1. Newspaper publishing companies
Introduction:
Newspaper publishing companies have to discover the most appropriate way in the
information and communication landscapes to market it in an effective way. This
information and communication landscape need to be innovative and distinguished
than the competitors. In order to survive and prosper in the rapid changing
competitive business environment, newspaper industry needs to make a good change
with the viable competitive strategy. They have to make adequate adaptations to these
dynamic changes and respond quickly to create or to sustain their competitive
advantage (Picard, 2003). This paper contributes to the analysis of particular
newspaper strategy by putting the force activities in the market, Market mix, SWAT
and PEST analysis and strategy overall marketing and competitive strategy that help
the newspaper to achieve success in the competitive environment
My selected newspaper is name Headline Daily which is the Chinese newspaper,
was launched on July 12, 2005 by sing to Newspaper Group Limited and
become the second free Chinese newspaper published officially in Hong
Kong. This is the free distributed paper, only distributed on weekdays and is
aimed to the working class. The estimated average daily circulation of the
paper is around 500,000 ( source: Yahoo. Hong Kong). This paper provides
local and international news as well as articles on business, entertainment,
lifestyle and sports.
Marketing Mix:
Product - It does not have to be tangible and provide value to the customers. It refers
to the new product concept or improvising the existing products. The Headline Daily
present the most important news of the in a concise way in order to make the readers
up to date, beside that comprehensive news and information are also given on
different areas in a short read. The total number of pages is around 24-30 pages which
consists Headline, Local news, internatinal news, financial news (including real
estate, Business and stock market), sports news, life style, entertainment and rest of
the pages uses for advertisement.
Price - Price of the particular product set by considering the competitives environment
and must entail profit. There are many types of pricing strategy included comprise
discount, offer and other like. Headline Daily is the free newspaper, therefore there is
no specific price fixed for selling to the customers along with no other special offers.
Place - Place refers to the particular area where customers can buy the products and
the process by which that product reach to the customers. Every commodity has got
their specific place to sell out. And product reach to the customer hand through
different channels, like internet, wholesalers and retailers. The Headline Daily,
normally distributed during morning peak hours during the weekdays, except on
weekend and other holidays. There are more than 600 places in the city centre of
Hong Kong where the Headline Daily is distributed. The Headline daily's has got
three fixed distribution media, such as McDonald's restaurants, KCR stations (except

2. Tsim Sha Tsui East, Tai Wai, Racecourse and Sheung Shui Stations), and nearly 500
residential estates (cited taken from
http://asiamedia.typepad.com/asiareview/2005/07/tabloid_newspap.htm). Moreover,
the papers are distributed at commercial buildings, bus/mini-bus stops and shopping
malls all around Hong Kong. Headline Today distributed from the eye catching red
shelfs at most location and at certain location is is distributed by the staffs
Promotion - Promotions refers to the process, through this company can let customers
know about their products and different types of offers and distinguished features of
that product from the other products. Mainly it is communication process regarding
the benefits of using a particular product or service rather than just talking about its
features. Since there is large number of free newspaper are appering in regular basis
so there is an instance competitions among the all free newspapers. So in order to
distinguished itself from other free newspaper, Headline Deaily always make some
innovation to bring new experience to the reader. It tries to implement new marketing
strategy such as such as: “lucky draws” & voting games, apple-shaped pelle which is
a massage device, which working class readers can use to relax themselves and
relieve their stress, was once offered to readers along with their newspaper. They have
got some promotional issue known as Happy lucky reader where one reader is
randomly-chosen in public areas (e.g. in a MTR train) and awarded HK$500 on a
daily basis
People: People are the customers, employees, management and everybody else
involved in it. It is essential for everyone to realize that the reputation of the brand
that you are involved with is in the People's hands. The Headline Daily targets the
working class people, who are usually too busy to read a large number of pages nor to
read every piece of news in detail. These group of people always busy in their every
moment of their life and mostly manage time to look over through news during
travelling or heaving breakfast.
Process - It refers to the way or policy, based on one company provide service to the
customers and measure the quality of the services provided by the company. It also
refers whether the service is helpful and provide in timely manner. Process includes
all the way of commercial activities to make customers informed in hand about the
services and many such things. The quality and services are very adequate which
make customer satisfied. From an independent survey (2008) based on the services of
free newspaper in Hong Kong, approximate 71% of the total responded agreed on the
quality services of Headline daily and make this newspaper the second best popular
free daily Chinese newspaper in Hong Kong. Headline Daily consider the customer
satisfaction lever as their height priorities and in every occasion this newspaper try to
make their readers involve with and makes a healthy relation by inviting readers to
submit news articles for publication in return for rewards as a sign of its cooperation
with the public.
Physical - It's an evidence regarding the experience of the producte or service uses by
the customers. When a services goes out to the customers, it is important to find out
about the customers progression and perception regarding the product. Earlier
mentioned independent survey result indicates the evaluation result is much favorable
with Headline Daily.

