Compact is the new Tabloid

[Mechanic]

Compact is the new Tabloid

On Monday March 4 the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Go Tabloid, sorry Compact.

Neuro-testing confirms that although the compact edition is half the page size of the broad sheet they will not need to reduce the rate for a full page ad.

Fairfax director of ad strategy Sarah Keith said eye-tracking research had revealed a 50 per cent improvement in "eye-gaze" on ads in the smaller format and as a result the company had not had to reduce advertising rates.

"The rate card is the rate card - there's no change to the page rates," she said.

The neuro-testing used by Fairfax involved placing electrode caps on readers and monitoring their brainwave patterns as they read broadsheet and compact editions of the newspapers.

While common in television market research, Fairfax said it is believed to be the first time neuro-testing has been used in developing a newspaper product.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/ad-rates-unchanged-for-fairfax-compacts-20130222-2evoq.html

[listohan]

I think the same thing happened when the Women's Weekly went monthly and reduced its page size.