News International Launches Sunday Times Driving

LONDON, October 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News International (NI) has launched its classified advertising site for premium vehicles; Sunday Times Driving (http://www.driving.co.uk). The website's launch precedes a name change to the newspaper's InGear motoring supplement as from this coming Sunday it will also be known as Driving.  

Sunday Times Driving is the first car-buying site dedicated to the top end of the market and builds on The Sunday Times' brand and heritage. Unlike other car listings websites, driving.co.uk is a one-stop-shop that supports the car-buying journey with reviews, buyer guides and articles written both to inform and entertain. Editorial content will come from the supplement, as well as specially commissioned articles.

To coincide with its re-name, Driving will publish a Top 100 Cars Guide which is planned to run over two consecutive weekends in paper, pad and on the new site, and in celebration of all these motoring developments Sunday Times readers will be offered the chance to win a Porsche Cayman R worth £50,000 when they visit driving.co.uk.

In total NI have contracted over 46,000 vehicles for sale on the site. At launch driving.co.uk will initially give buyers access to 60 per cent of that stock, with this figure rising to the full 100 percent to coincide with the rebranding of it sister print title on Sunday 7th October.

The website has secured launch advertising partnerships with Mercedes, Porsche, Honda, VW and Sytner Group. 

NI has invested £6m into a multi-media marketing campaign that highlights Sunday Times Driving as the most entertaining and definitive resource for buying premium cars online. The ad campaign will appear in-paper, in-pad and online across The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun, and includes a significant paid-for investment behind display, social and search marketing.

Launch General Manager (and CIO), Chris Taylor commented, 'This is an incredibly exciting launch for News International and brings a unique new proposition to market for consumers and dealers alike. For the team now the really exciting next phase lies in listening to consumer response and then developing and enhancing the site over the coming weeks and months'.

About News International Ltd:

News International publishes The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun. In terms of growth, share, circulation and reader engagement, the company's titles are among the world's most successful. Newsprinters prints the national titles and operates as a contract printing subsidiary for the three state of the art printing plants. Further brands which are part of the group include the Times Literary Supplement and milkround.co.uk. The News International group has an investment in fashion website BrandAlley.co.uk. In 2007, News International became the UK's first carbon neutral newspaper publisher. This was achieved by increasing energy efficiency, switching to renewable energy and combined heat and power and purchasing high quality offsets.