1. Why do you suspect spending on print newspa- per advertising is declining so dramatically?
Where is that ad money going?
check yourself ✓
weekly newspapers Newspapers that are published once a week and characteristically serve readers in small urban or suburban areas or farm communities with an emphasis on local news and advertising.
standard-size newspaper The standard newspaper size measures approximately 22 inches deep and 13 inches wide and is divided into six columns.
tabloid newspaper A newspaper generally about half the size of standard-size newspaper; it is usually about 14 inches deep and 11 inches wide.
Type of Audience Some dailies and weeklies serve special-interest audiences, a fact not lost on advertisers. They generally contain advertising oriented to their special audi- ences, and they may have unique advertising regulations.
Some serve specific ethnic markets. Today, a number of dailies and weeklies are oriented to the African American community and others serve foreign-language groups. The most common non-English language in newspapers is Spanish in Spanish- language editions. The largest of these include El Nuevo Herald, La Opinion, and El Diario La Prensa.22
Specialized newspapers also serve business and financial audi- ences. The Wall Street Journal, the leading national business and financial daily, enjoys a circulation of nearly 2.4 million readers and is now the largest weekday newspaper in the United States. The New York Times has the largest Sunday circulation.
Other papers cater to fraternal, labor union, or professional organizations, religious groups, or hobbyists.
Other Types of Newspapers The United States has 923 Sunday newspapers, mostly Sunday editions of daily papers, with a combined circulation of nearly 42 million.23 Sunday newspapers generally combine standard news coverage with special functions like these:
• Increased volume of classified ads.
• Greater advertising and news volume.
National Enquirer and the Star use sensational stories to fight for single-copy sales. Other tabloids, such as the New York Daily News, emphasize straight news and features.
Newspapers used to offer about 400 different ad sizes. But in 1984, the industry introduced the standard advertising unit (SAU) system, which standardized the newspaper column width, page sizes, and ad sizes. An SAU column inch is 21/16 inches wide by 1 inch deep. There are now 56 standard ad sizes for standard papers and 32 for tabloids. Virtually all dai-
lies converted to the SAU system and so did most weeklies.
The Pros and Cons of Newspaper Advertising [10–B]
The Pros
• Mass medium penetrating every segment of society. Most consumers read the newspaper.
• Local medium with broad reach. Covers a specific geographic area that comprises both a market and a community of people sharing com- mon concerns and interest.
• Comprehensive in scope, covering an extraordinary variety of topics and interests.
• Geographic selectivity is possible with zoned editions for specific neighborhoods or communities.
• Timeliness. Papers primarily cover today’s news and are read in one day.
• Credibility. Studies show that newspaper ads rank highest in believ- ability. TV commercials are a distant second.
• Selective attention from the relatively small number of active pros- pects who, on any given day, are interested in what the advertiser is trying to tell them or sell them.
• Creative flexibility. An ad’s physical size and shape can be varied to give the degree of dominance or repetition that suits the advertiser’s purpose. The advertiser can use black and white, color, Sunday maga- zines, or custom inserts.
• An active medium rather than a passive one. Readers turn the pages, clip and save, write in the margins, and sort through the contents.
• A permanent record, in contrast to the ephemeral nature of radio and TV.
• Reasonable cost.
The Cons
• Lack of selectivity of specific socioeconomic groups. Most newspa- pers reach broad, diverse groups of readers, which may not match the advertiser’s objectives.
• Short life span. Unless readers clip and save the ad or coupon, it may be lost forever.
• Low production quality. Coarse newsprint generally produces a less impressive image than the slick, smooth paper stock of magazines, and some newspapers can’t print color.
• Clutter. Each ad competes with editorial content and with all the other ads on the same page or spread.
• Lack of control over where the ad will appear unless the advertiser pays extra for a preferred position.
• Overlapping circulation. Some people read more than one newspa- per. Advertisers may be paying for readers they already reached in a different paper.
standard advertising unit (SAU) A system of standardized newspaper advertisement sizes that can be accepted by all standard-size newspapers without consideration of their precise format or page size. This system allows advertisers to prepare one advertisement in a particular size or SAU and place it in various newspapers regardless of their format.
column inch The basic unit by which publishers bill for advertising. It is one vertical inch of a column.
Today, most newspapers—
and virtually all dailies—
have converted to the SAU system. An SAU column inch is 21⁄16 inches wide by 1 inch deep.
CHAPTER 10 | Print Advertising 255 Newspapers create
special sections. In turn, these are attractive to
advertisers interested in their unique readership. The Sunday Times is Britain’s largest selling Sunday newspaper.
