Had a chance to visit Dallas and see both free dailies in action. They're on every street corner downtown, but are hard to find in the suburbs. When you get a chance to examine each of them, Quick is the winner. It has tighter stories, better graphics and a neat local buzz column. The Journal seems to locked in the 1970s, with long, ponderous stories. The real battle, however, is distribution. Who can get papers into the hands of all of those high-income workers in the Dallas skyscrapers? Quick seems to have the advantage there, too. You can't just stack a bunch of papers in the downstairs lobby and hope everyone takes one. You've got to go to each floor and hand them out. But, with post 9/11 security, how do you do that? We suspect that a Quick distribution person is inserting cards in their papers asking people in those buildings to request that Quick be delivered to their floor. OK, "we suspect" is silly in this context. We saw the card and talked to the distributor. It's a neat trick. Kudos to Quick.
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Quick, American Journal battle in Dallas
Had a chance to visit Dallas and see both free dailies in action. They're on every street corner downtown, but are hard to find in the suburbs. When you get a chance to examine each of them, Quick is the winner. It has tighter stories, better graphics and a neat local buzz column. The Journal seems to locked in the 1970s, with long, ponderous stories. The real battle, however, is distribution. Who can get papers into the hands of all of those high-income workers in the Dallas skyscrapers? Quick seems to have the advantage there, too. You can't just stack a bunch of papers in the downstairs lobby and hope everyone takes one. You've got to go to each floor and hand them out. But, with post 9/11 security, how do you do that? We suspect that a Quick distribution person is inserting cards in their papers asking people in those buildings to request that Quick be delivered to their floor. OK, "we suspect" is silly in this context. We saw the card and talked to the distributor. It's a neat trick. Kudos to Quick.
