The familiar pink broadsheet known fondly as the FT or Financial Times now boasts its very own Asian edition, but whether it can become the essential morning read for Asia's time-poor top executives remains to be seen.
The FT has beefed up bureaus from Hong Kong to Tokyo, a £1 million (US$1.7 million) integrated/through-the-line marketing campaign, a new tagline of 'Asia to the World, the World to Asia', as well as a new Asia-focused website and a Chinese-language one.
"It's a marathon, not a sprint. We need to keep the momentum going, its like a soccer match - you need to keep on scoring to win," says FT editor-in-chief John Ridding. "There is a big appetite in Asia for cross-border news, because business people here play on the global stage."
"It has huge potential. The FT is good for financially-focused Asia," says Annette Nazaroff, media consumer insights director, MindShare. "I sit at the front of the plane and see many people reading it. It's a well-known brand and the FT has certainly hit the button."
But the newspaper was perceived as stuffy, aloof and irrelevant to Asia, according to OMD's Jade Huang, who works on the FT account. "The FT aims to deliver freshness and build its image as a savvy, accessible, relevant and essential newspaper in Asia."
The new Asia-Pacific edition will allow the FT to adopt a more comprehensive global rate programme. However, the question now is whether its owner, Pearson, can build circulation and, more importantly, get advertisers with specific Asian budgets interested, in what is a very cluttered market.
"The focus of the FT is great for high class brands such as watches and fragrance, because it is good for them to be associated with such a niche product geared towards CEOs and CFOs," says Adrian King, regional research director of MediaCom. "But for many advertisers, the FT will be seen as providing them just with additional reach, unless the sales people get the brand count up and increase readership."
The ad campaign, in the form of posters in the financial hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore, direct marketing in Japan and Korea and broadcast on CNN and Bloomberg, is pushing the FT's core strengths: savvy business coverage, global perspectives and exclusives, all with an Asian twist.
But some industry analysts say there may be very little space for another regional daily, particularly one as heavy on finance as the FT.