The College’s student newspaper, the Manitou Messenger, has recently released information disclosing the sticky secret to its 2019-20 plan for increased readership and funding. Its main agenda: tiny-ass stickers.
Initiated during the 2018-19 school year, the Manitou Messenger went through an extensive rebranding campaign. Bright yellow posters were displayed all across campus with the slogan “READ THE MESS.” Small stickers with the slogan were also produced and handed out. Despite the evident clarity of the posters, their message never fully resonated with the public, said Marketing Director Maisy Martin ’20.
“At this point, we were losing readers and I wasn’t sure why, until I ran some lab tests,” Martin said.
The results of the tests identified poster size as the key factor in the campaign’s ineffectiveness.
“The smaller, the better!” the lab test said. “What you need is some tiny-ass stickers or something.”
The Manitou Messenger began handing out the tiny-ass stickers whenever and wherever they could, utilizing the large supply leftover from 2018-19. The campaign expanded exponentially, no longer just at tabling events. An early October report revealed a readership increase by more than 50% within the first month of the new campaign.
“We think we might just print the whole paper on these tiny-ass stickers,” Managing Editor Kailey Favaro ’20 said. “They’re great!”
Another part of the campaign involves the weekly online segment, the Manitou Minute, which is shifting to more sticker-related videos.
“People just can’t get enough of the stickers,” Multimedia Director Claire Strother ’22 said.
“Gotta give the people what they want. And what they want is tiny-ass content about tiny-ass stickers.”
“I usually don’t pick up the Mess,” Chad Four ’20 said. “But one time I left my backpack outside the caf, and when I came back it was just chock-full of all these tiny-ass stickers. Now it’s my only source of news. I’m so happy.”
The sticker mania did not stop at the student body, either. The Manitou Messenger received a letter from President David Anderson ’74 himself, in which he personally congratulated the newspaper on its success.
“I didn’t really get what those posters were saying,” Anderson wrote. “But those tiny-ass stickers make it so clear! I was like ‘Oh, duh! READ the Mess!’ Now I know what to do! Well done, newspaper people, well done!”
With readership back on a steady rise, the Manitou Messenger plans to continue producing and dispersing the tiny-ass stickers at an even broader level.
“We plan to reach Canada by mid-November, and hopefully take over the world before the summer!” Editor-in-Chief Sam Carlen ’20 said.
In a joint statement via late-night tweet, the executive editors confirmed: “Clearly it’s the year of the tiny-ass sticker!”
darger1@stolaf.edu
