Results and Impacts

The Gate’s work for Scotland on Sunday won us an accolade in the Effectiveness category at the Scottish Advertising Awards. Back in 1996, when we started working with Scotsman Publications, most people thought that the English-based titles had the Sunday quality newspaper market sewn up. Then along came Scotland on Sunday. With a combination of smart ideas and promotional flair we helped establish the brand with intelligent offers that reached out to readers’ brains, and their pockets.

The Challenge and Objectives

To ensure the success of SoS, the title needed a blend of smart editorial and savvy promotional marketing to defend itself against the better-established ‘UK’ Sundays. As Scotland on Sunday is a quality Sunday broadsheet, our job was to attract a clued-up, contemporary audience who may otherwise have been buying English Sunday newspapers and alert them to the uniqueness of its Scottish news and lifestyle content.

Our strategy

In order to stimulate brand loyalty and sales, we came up with incentive-driven editorial-linked offers that hooked readers and helped build Scotland on Sunday’s reputation as a reasonably priced, high-quality read. Our work included an ongoing ad campaign which promotes appealing Scottish-themed offers (such as free books, picture supplements, maps and walking guides) using memorable, quirky imagery and a distinctive Scottish voice.