AZCentral rebranding shakes things up

By Angelo Fernando on April 2nd, 2008 In Media

azcentral_new.jpgAZCentral’s new look takes getting used to.

I am not sure if they have not still applied the new style sheets across the board, or if there are two parts to this.

  • The wide search bar at the top acknowledges the “pull” factor of news.
  • The 12 slightly categories on the top blue bar are very prominent now
  • Souped up Moms section definitely better suited to a demo that’s 51% female.
  • Unfortunately The blogs are still in the old layout.

It’s a move in the right direction. “Consumer behavior and advancements in the way information is received are driving change in the media landscape. We anticipated these shifts…” says Republic Media.I will be interested to see how the city editions also reflect these shifts, both in print, and online.

AZCentral rebranding shakes things up

Comments

Richard@greatimageltd.com Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:42 pm

“It’s a move in the right direction”

Agree.

Dan Wool Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Ooooo! It’s dark blue now instead of white. Aren’t they a little late for Earth Hour? ;-)

Seriously, though, I think they still grossly overestimate the power of the AzCentral brand and grossly underestimate the power of the Arizona Republic brand. (I know, I know – they have to use AzCentral because of the Channel 12 partnership).

That said, I’d like to see a little more brand consistency between the newspaper and the website. If you look at the better websites — NY Times, LA Times, WSJ — this is there. The LA Times is owned by Tribune Media which also owns KTLA Channel 5 in the market — but it’s the Times brand that leads — not some third party-sounding co-brand.

The Republic print edition had a nice redesign last year – none of that look and feel is picked up on the new website. And IMHO, that’s a shame. The Business Journal does this well, even the Trib.

I would be willing to bet that line producers redesigned AZCentral — not actual web designers — and that they backed into the architecture through site traffic pattern analysis and not upsetting the apple cart instead of what makes the most stunning and intuitive visuals. If so, that’s playing not to lose, rather than playing to win. It’s the Winchester Mystery House approach to web design.

Maybe my standards are too high (shouldn’t they be?), but with a name like “AZCentral” the site still doesn’t speak to me in a way that says it’s the pulse of the nation’s fifth largest city or the country’s second fastest growing state.

I will say that it’s better than it was but hopefully it’s a baby step to a supremely-designed final product.

Richard@greatimageltd.com Says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:23 pm

As someone with an undergrad combined J-degree and English, then an advanced marketing degree, I think we tend to overuse the word brand. Not to pick on Mr. Wool; he’s excellent. Just overall, I think it is overused. According to Webster, it is “a class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer : make b: a characteristic or distinctive kind.”

I don’t think AZCentral is aiming to be distinct. TMZ or YouTube are distinct. AZCentral is a “me too” product trying to be like every other news Web site, and most are doing poorly. Disney’s Web site used to be the best on the ‘net, and even they lost sight with a redesign last year. Alas, when “they” write the history of Web development at the beginning of the 21st Century, much as has been written about Robber Barons of the turn of the 20th Century, it will be written that the truly unique ones were 411.com and a whole bunch of porn sites. How sad.

Is this because graphic designers make about $23,000 per year when many telemarketers who invade your home make over $50,000 per year? The old adage, you get what you pay for.

Guest Post: Forty analyzes AZCentral's redesign | Valley PR Blog Says:
April 4th, 2008 at 8:47 am

[...] James Archer, operations director for Chandler-based web marketing firm Forty, responding to the redesign of AZCentral this [...]

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