The Week's ‘Paperboy’ Proves the News Still Needs Editing

The Week has launched a new TV campaign as the latest execution of its new global positioning ‘Because the news needs a curator’, developed in partnership with thirty6 (previously the Orange Panther Collective).

The TV ad drops as part of a multi-channel brand push for the global news subscriptions business, part of Future PLC.

‘Paperboy’ - written by Nigel Roberts (creative partner at thirty6) and directed by J Marlow at Outsider, uses sardonic wit and J’s iconic offbeat directing to demonstrate how The Week uses the filter of its award winning editors to cut through the deluge of news to bring you only ‘the stories that matter’.

​Harry Haydon, brand director at The Week added, “We are always trying to balance the two key characteristics of our brand, the serious nature of what we do - curating the news, and the playful nature of how we turn up - the playful tone of our famous front covers. With J Marlow and the thirty6 team we felt reassured and excited from the off that we were going to blend these two facets perfectly”.

​Nigel Roberts, creative partner at thirty6 said, “The Week could’ve asked us to make a commercial by stitching a series of news story footage together and adding a generic title about being really good at bringing you the news. Because that’s what news titles tend to do. It’s kind of a rule. But they let us write a series of scripts instead. And hire a good director. And make a commercial that doesn’t look like 90% of the other news title’s commercials.”

​Simon Hewitt, client partner at thirty6 commented, “We worked with Harry when he was at the Financial Times, so we have a long standing relationship based on trust and mutually recognised integrity. This helped us move the work from the conventional news advertising tropes Nigel referenced, to a more playful and unusual creative space."

The work goes live this week across TV and paid social in the UK.