Metro Unveils Fresh New Design

TORONTO, June 29 /CNW/ - Metro made publishing history today, introducing a radically redesigned newspaper in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver guaranteed to turn the idea of "newspaper" upside down.

Metro has built a reputation for being part newspaper, part magazine and all today.

The new design enhances that brand positioning, with a sleek and sophisticated layout that captures the spirit of both a magazine and a newspaper, while maintaining the concise, contemporary and colourful elements readers look for every day.

Metro's new design fundamentally changes the way the newspaper tells the stories. Instead of classic narrative reportage, the paper will use charts, graphs, pictures, pull quotes and fact boxes to go beyond the headline, advancing the story and helping readers understand the impact of the news event on real people's real lives.

"The new Metro is, quite simply, unlike any printed publication in Canada", says Charlotte Empey, Editor-in-Chief. "Heightened expert analysis, commentary, powerful pictures and readers' views and opinions will enhance our editorial core, at the same time, keeping the news dynamic, compelling and fresh. But our revolutionary approach to reporting the news shouldn't come as a surprise. Metro is known for innovation, changing print and design history more than once, and leading the pack in targeting the hard-to-reach metropolitan. This redesign is the next level."

The oversized masthead, elegant colour palate and new, bolder headline fonts will give Metro a more dynamic look. The newspaper will be divided in five basic sections:

    
    1. News - Local, Canada and World
    2. Scene - Entertainment
    3. Life - health, fashion, finance
    4. Sports - including expanded sports coverage
    5. Drive (every Wednesday)
    

To promote the new look, Metro created a teaser campaign using boxcards, ads in-paper as well and Gateway posters in the TTC in Toronto.

In addition, brand ambassadors in all 6 markets distributed the first edition as well as bubbles to readers. The bubbles will create a sense of fun and celebration of the vibrant new look as well as commemorate Metro celebrating 10-years in Canada, when it launched in June, 2000 in Toronto.

Metro also promoted the new look to the Marketing industry, with the first ever "trap-door" execution in the July edition of Marketing Magazine.

About Metro

Metro is the nation's No. 1 free national daily newspaper brand and the first national daily to publish in both official languages. In Canada, Metro editions are published in: Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Metro targets YAMs (young, active, metropolitans) and reaches more than 1.3 million readers daily and 2.8 million over the course of a week.

Metro is the largest international newspaper in the world. Metro is published in over 100 major cities in 20 countries across Europe, North & South America and Asia. Metro has a unique global reach - attracting a young, active, well-educated, metropolitan audience of over 17 million daily readers.

/NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: A photo accompanying this release is available at http://photos.newswire.ca. Images are free to accredited members of the media/

For further information: Bill McDonald, Group Publisher, Metro English Canada, [phone], [email protected]