3. SWOT analysis
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
PEST analysis
PEST analysis is the most effective marketing tools which allows a company to
evaluate the surrounding environment influences for an organization. This is the way,
a company can identify the areas that need to be addressed so that continuous
improvement can be achieved. PEST stands for Political, Economic, Sociocultural
and Technological. In order to use this analysis effectively it is necessary to discover
what environmental influences are currently affecting the organisation, and which are
the most important both now and over the upcoming few years.
Political Factors
Political and legal influences have had an impact on Headline Daily in recent years.
Recently there made a change in the health & safety legislation and that have meant
that much more emphasis has to be made on ensuring compliance. Therefore each and
every manager has sent to a week's course in Health & Safety and there is a
comprehensive induction to Health & Safety for all new members of staff. This is
particularly relevant to Headline Daily as the environment in inherently dangerous
with high noise levels and fast moving unguarded machinery. If the organisation
needs to have safeguard health and safety large compensation claims to ensue that
there is nothing threaten the viability of the business.
The ‘Working Time' directive has also influenced Headline Dealy. Headline Daily
needs to be printed in twenty-four hours, where many employees have to work at
night shift. Therefore night workers have to be given annual health checks and their
general state of health monitored closely. These cause night shift off to the employees
due to health reason. This make company confused regarding the shifting of the
employess, since during day time there is limited amount of work available for the
workers
Environmental protection has also influenced the operation of Deadline Daily in
recent times. Headline Daily uses approximately 50,000 tonnes of newspaper a year
and has waste levels of around 4%. This equates to around 2,000 tonnes of newspaper
waste a year (cited taken from http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/2.02/960125-
newspaper.html). It is important that as much of this is recycled as possible, both as
some of the cost of the paper are offset by the recycling company paying for the paper
and because of the general environmental responsibility of the organisation.
Economic factors
Economic factors have always an obvious impact on every business such as Headline
Daily. But the newspaper industry is quite different than the other kinds of
commodities and compare to those, news paper publishing industry is fortunate,
because financial influences do not have a large impact.

