The Chicago Tribune recently raised their single copy cover price to 75 cents - a 50 percent hike - and shrunk the product to the 48-inch web width dimension.
They also took an unusual step with their brand equity - they changed their flag (a.k.a. the nameplate, masthead) from white type on blue field to blue type only, curiously matching in the most obvious of choices (”color”), the nameplates of the paper’s primary regional competitors.
The inversion of color is a fairly dramatic brand-identity change and only a jaded consumer would think the paper did it to distract from the price hike and size reduction.
A nameplate extends beyond page one. The old blue stripe nameplate was plastered on delivery trucks, news boxes as well their marketing and advertising for decades.
Let’s take a closer look: First let’s focus on what must have been the inspiration:
The New Zealand Herald
Gothic, blue and plain. Yep.
This google mashup shows the high-circulation newspapers around Chicago that also sport blue type nameplates.
Of course the Tribune has newstand competition down state as well - so the Quad City Times’s blue logo flag should be considered as well.
It’s an interesting piece of psychoanalysis, Robb.
Alas, it’s wrong.
We looked at no one else except ourself for the gothic or the blue (we’ve been blue for quite a while, as you know).
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I’ve always wondered about the Trib’s obsession with the American flag. (To be said in a surfer’s voice) Dude, like when did Chicago move to America?
Question: How many other newspapers have the American flag in their mast. And is it keeping their circ numbers up?
Tom, why do you hate America?
I wouldn’t have associated the ChiTrib’s color choice with anyone else, either. They’ve been blue as long as I can remember, and it is in keeping with their branding to continue with the blue.
Glad to see the “Hey! We’re in color!” 1980s reverse gone. Just don’t lose the flag, C-Dish. You guys were waving it long before the rest of us hoisted ours, post-Sept. 11, though I have to ask: Where’s the flagpole?
Tom, I don’t think the flag has done much for circulation. If anyone can produce numbers showing otherwise, I’d love to see for myself.