Today we say farewell to the News of the World... I can't say I'm disappointed but that's neither here nor there really.
The NoTW have doubled the print run for this last ever issue - meaning around 5 million copies are out on the street today... all of which contains absolutely no commercial advertising (not that they could give it away at the moment) which has instead been replaced by free advertising for charitable organisations.
The not-for-profit that I work for decided not to advertise in the NoTW... and we weren't the only ones. As The Mirror pointed out "The paper has even been struggling to give space away for free as charities such as the RNLI, The Brooke, Care International, Thames Reach, ActionAid, WaterAid, VSO, Oxfam and Barnardo’s decided against taking up the offer."
So I suppose the real question is who did?
Well, the answer is, quite a few organisations. Fundraising.co.uk lists them all on their site. This list includes Wellbeing of Women, The Children's Trust, St John Ambulance and the Terrence Higgins Trust. Disappointingly, however, no-one decided to go with any tounge-in-cheek ads - someone blogged (I can't remember who - sorry) the idea of an ad along the lines of "We may not have liked the paper... but we loved the readers... we look forward to your support in the future." Our EA's team came up with a similar idea - before it was decided we wouldn't be applying for an ad space - and I was, personally, all for it.
Does anyone have any thoughts on whether they would have taken up the NoTW on their offer or whether your opinions of the charities who chose to advertise have been affected by this choice?
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