4. Sociocultural factors
External sociocultural factors have influenced the labour force. Any changes in
socioculture have affected the overall recruitment process of new staff. More over in
Hong Kong nepotism are found in different part of the society and this practise
influence the Headline Daily. It has been a process for long while, if a relative worked
for the company that was sufficient prerequisite to get a job with the company.
Technological Factors
Although there is no major influence in the last few years, but the influence of
external technology is started beginning to create an influence on the daily operation
of the Headline Daily. There are particular influences in the production of the printing
plates due to huge amount of the automatons and cause in reduction of staff numbers.
However this make makes the whole production process fast and ensure more
technological advancement.
Competitive Strategy:
A firm can only posse two basic types of competitive advantage: cost leadership or
differentiation (Porter, 1985). Other strengths and weaknesses are not less important
but together determine either a cost leadership- or differentiation strategy. Newspaper
publishing companies pursuing a cost leadership strategy aim to become the low cost
producer of information and communications products in the industry. These firms
usually have a broad scope and serve many market segments.
Cost Leadership Strategy
The competitive cost advantages of publishing companies arises from the differences
in capacity costs and high first-copy costs, like the collection and organization of
editorial and advertising copy and preparation of the printing mechanism. These costs
are ineluctable to produce even one product, while the marginal production costs of
the subsequent products are very low (Picard and Brody, 1997). Ownership of two or
more newspapers or ownership of broadcast stations and newspapers provides
publishing companies opportunities for economies of size in news gathering, in
securing advertising, in financing, and in management by lowering average and
marginal costs. The costs advantages are greater for chain ownership, for high
aggregate circulation, and for homogeneous products (Rosse, 1967; Norton and
Norton, 1986).The Headline Daily achieve cost advantages with economies of scale
and scope in the following areas:
Information technology:
Headline Daily has their own effective and modern information technology which is
their great opportunity to achieve economies of scale and scope. Recently they made a
development in information technology which facilated an increase in efficient and
effective utilizations of information over range of products, services and customers.
Information may allow for scope economies and facilitate competitive advantage to
publishing companies that can offer a range of products and services to their

5. customers. The possibility for reusability of information across customers has
increased. Moreover these information technology developments can bring some
scope to make a differentiation of products and services. By the blessing of the new
information technology Headline Daily has made possible to combine old and new
media into one product with an additional element that was missing in the earlier
market.
Distribution Network:
This is the most important cost driver for any kinds of polishing industry which cover
a huge percentage of the total cost of a newspaper. Heading Daily reduce their this
cost by utilizing more intensively their transportation network within a geographically
territory. These cost savings refer to economies of density.
Production:
The production process of any publishing products involves high fixed cost. These
production specific fixed costs mainly include the relatively high expenses to set up a
production process such as the time and expenses require setting up a newspaper
before printing. Headline Daily produce dominant design products to develop a
competitive advantages. Headline Daily has got their Economies of scale (Mass
production) which Can give Headline Daily enough cost advantage to force smaller
and less efficient companies out of the market when the possibility of mass
production increase or when the industry Specific condition become less favorable.
Marketing and reputation:
The main purpose of marketing is to create a brand image and loyalty of customers.
Image and loyalty are related to the notion of ‘reputation'. A company can build up a
reputation with a consistent policy, marketing and highly qualified products and
services (Albarran 1996). Reputation plays an important role in the publishing
industry. Headline Today offers products that crucially depend on their reputation and
reliability. In general, customers relate closely the reputation and reliability of the
publishing company to the quality of its products and services. Furthermore, the
Headline Today operates in industries that are characterized by the existence of a
demand interdependence process.
Innovation:
The concept of free newspapers is based on only advertising income and free
distribution in and around metropolitan public transportation system. In general, the
first movers in the geographically delimited markets had sooner or later to compete
with other free newspapers. The R&D costs occurred by the Headline Daily was much
higher than for the followers, because followers generally have to put less effort on
the legitimacy of the innovation in the market. The existence of economies of scope
and scale e Headline Daily spread the fixed costs of research and development over
more customers. The free newspaper concept of the Headline Daily marketed to a
larger consumer base and/or introduced in a wider set of activities.

6. Conclusions
Competitive pressure is forcing to the Headline daily to discover their competitive
advantages, and choose an optimal configuration of services and activities. Due to
rapid pace of changes in the traditional publishing industry the structure of the
industry may be very different from the past. So in order to survive in the publishing
industry, the Headline Daily is forced to reconsider their strategy and product
portfolio. The Headline Daily's ability to change its organizational structure and
existing activities and businesses along the evolution of technology in the industry can
be seen as a major source of their success. Their managers understand the relationship
between the competitive dynamics and company strategy and they have better
perspectives of implementing their strategies. The Headline daily's strategic behaviour
is quite more realistic and modern which focus more on the market opportunity and
make the best possible output for the company.