They are big competitors in the Spanish newspaper market.
But last Sunday they reacted with the same thinking, the same news agenda, the same picture and the same design.
Welcome to the clone journalism club!
UPDATE: Well, Nacho said that I was cloning his blog, and he is right and deserves the credit.
UPDATE (October 16):
I am in Madrid.
My hotel is in the centric Gran Via.
Three newsstands around 6 PM:
Two or three El Pais, El Mundo and ABC at each of them.
And 20-25 Publicos.
The three vendors agree:
We sell one Publico for each El Pais.
Not very good news for the new national Spanish newspaper.
I don’t know about Publico’s business plan, but …
If this trend is not reversed in a dramatic way, the market has had the last word right now.
Is Publico a dead body?
When I arrived in Barcelona (Spain) on Thursday night, I went to the first newsstand at the airport on my way to get a taxi.
The rack of newspapers was almost empty.
It was 9 pm.
No La Vanguardia.
No El Periodico.
Two Avui.
No El Mundo.
No El Pais.
No ABC.
Three La Razon.
Twenty Publico!
Publico is the new national newspaper launched a few days ago following a massive free-DVD campaign.
So, the “testing” is over.
And if this rack says something, it is that they are printing a lot of copies, but selling very few.
The cover price is just 0.50 euros ($0.70) against the one euro for the competitors.
I asked the newsstand vendor about Publico.
His reaction: “The free paper, you mean?”
Well, it’s not a free paper I said.
“Si, pero parece un gratuito” (Yes, but it looks like a free one)
The comment is quite serious.
This was the same reaction that many readers of El Periodico had after this kind of design a few years ago (too much color, too many boxes, too many short stories…)
El Periodico lost more than 30,000 copies and La Vanguardia has been the clear leading paper in Barcelona since then.
Will Publico be another Pagina 12 of Buenos Aires, Liberation in Paris or The Independent in London?
A viewspaper for a minority?
A non-profit newspaper?
Publico and its young and combative newsroom deserve a better future.
Next week in Boston (USA), El Economista and Expresso will get several world design awards.
And today, the judges of the ÑHO4, the annual competition for the best newspaper design in Spain and Portugal, announced that El Economista and Expresso have won many new awards.
El Economista is the best-designed Spanish newspaper of the year for the 20,000-50,000 copies category, and Expresso is the best redesign of the year in Spain and Portugal.
El Economista is a new national financial newspaper published in Madrid by Alfonso de Salas, the founding CEO of El Mundo.
Expresso is the leading quality national weekend newspaper of Portugal, founded by Francisco Pinto Balsemao.
(Before)
(After)
These two newspapers from Madrid and Lisbon are INNOVATION clients, and Javier Errea, our chief design consultant, was the leading force behind the graphic projects.
Javier Errea, after the highly successful redesign of Eleftheros Typos in Athens (Greece) and Capital in Sofia (Bulgaria), is now working on several new projects: Diario de Navarra in Pamplona (Spain), Al Bayan in Dubai (UAE), and El Heraldo in Barranquilla (Colombia).
Javier is a journalist who has been a reporter, editor, designer and now another worlwide-award-winning INNOVATION consultant.
Last week, Time Warner Chairman-CEO Richard D. Parsons, who told a media conference audience in London:
“I’m going to say something I shouldn’t say.
I worry about CNN more now than I do about CNN.com.”
Well…
Let me say in the same way that:
I worry about The New York Times more now than I do about nytimes.com
I worry about The Guardian more now than I do about guardia.co.uk
I worry about El Pais more now than I do about elpais.es
I worry about The Asahi Shimbun more now than I do about asahi.com
I worry about USA Today more now than I do about usatoday.com
I worry about La Repubblica more now than I do about repubblica.it
I worry about The Wall Street Journal more now than I do about online.wsj.com
I worry about Clarin more now than I do about clarin.com
I worry about Die Welt more now than I do about welt.de
I worry about El Mundo more now than I do about elmundo.es
I worry about The Sidney Morning Herald more now than I do about smh.com.au
I worry about Reforma more now than I do about reforma.com
I worry about the Financial Times more now than I do about ft.com
I worry about O Globo more now than I do about oglobo.globo.com
I worry about Le Figaro more now than I do about lefigaro.fr
I worry about El Mercurio more now than I do about emol.com
I worry about Il Corriere della Sera more now than I do about corriere.it
I worry about El Tiempo more now than I do about eltiempo.com
I worry about the Dagens Nyheter more now than I do about dn.se
I worry about the South China Morning Post more now than I do about scmp.com
I worry about Zero Hora more now than I do about clicrbs.com.br
I worry about the Kleine Zeitung more now than I do about kleinezeitung.at
I worry about The Globe and Mail more now than I do about theglobeandmail.com
I worry about El Nuevo Dia more now than I do about endi.com
I worry about Argumenti i Fakti more now than I do about aif.ru
I worry about Helsingin Sanomat more now than I do about hs.fi
I worry about Segodnya more now than I do about segodnya.au
I worry about 24 Heures more now than I do about 24heures.ch
I worry about Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung more now than I do about faz.net
I worry about Gazeta Wyborcza more now than I do about gazetawyborcza.pl
It is a national 50-day advertising campaign.
Started today.
El Pais, El Mundo and Expansion published a smaller version of the same ad.
In La Vanguardia, ABC, El Periodico and other newspapers, the ACCIONA ads were bigger.
ACCIONA is a Spanish company investing and doing business in the green energy sector.
The ad today was a celebration of World Environment Day.
Using newsprint!
elmundo.es is the world leading Spanish speaking news web site but now elpais.com launches a new design that is big, clean, clear and easy to navegate.
