Exploring the future of newspaper advertising
DPG MEDIA
2019
AR DESIGN | CONCEPT | UX RESEARCH
News consumption behaviour has radically changed in the last five years. People read the news differently causing publishers worldwide to lose direct digital advertising revenue. What is the best advertising model if your consumers are predominantly reading news on social media?
The company needs new ways to compete with the big aggregators. They asked us as a design team to explore the future of newspaper advertising.
01 Researching media consumption behaviour
We started by looking at media consumption. The aim was to discover how, where, and why the modern consumer engages with journalism. We asked people to note down their media consumption behaviour (diary studies). We mapped these in a timeline and found out that, throughout the day, behaviour, context, and medium constantly switch.
02 Define design directions
Based on these insights we set a design direction to ideate on. We wanted to:
- Become relevant for a group of people that are less engaged with media — the younger generation.
- Alter people's negative perception of advertising. Simply make people dislike ads less.
- Find innovative ways to combine physical and digital media.
03 Facilitate focus groups to explore the future of the newspaper advertising
To get a better understanding of the future of the newspaper, we made prototypes questioning the size and format. We explored those through a focus group, who were given design prompts in the form of the prototypes.
During the focus group, we started by looking at the characteristics of a printed newspaper. We found that some things are very hard to mimic digitally. There is something to paper: the feel, the touch, the smell. A printed newspaper feels curated by folks that you trust. Also, scanning headlines is easy and you can actually finish the news, there is an end to it as you leaf through the last page of the paper. On the web, it’s just boundless space. There are no borders; you can read anything (which is both a blessing and a curse). But, unlike physical newspapers, online content is interactive and can be better targeted based on your interests.
04 Design: What if there was a newspaper that could combine the benefits of both worlds: digital and physical?
With the help of QR codes and AR technology, we explored a hybrid of paper and interactive technology. This enables us to let ads come 'alive' on paper. The AR ads are recognizable by their AR logo and corresponding QR code.
Imagine going to the metro and picking up a pocket-size newspaper where you can quickly read through the news and engage with some fun ads.
Brands can use this in all sorts of ways. Using the BMV car manufacturing company as an example, you can scan the image or QR code to start an interactive ad. You can see 3d your future car, turn it around, change colors even play with it. The content is shareable and you can go directly to the BMW website.
Results
Learnings