Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times was facing what newspapers all over the country were dealing with - declining readership. With the costs of producing a newspaper rising, trying to buy readership with discounts wasn’t a prudent, or even viable, option. We needed to remind people why the newspaper was important to their lives. And we wanted to do it in a way that communicated strength and boldness.

Rather than create a campaign that relied on the written word, we decided to do something visual. We took the paper’s masthead and broke it down from being just a name into the words “Los Angeles” and “Times.” Under Los Angeles we showed images that represented the Southern California lifestyle. And under Times we used images of current events happening around the globe. The images were visually joined by their symmetry or an object that seeming ran through both. And we united the combined images with the line: Connecting us to the times.

We blanketed the city with our visually striking campaign of shocking, heartwarming, challenging, and idiosyncratic images. In two months we ran 4 TV spots, 52 print and outdoor pieces and launched with 16 double truck ads in the Sunday edition. The response was immediate. Some people loved it. Some people were very uncomfortable with it. And sales increased for the first time in decades.

Less than six months later, the Los Angeles Times was sold to the Chicago Tribune who informed us that they were partial to ads that promised 7 days of delivery for the price of 6. We worked with them for 3 months trying to convince them that price point would not build loyalty, pride, or long-term readership. Sadly we had to let go of the campaign and therefore we let go of the account.

CW: Kristina Slade
AD: Shawn Brown
CDs: Court Crandall, Kirk Souder
Director: Miert Davies