Dive Brief:

• The New York Post ran a front-page wraparound promotion with streetwear maker Supreme on Aug. 13 that led fans of the brand to snap up papers, causing vendors to sell out the morning of the release, according to The New York Times.
• The ad featured a solid background with the newspaper's banner logo at the top and the red-and-white Supreme logo in the center. Later on Monday, Supreme fans were purchasing physical copies of the special "collector's item" online at sites like eBay for between $7 and $20, the Independent reported — up to 10 times the newsstand price of the paper. 
• The promotion was for Supreme's lookbook for its fall-winter 2018 line. Video showing the Post edition being printed with the Supreme logo surfaced on Twitter before the papers were shipped out to sellers. Supreme approached The Post this spring about "original, never-before-seen, creative ideas," according to the Times. The Post's in-house creative agency, Post Studios, came up with the idea for the wraparound. 

Dive Insight:

The New York Post leveraged Supreme's devoted cult following and reputation for creating off-kilter merchandise — previous offerings have included nunchucks, bolt cutters and a red brick simply labeled "Supreme" — to drum up chatter online and purchases at newsstands. Supreme is also known for having its collections sell out quickly, leading diehard followers to visit resale sites to snag items, often at far higher prices than retail, per the Times.

Teasing the collector's edition of the paper with a social media video led Supreme fans to rush and grab papers around New York City, showing how the partnership was able to translate online hype into sales. The promotion demonstrates how traditional print publishers like the Post are more often thinking outside the box with their marketing and partnerships.

Though subscriptions for some print titles are surging, print advertising revenue is expected to decline 18% overall this year, according to forecasts from Magna. A number of publishers have also recently been hit with heavy layoffs, such as the Post's fellow New York City paper the New York Daily News.    

Print publishers have been partnering with marketers on more innovative campaigns lately to help combat some of these headwinds. Toyota debuted an interactive foldout ad for its 2018 Camry in the March issue of InStyle, where the spread simulated measuring readers' heart rates and incorporated elements of sight, sound, smell and touch.