I recently had a customer tell me that he stayed away from newspaper advertising because "It seems newspapers are on a downward slide and don't get viewed like they used too." Ouch!
As someone in the business, that was tough to hear. Luckily, my friends, that isn't an accurate assessment. Newspapers remain a power house in advertising. Not to say that internet marketing and other technologically driven marketing has not changed the way we spend our advertising budget. However, many marketing plans are seriously lacking by leaving out newspaper advertising all together.
With hundreds of television channels, thousands of magazines and millions of internet sites, channel proliferation has definitely changed the way advertisements are presented. With the endless amount of "opt-out" options available to viewers, including, DVRs, commercial-free satellite radio, national "do not call" lists, web firewalls and blockers, etc., getting your advertisements viewed has become a bigger challenge than ever before. Newspapers however remain an "opt in" medium, a place where consumers actively seek out advertisements rather than avoid them. Newspaper advertising remains a destination not a distraction. In fact, newspapers were the last place consumers would choose to eliminate advertising, according to Yankelovich Research, 2004.
According to NAA's (Newspaper Associate of America) Business Analysis & Research Department, 48% of adults read a newspaper on an average weekday. That number increases to 54% on an average Sunday. In fact in a MORI study of "How America Shops & Spends," newspaper ads ranked highest as the type of ad that consumers look forward to reading. When is the last time you heard someone say that about a Pop-Up ad?
Not only do consumers actively look for and look forward to ads in the newspaper, they actually trust them more. Because of the established history of newspapers, people tend to trust newspapers more than any other advertising medium. Gaining the trust of a newspapers' audience can produce awesome results, especially given the quality of the audience.
No other media can deliver the prospects that a newspaper can. Newspaper readership increases as both household income and education levels increase. According to Scarborough Research, 2007 Release 2 (Top 50 Market Report), newspaper readership is greatest in occupations with more job responsibility, such as Management, Business, and Financial Operations.
Newspapers provide contact with consumers that advertisers want to reach; those with higher incomes, higher education and those that are ready to buy. Newspapers are constantly impacting buying decisions and product usage. They have proved to remain steady in a changing world, and have earned their status as the premier medium for advertisers.
Kate Pauly-Schlentz is V.P. of National Advertising at US Newspapers, a newspaper advertising agency specializing in mass newspaper advertising, statewide to nationwide.
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