NEW YORK: Dow Jones and Co. has hired Goodman Media International to launch the redesigned Wall Street Journal, set to debut on January 2, 2007. GMI has worked with WSJ since 2005 on TV outreach for the weekday editions and also handled the 10th anniversary of WSJ.com.
In addition to outreach to consumer, trade, and business press, as well as new media outlets, TV, and radio, Dow Jones will host a media breakfast on December 4 at the Morgan Library in New York City where attendees will get a sneak peak at the redesign. (WSJ is also teaming up with PRWeek to host a luncheon later that day)
Robert Christie, director of PR for Dow Jones, said that Goodman has already helped to set up media briefings so that stories about the redesign will appear over the next month.
Christie said one of the challenges presented by the timing of the redesign's launch is that the holiday season is a difficult time to break through to consumers.
"What [GMI was] able to do is bring us a strategy that helped us do that," he said. "They're able to bring a creative solution to our problems."
The redesign is news in and of itself because it is only the third one in the paper's 117-year history. But Christie noted that messaging will concentrate on the fact that the redesign is reflective of the shift in how readers consume news, the expectation of more analysis than straightforward reporting, and a better coordination between the print and online editions.
"We approach it as much more than a new design. It's really taking into account how people get their news today," says Tom Goodman, president and CEO of GMI. "There are many different messages and our goal is to deliver them coherently and efficiently and accurately so that different audiences understand what this effort is all about."
