Battle Brewing: 'WSJ,' NYT' Vie For Starbucks

WSJ Crashed NY Times at Starbucks in NYC

The New York Times has long enjoyed being the exclusive paper of record at Starbucks cafes, but that monopoly has come to an end. Two new competitors have appeared: The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, in selected Starbucks venues.

Just a few weeks before the planned launch of its new, New York-focused section, racks selling the WSJ have appeared next to the NYT displays in 450 Starbucks locations around New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area, including venues in New York State, New Jersey, Connecticut and even Pennsylvania.

Both newspapers must also contend with USA Today, which is now being sold in 6,500 of the chain's cafes around the country. USA Today has also worked out an innovative new sponsorship agreement with Marriott Hotels for a new digital edition for the iPad.

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The move is clearly intended to position the WSJ as a competitor to the Grey Lady, as the WSJ prepares to introduce its local New York-focused section on April 12. Moreover, it threatens to take as much as 10% to 20% of the NYT's Manhattan-focused retail advertising. Dow Jones (acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 2008) is prepared to spend $15 million on the new, 12-page New York section, including salaries for about 35 editorial staffers, covering real estate, culture, business, sports and metro news.

Scrambling to fend off the challenge, the NYT has mounted a major marketing campaign in trade publications, targeting advertisers with messages highlighting the newspaper's strength in areas like female readership, high culture and the WSJ's own bailiwick, the business world.

The NYT's vulnerability to the WSJ attack is due, at least in part, to its own aggressive cost-cutting campaign over the last couple of years, which has cost it several sections, including "Metro" and "City."

The NYT isn't sitting idly by as the battle for promotion and distribution partnerships intensifies. In early March, the newspaper announced a deal with digital out-of-home RMG Networks (formerly Danoo) to introduce a digital place-based media channel, NYTimes.com Today.

The channel delivers a combination of text and video content and advertising, including options for mobile interactivity, to hundreds of RMG's IP-based network of digital displays in top markets around the country -- reaching 800 cafes and eateries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco markets.

RMG will continue to handle ad sales for the network, and is already handling placements for a number of major NYT advertisers, including GM and Sprint. The NYT will also benefit by using the network as a marketing channel, as the venues reached by RMG sell copies of the newspaper's print edition.

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