WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

I just got this nice message from a happy client in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil):

Dear friends of Innovation:

I’m glad to inform you that Correio* has assumed the leadership of circulation in Bahia last September.

Our total circulation was of 47.239 copies, against 44.301 copies of our competitor A Tarde.

The good news is that our sales are still growing, with the average circulation of 51.489 copies until October 21st.

I would like to thank one more time for the outstanding contribution of Innovation to this conquest.

Sincerely,

Luiz Alberto Albuquerque, Executive Director, Correio.

They are very, very happy.

Me too.

Like all the INNOVATION team in this project: from Eduardo Tessler, our director in Brazil, to Guillermo Nagore, Carlo Campos, Javier Ramírez, Chiqui Esteban, Oscar Valporto, Ricardo Melo, and Decio Trujilo.

And congratulations to all the Correio directors, editors and staff: they are the ones that really made this possible.

I still remember my first meetings with the Magalhães family, and how confident they were giving us full freedom to suggest and make dramatic changes in then a bankrupt newspaper, and now a very profitable  lider.

As Rede Bahia, the holding company of Correio, is a partner of the Globo network, after my first visit to Salvador I stopped in Rio and meet Joao Roberto Marinho.

His advice was: go ahead, Juan Antonio, this paper needs the help of INNOVATION, and trust the new generation of the Magalhães family, they will make any changes needed.

He was absolutely right.

And today Correio is the fastest growing newspaper of Brazil.

So my last thank you note goes to my friend Paulo Sobral, and he knows why.

A few months ago, INNOVATION’s Guillermo Nagore redesigned the leading newspaper of Madeira.

And we have very good news.

The design is better than ever.

The new Art Director, Rodrigo Buldrini, is doing a superb job.

When you see these front pages, you’ll agree they are…

FRESH

INNOVATIVE

FLEXIBLE

PROVOCATIVE

ELEGANT

DIFFERENT

Not bad for a small regional newspaper that looks like a big metropolitan newspaper.

In the next posts I will show you some of the dramatic inside pages.

Diario de Noticias is going to be a big contender in the next world’s best designed newspapers competition.

I asked INNOVATION Director Thomaz Souto Correa about the ASME winners and these are his remarks:

The best cover of the year is really … the best cover of the year: New Yorker, September 11.

It is a double cover, and – in my view – has to be shown in two steps.

First, the reader sees the white cover, with the walker suspended in the air.

When you open the magazine, you see a second cover, where the reader sees ground zero

down below.

It’s brilliant and innovative.

The second best cover, in my opinion, is Time’s cover with the elephant going away.

It’s the winner in the “best concept cover,” and it’s also brilliant and innovative.

Creativity has to be reinforced, because it is in a very low moment…

Thomaz Souto Correa was the executive vice president of Editora Abril and past president of the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP), and now is working with Juan Cano and Guillermo Nagore on the first Innovations in Magazines Global Report.