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The Independent: trailing price-cuts |
The Independent is due to be reborn as "The Inexpensive" today (Thursday) as the broadsheet launches a marketing campaign linked to a 20p price cut.
For a seven-day period, at least, the title will be sold for 30p on weekdays as part of a sampling programme linked to its recent redesign.
Following that, the company will take a view of the trial and decide how to proceed.
Lawrie Procter, commercial manager at The Independent, said: "There has been an uplift in sales since the redesign.
This is the next logical part of the process.
"Price is a necessary part of every national newspaper's marketing tactics these days."
Although The Indy has cut its cover price before, most notoriously during the infamous price war during the 1990s, when it was squeezed by The Daily Telegraph and The Times, the latest move is part of an overall drive to pick up new readers.
The initiative has also seen the paper redesigned with a tabloid second section.
A TV campaign across Channel 4 and Channel 5 breaks
this week with the tagline "The Intelligent, the Individual, The Inexpensive".
However, The Daily Telegraph advertising director Len Sanderson criticized The Independent's new marketing
slogan. He said: "The first thing you get told as a salesman is that you never refer to a product as expensive or cheap."
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