So there are all the standard problems newspapers are having with their readerships — that they’re too old, that they’re moving online, that they never call or write anymore — and at the Wall Street Journal there’s a whole other set on top of that: Long seen as only the businessman’s paper, the Journal has a readership that’s particularly old and significantly male. How to bring younger, womaner readers to the paper? With a new ad campaign, of course. People like the New York Giants, Alice Waters, and Sheryl Crow will be depicted talking about why the Journal is important to them, according to a reporting today’s Times. For example:
Ms. Crow, 44, for example, learned last year that she had breast cancer; the ad with her includes part of a Journal article about breast cancer.
You know, as opposed to all those old Journal ads featuring men talking about their prostate cancer.
