Media Makeover: A Q&A with Sunday World

By Darren Gilbert

Can you take us through the reason/s behind Sunday World’s recent facelift? How long had this idea been in the works?

For any product to remain relevant to its market, it has to keep abreast of new trends, change with the times and, more importantly, keep up and try to exceed its readers' expectations. That's what drives us at Sunday World. We don't only want to meet our readers' expectations, but we want to exceed them all the time.

The idea for a total make-over was conceived in 2014 and we have reworked the design and content delivery until we were happy with the end product. The pages are now clean and crisp with better use of negative spaces.

What’s new about Sunday World? If we pick up a copy over the weekend, what can we expect? Is there just the visual change or does this move include Sunday World’s content as well?

Beside the international feel (visually), we have also changed the way we deliver content. After receiving feedback from our readers on their dislike of long ‘texty’ articles, we decided to make them shorter, punchier, and introduce the use of infographics to ensure that we are still able to retain depth without using much space.

We now use more news briefs to add more value to our pages. We have completely rearranged the flow of the paper. We have created what we call “the intro” which is pages 2 and 3 to ease the reader into the paper. On page 2, we now offer the week’s news in brief, which we call ‘Your World in 60 Seconds’. On page 3, we celebrate go-getters in the arts and entertainment world and we’ve tagged this page ‘Sunday World Heroes’. We have the gig guide on this page as well.

The “intro” is meant as an appetiser before the main course. On page 4 and 5, readers can dive straight into the main news story of the week which we call the “Sunday Special”. The special is followed by six more news pages before the letters and opinion pages. After the opinion pages come a new section we call “Private Life” where we place softer lifestyle stories including food, celebrity gossip and columns.

We have retained the business/jobs section but now focus on finding and profiling/celebrating local entrepreneurs who are making a difference and people who are moving up in life. The sports section now focuses more on personalities than match reports, but we still carry those only on the back page.

With any change, comes the possibly of a drop off in readership numbers. How has Sunday World guarded against losing readers?

With a drastic change as the one we have implemented, we are cognisant of the fact that there might be a net loss for a short period. We may lose some readers who don't like the new look but also gain new readers who did not like our previous look. This is a given in any product launch or relaunch.

We will only know next year what the net loss effect is (if any) because we only have two editions remaining this year before we close for the holidays.

We are confident that if there is any drop in sales, it will be temporary while readers get familiar with the new design enough to recognise it on the shelves. We have marketing interventions already in place to introduce and promote the new design until it gains familiarity in the eyes of the reader. Often people miss a new or newly designed product on the shelves not because they don't like it, but because the human eye naturally goes to what is familiar.

Is this the start of more changes? What can we expect from Sunday World going forward?

This is the beginning of more magical things to come. We are building a brand that is aspirational as well as inspirational. In that regard, we have introduced a column by TV personality and businesswoman, Basetsana Khumalo, called ‘Bassie’s Files’, which seeks to motivate and inspire ordinary people to aspire to greater things.

We will be introducing more columns by celebrities in the future, but we don't just want any celebrity. We will choose the ones who are a perfect fit to our brand. We are also working on how to maximise the platforms we have, including our digital platforms to offer more and better content that readers can use to improve their lives or at least aspire to do so.

We are also planning to introduce events as a brand extension where we will offer value beyond just content. We are looking at creating networking platforms that will facilitate for township entrepreneurs and artists to meet and do business together.

There are just so many possibilities for Sunday World to make a difference in a meaningful way, while maintaining its core mandate which is to inform, entertain, educate and inspire.

For more information, visit www.sundayworld.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook or on Twitter.