Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ vs. Bloomberg: The marketing battle

Shareen Pathak of Digiday writes about the recently launched marketing campaigns from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in their attempts to attract new readers.

Pathak writes, “Sam Becker, creative director at Brand Union, said that Bloomberg’s new site ‘is an obvious signifier that they’re after a new type of reader and are willing to make sacrifices in order to make that happen. Their latest campaign is calling attention to the progress they’ve already made. This will help their chances for success because the ads are organic to the brand.’

“On the other hand, said Becker, The Wall Street Journal campaign seems to be more about recontextualizing the same product but for a new audience. ‘Inevitably, this will appear superficial and therefore be a tougher proposition for the brand to pull off.’

“He added that the people featured in the campaign are very high-level, which reinforces the status quo of who the WSJ is really for. ‘The Wall Street Journal is an institution, and it will take more than a campaign like this to change perceptions and alter the composition of their readership.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.