Marketplace rebrands under new logo, tagline

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American Public Media’s Marketplace introduced a new brand identity aimed at building awareness of its programs among audiences across broadcast and digital platforms.

The July 29 roll-out coincided with relaunch of Marketplace.org as a fully responsive, mobile-friendly website.

A logo resembling both a stock chart and the letter “M” establishes a shared visual identity for all of Marketplace‘s program strands. The new tagline, “Between economics and life” is to be the centerpiece of a consumer-oriented advertising campaign aimed at readers of The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and Fast Company. A second campaign will launch later this year.

The ads will reach up to 9.8 million print readers and a digital audience of about 4.8 million, according to an APM news release. The campaign is “designed to drive brand awareness, grow Marketplace’s audience and to position Marketplace as an indispensable source of smart, accessible coverage of business and the economy,” APM said.

APM conducted extensive audience research as it undertook the rebranding project and retained Little, a Minneapolis-based design firm, to create the new look and tagline. The main logo of colorful overlapping triangles has been adapted for each Marketplace program, including Marketplace Morning Report, Marketplace Money and Marketplace Tech Report.

“Given the shifts in how audiences consume news, we knew we needed to create a new brand identity which spoke directly to the listener and more closely matched the voice of our on-air brand,” said Deborah Clark, Marketplace’s e.p., in a prepared statement. “Our new brand positioning allows us to go directly to where our audiences already are and where they’re going.  They will have access to our content whether they’re on public radio, on a desktop, tablet, mobile app or anywhere else.”

In addition to responsive design for marketplace.org, the relaunched site features an HTML5 audio player that provides access to individual stories and entire programs on desktop, mobile and tablet devices.

The weekly cumulative audience for all four Marketplace series is approaching 10 million listeners, according to APM. In addition to broadcasts on more than 500 public radio stations, the programs are accessible through digital applications such as  iHeartRadio, Swell, Slacker Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, GoogleCurrents and Flipboard.

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