• by Fern Siegel , October 5, 2023

The Philadelphia Inquirer is launching its first major ad campaign in decades.

The creative, by Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners, includes 60 billboards and other digital and print placements, Publisher-CEO Lisa Hughes told Axios the news organization, and said the newspaper plans to spend seven figures over three years.

The multiyear campaign will cover the city. Plus, the five major Philly sports teams will permit their logos to be utilized in the work.

The focus of the push is to get younger Philadelphians, mostly millennials, to subscribe. "Unsubscribe From / Subscribe To" — runs throughout the creative and gives The Inquirer's "I" logo a new look. (The newspaper dates from 1829.)

The campaign, expressed in a distinct Philly voice, such as "Corrupt and Contented" to "Go Birds," is expected to reach over 70% of the market with over 50 million impressions in its first year.

Digital subscriptions for the Inquirer are forecast at around 90,000 at the end of the year, according to Hughes. That's up from around 36,000 in early 2020, when she joined the newspaper.

The paper's owner, H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, donated the Inquirer in 2016, as well as its sister publication, Philadelphia Daily News and site, philly.com — to the Philadelphia Foundation's nonprofit Institute for Journalism in New Media, now the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.