Articles About Travidia
ADS THAT MATTER
by Rob Runett
Runett is NAA’s manager of electronic media analysis.
As part of an industry that takes pride in connecting consumers and advertisers, newspaper publishers have struggled to develop online marketplaces. But that achievement could be erased in the new year if a recently launched program sets well-researched shoppers scurrying into retailers’ offline stores and delivers unprecedented insight to sales reps and advertisers.
SF Gate, the online operation run by the San Francisco Chronicle, introduced PersonalShopper (http://personalshopper.sfgate.com) last November as a robust, crisply designed tool for consumers who are comfortable researching product information online. Site visitors search digitized inserts and run-of-paper ads from the Chronicle. Product images can be enlarged for inspection. The ads are converted using software from AdExpedia of Chico, Calif.
The strategy to upsell ROP and insert advertisers to print and online packages isn’t new. Many newspaper sites, including Hearst Corp.’s Houston Chronicle and Times Union in Albany, N.Y., promote online ads. But PersonalShopper amplifies the possibilities.
Shoppers browse by advertiser or category. PersonalShopper offers a location tool that filters advertisers by city, county, region or commuting corridor. If site visitors don’t find an item they’re looking for, they can request e-mail notification when an ad appears, a common model for classified-advertising services. The e-mail will direct the recipient to the PersonalShopper site or the print edition.
Online consumers are hungry for a convenient aggregation of newspaper ads and sale prices, according to research conducted last year. Dallas-based Belden Associates’ survey identified ads for discount stores, grocers and retailers as the major sales-related information sought by 13,344 visitors to newspaper-affiliated sites. Other researchers reported similar results in a study conducted last year for NAA (http://digitaledge.org/monthly/2001_07/localonline.html). Internet users applauded the entertainment, sports and local news sections of newspaper-affiliated sites, according to Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo Inc. of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., but these sites lacked sufficient ads and information, respondents said.
Internet users interviewed during focus groups in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., expressed interest in services that allow them to compare features of multiple products and check prices at retailers. Researchers interviewed 1,682 adults age 18 and older. More than 1,000 of those participants had accessed the ’Net during the past month.
Ian Murdock, digital-media director for Hearst Newspapers, read the reports and decided, “We’re not living up to what a consumer would expect.” During the next year, Hearst will propagate the marketplace concept at 12 newspapers and their Web destinations.
The process began with SF Gate. Print advertisers pay a modest fee to add their ROP ads to PersonalShopper. Inserts require a larger financial commitment due to production costs. More than 600 ads already appear on the service.
PersonalShopper is intended to sell more print advertising and to extend the franchise’s value to readers and advertisers, says Robert Cauthorn, vice president of digital media at the Chronicle. For the first time, he says, the industry will be able to solicit advertising based on explicit information about what consumers want to buy, not just what advertisers want to sell.
Print sales staff receive reports describing the products and services sought by PersonalShopper users. No personal data will be revealed to advertisers.
During a year that requires innovative thinking by the gigabyte, SF Gate’s shopping tool is just one of the advertising programs to closely monitor. New York Times Digital promotes “Surround Sessions,” putting a sequential message from a single advertiser in front of site users as they navigate NYTimes.com. The Arizona Republic’s azcentral.com sells “interstitial ads” it inserts into the normal flow of content for a premium above the rate-card prices for banner ads. There will be more inventive ideas to track this year.
Back to Articles