Agency Newsletter - November 2009

Edinburgh Festival & The Scotsman

In July and August The Scotsman experienced one of it’s most successful periods of Festival revenue growth achieving a 60% increase from 2007 figures.

This was helped in no small part by an increase in activity by the major venues and The Fringe themselves. A combined offering of print and digital media provided increased audience reach which improved coverage for venues and promoter alike.

Media Partnerships with the recently formed Comedy Festival, which includes The Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly venues, and also with The Edinburgh Festival Fringe were very successful in what proved to be a very challenging year for all concerned.

National Business Awards Scotland - Media Partnership

The Scotsman was delighted to continue its media partnership with National Business Awards for Scotland for the seventh year. The Scottish Awards are open to all Scottish Businesses, with over 15 categories covering e-business, social responsibility, best use of technology and more.

The awards were presented at the Glasgow Hilton Hotel on Thursday 11 September, attended by about 500 guests. Bright Grey, Lloyds TSB Scotland and beCogent each walked off with a brace of awards, while Martin Oliver, the managing director of Kwik Fit financial services, took the leadership award. James Watt and Martin Dickie, who set-up the BrewDog micro-brewery in Fraserburgh, were crowned as the top entrepreneurs.

The Scottish Seabird Centre, in North Berwick, was named as the tourism business of the year, while First Scotrail carried off the prize for the best marketing strategy.
Other winners on the night included Petroleum Experts, Maximillion and Denvir.

Newspaper Society Advertising & Digital Awards

The Scotsman Publications have been shortlisted for 5 awards in the forthcoming Advertising & Digital Awards organised by the Newspaper Society.

These prestigious awards are designed to showcase the best in advertising and digital media initiatives from the regional press industry in the UK and provide well-deserved recognition. The awards will be judged on 2nd October.

Student Daze 2008 Edition Out Now

Student Daze is the essential guide to student living in Edinburgh. Produced annually and now in its 7th year, the A4, 28 page, glossy magazine is packed with useful, up-to-date information, advice and tips on how to make the most of student life in Edinburgh.

Aimed at Fresher students, new to studying and likely new to the city, the magazine covers everything from eating out, drinking, arts & entertainment to fashion, travel, health, finance and recruitment, geared specifically towards students in the capital.

The print run is 25,000 copies and the magazines are distributed from Scotsman stands by promotional staff at each of the 7 Universities and Colleges Fresher's Fairs, in Edinburgh over September. The magazines are handed to students at the fairs along with goodie bags, which this year included coffee, pens, food, water, discount cards, club passes, gym passes and Student Daze advertisers’ promotional material.

Student Daze is also available online at www.scotsman.com/studentdaze with click thru from clients’ adverts to their website, email address or PDF redeemable voucher.

Fun, funny and free, Student Daze is THE guide to pick up at their Freshers’ Fair.

Changes to ABC rules

ABC have implemented some new rules to the way in which publications will be recorded on ABC.
The ABC Regional Publications rulebook has been agreed by ABC Council and is to be effective from the January to June 2008 audit period. Under the new merged rules all types of distribution/circulation claimed will now be known as circulation.

• A Regional Publication must be a print publication which publishes in a defined region of the UK (i.e. not one that is available throughout all or most of the UK) or a print publication that publishes the majority of their circulation in the Republic of Ireland.

• Publications with the majority of their circulation within the UK can report all of their circulation types in this rulebook. They will be identified as either Paid, Free or Combined for ABC purposes as follows: Paid = 75% or more of the total average circulation comprises paid circulation; Free = 75% or more of the total average circulation comprises free circulation; Combined = Those publications that do not meet the criteria above for paid or free.

• Sunday publications are treated as weekly for the purposes of the new merged rules.

A full copy of the new rules can be found at the ABC website www.abc.org.uk