The Sunday Times also publishes several supplement
magazines including The Sunday Times Rich List, The Sunday Times Magazine, and The Sunday Times Travel Magazine.
Source: The Sunday Times
• In-depth coverage of business, sports, real estate, literature and the arts, entertainment, and travel.
• Review and analysis of the past week’s events.
• Expanded editorial and opinion sections.
Most Sunday newspapers also feature a Sunday supplement magazine. Some publish their own supplements, such as the Los Angeles Magazine of the Los Angeles Times. Other papers subscribe to syndicated supplements; Parade magazine has a readership of more than 63 million readers every week.24 Printed on heavier, coated paper stock, Sunday supplements are more conducive to color printing than newsprint, making them attractive to national advertisers who want better reproduction quality.
Another type of newspaper, the independent shopping guide or free community newspaper, offers advertisers local saturation.
Sometimes called pennysavers, these shoppers offer free distri- bution and extensive advertising pages targeted at essentially the same audience as weekly newspapers—urban and suburban community readers. Readership is often high, and the publishers
use hand delivery or direct mail to achieve maximum saturation.
North Americans also read na- tional newspapers, including the Globe and Mail in Canada, USA Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. With a circulation of 1.87 million, The New York Times recently passed USA Today
(1.67 million) to become the second-largest U.S. newspaper.
Both papers trail The Wall Street Journal with a circulation of 2.4 million.25
Types of Newspaper Advertising
The major classifications of newspaper advertising are display, classified, public notices, and preprinted inserts.
Display Advertising Display advertising includes copy, illustrations or photos, headlines, coupons, and other visual components—such as the ads for the Village Voice dis- cussed earlier. Display ads vary in size and appear in all sec- tions of the newspaper except the first page of major sections, the editorial page, the obituary page, and the classified adver- tising section.
One common variation of the display ad, the reading notice (or advertorials), looks like editorial matter and sometimes costs more than normal display advertising. To prevent readers from mistaking it for editorial matter, the word advertisement appears at the top.
As we discussed in Chapter 3, retailers often run newspaper ads through cooperative (or co-op) advertising programs spon- sored by the manufacturers whose products they sell. The man- ufacturer pays fully or partially to create and run the ad, which features the manufacturer’s product and logo along with the lo- cal retailer’s name and address.
Classified Advertising Classified ads provide a com- munity marketplace for goods, services, and opportunities of every type, from real estate and new-car sales to employment and business opportunities. A newspaper’s profitability often relies heavily on a large and healthy classified section.
Sunday supplement A newspaper-distributed Sunday magazine. Sunday supplements are distinct from other sections of the newspaper since they are printed by rotogravure on smoother paper stock.
shoppers Free publications, delivered by hand or direct mail or in supermarket racks, consisting almost entirely of local advertising.
Consumers tend to use these publications to find dealers and to make price comparisons.
display advertising Type of newspaper advertising that includes copy, illustrations or photographs, headlines, coupons, and other visual components.
reading notice (advertorial) A variation of a display ad designed to look like editorial matter. It is sometimes charged at a higher space rate than normal display advertising, and the law requires that the word advertisement appears at the top.
cooperative (co-op) advertising The sharing of advertising costs by the manufacturer and the distributor or retailer.
The manufacturer may repay 50 or 100 percent of the dealer’s advertising costs or some other amount based on sales.
classified ads Newspaper, magazine, and now Internet
advertisements usually arranged under subheads that describe the class of goods or the need the ads seek to satisfy. Rates are based on the number of lines the ad occupies. Most employment, housing, and automotive advertising is in the form of classified advertising.
Public Notices For a nominal fee, newspapers carry legal public notices of changes in business and personal relationships, public governmental reports, notices by private citizens and organizations, and financial reports. These ads fol- low a preset format.
Preprinted Inserts Like magazines, newspapers carry preprinted inserts. The advertiser prints the inserts and delivers them to the newspaper plant for insertion into a spe- cific edition. Insert sizes range from a typical newspaper page to a double postcard; formats include catalogs, brochures, mail- back devices, and perforated coupons.
Some large metropolitan dailies allow advertisers to limit their inserts to specific circulation zones. A retail advertiser that wants to reach only those shoppers in its immediate trad- ing area can place an insert in the local-zone editions. Retail stores, car dealers, and large national advertisers are among those who find it less costly to distribute their circulars this way compared to mailing them or delivering them door to door.
An increasingly popular ad delivery method is a small sticker on the main section of the newspaper. It is removable and can double as a coupon. Guests at upscale Omni hotels found scented stickers on the front pages of their copies of USA Today. A blackberry aroma suggested that guests start the day with a cup of Starbucks “paired with a fresh muffin.”26