,” Whitehead said.

“The research findings were the foundations for these new brand campaigns that we are confident will not only resonate with our audiences, but also cement what they love about these two incredibly powerful mastheads.

“These campaigns represent a significant investment by Fairfax Metro Media in two of our biggest brands and reflect our commitment to their development and to fulfilling the needs and expectations of our audiences.”

The research showed that SMH readers “are strong believers in individuality of thought” while The Age’s ‘Forever Curious’ positioning is based on the insight that its readers “are continually looking to better understand the world around them”

The SMH campaign kicked off on January 27 while The Age’s is set to launch later this week.

Both campaigns will run throughout the year with brand material running across TV, cinema, outdoor, print and digital.

The SMH campaign will include a number of outdoor executions which Fairfax said are designed to create the illusion of endlessness while The Age’s promotion will feature stories about people, places and life in Melbourne.

Credits: client Fairfax Metro Media, creative agency Whybin\TBWA Melbourne and Sydney, strategy The Lab Strategy, director for the The Age cinema and TVCs Ben Saunders, director for the SMH cinema and TVCs Luke Savage.

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