Newsworks launches £300,000 planning competition

‘Newsbrands create Super Bowl moment’ reads the headline on an interesting announcement from the body set up to market the UK’s newspapers.

Well that might be pushing it a bit but Newsbrands, led by former WARC and Haymnarket executive Rufus Olins, has at least devised a strategy to boost the press in the digital age. Its latest wheeze is to offer up to £300,000 of ‘free’ space across print, tablets, online and mobile in a competition open to agency planners to demonstrate that newspapers – mostly in decline in the UK as elsewhere – actually generate a much bigger daily audience through digital this and that than some clients and agencies credit them with – 20m a day across the main UK news groups according to Newsbrands.

Olins (left) says: “This is a chance to get the nation talking. We are looking for ideas that will influence behaviour, as well as showing an imaginative use of newsbrands. The Day of Influence gives rising agency stars an opportunity to make a difference and to make a name for themselves. We hope the competition will inspire some creative thinking and provide a platform for some mould-breaking ideas.”

The lucky winner of this ‘Day of Influence,’ July 22 this year, will be chosen by a Dragons Den-type panel of clients at Newswork’s April 10 conference Shift 2014, and bask in the title ‘Influencer of the Year.’ Entries close on March 20.