Extra! Extra! Repositioning 'The Cincinnati Enquirer'

Creatives at Curiosity break down the who what when where and why

To kick off the pitch for The Cincinnati Enquirer, its executive editor, Beryl Love, shared a “love letter” he had written to the city. You could just feel the passion he had for Cincinnati and the paper’s role in it. We were fascinated. We used that as our brief and started working on it immediately.

Just the fact that the paper has been around for almost two centuries is mindblowing. It’s been a Cincy staple for so many generations, through huge upheavals like wars and leaps in technology. And that’s kind of how we started to think about it. This living and breathing person that’s seen a ton of history. So, even though it’s a Cincinnati institution with this a rich legacy, it’s not some archaic paper form of communication. It’s “the paper”—the source that knows what’s going on in Cincinnati. We knew we could have some real fun with that.

Not everyone on the team is a Cincinnati native, so we had to really do our homework. We dug deep into the Enquirer’s online archive and uncovered some pretty hilarious and 100 percent real front-page stories that actually ran. Stories about “Mud Mermaid” sightings in the Ohio River, flying saucers spotted over Terrace Park, a trouserless cop chasing a burglar down the street. Some pretty wacky stuff coming from a paper that’s won the Pulitzer Prize, twice. We also learned that the Enquirer was ahead of its time in design. We were inspired by layouts of the 1910’s with cascading headlines and big bold san serif fonts over smaller serif lines. Turns out they look great on billboards in 2026, too. Archaic-shmaic.

Clearly the Enquirer isn’t your ordinary boring old newspaper. They seem to have always been a little extra. A little extra extra, even. And, that’s how the tagline was born: “The Cincinnati Enquirer. A bit extra extra since 1841.” After that we started cranking out headline after headline, just writing stuff that made us laugh. By the time we first met for what was supposed to be a chemistry meeting, we had a full campaign to share. And it worked. As Beryl Love said, ”The team at Curiosity couldn’t hide their excitement. They not only understood the mission, but also shared our passion.”

What they saw and what we love about this campaign is how it speaks to all Cincinnatians.

Whether you’re a hundred-year-old lifelong subscriber, or a 25-year-old who gets their news on their phone, you get the joke because you’ve grown up with it. A “3-way” is just how you order your chili cheese spaghetti. “Who Dey!” is something you say, real loud, at Bengals games. You can laugh at the fact that when you meet another person from Cincinnati you can’t help but ask them what high school they went to. It’s in your blood like the chili itself. It’s as local as your local paper. See what we did there? IYKYKTCE.

Being contextual was a big component to this campaign and where our media team really shined. Finding locations outside Skyline restaurants for the “3-way” line, making sure the “Who Dey” line was near the stadium and on a coverwrap of the paper on Bengals’ opening game day, it all made our silly lines seem smarter.

Will this campaign mark “the death of local journalism” as one commenter posted about our 3-way line?

Seems a bit extra. Or will it make you say “This is why I’m subscribing to the Enquirer” as another person posted? We’re banking on the latter.