memo to The Philippine Star : top things to do to take leadership away from the Philippine Daily Inquirer

the philippine daily inquirer (PDI) has been releasing print ads (above) of various sizes touting the latest ac nielsen media index results wher it placed PDI's readership at leadership position at 48%.

something shocked me when i first saw that ad of PDI - it's not that PDI is the readership leader, that was expected and common knowledge, what shocked me was the rating of The Philippine Star (PS) where it scored 41%, damn close to PDI's readership. PDI used to enjoy a wider margin, did not realize the ratings have come so close, a 7 pts spread is within spitting distance.

so given this spitting distance, i thought i would write a memo to PS the objective of which is to give them some ideas on how they can take leadership away from PDI. here are some points to consider:

• the very first thing i would do is to look at the DISTRIBUTION numbers and look for areas of improvements. this i think will yield the most incremental readership for PS. i would do a thorough study of the PS distribution system and benchmark it against PDI. and i would be very thorough about it. i would literally look at EVERY distribution point and discover where the weaknesses are and apply improvements. they should go beyond number of distribution points, more importantly they should look at distribution system and strategy. finally on this topic, i would be creative and add at least a superiority edge of +15% more distribution points versus PDI.
• i would conduct a nationwide research, a combination of quantitative and qualitative researches to find out what readers think of the both newspapers and figure out improvement areas.
• and from that research, i would implement improvements very quickly.
• PS should not hold back in improving or applying changes on the whole newpaper in as many parts necessary - from layout, to writers, to writing style, sections, photos, editorials, etc.
• there is a lot to do but i would be very smart about it and determine which ones to do, drop and what to do first, how much of it and when. these are all very critical as while they may find clear improvements, any one or all can backfire on them. a lot of strategic thinking needs to be applied here.

the above essentially is a consumer marketing approach to exploiting a marketing opportunity that has been laid on a silver platter to the philippine star. doing the above will see the philippine star taking away leadership from the philippine daily inquirer.

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