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WEB DISPLAY ADS A DIME A DOZEN?
Hardly. But the print-to-online move is a Net gain for a number of papers. A little over a year ago, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times' Web publisher, Ronald Dupont Jr., laughed out loud when a vendor suggested the newspaper put its display ads online. He's not laughing today.
"It's instantly profitable," a repentant Dupont said. "It's part of our financial future." So much that display ads now prepresent a separate line item in his Web budget.
What once seemed, well, ludicrous (at least to the digirati), now is making a lot of sense, and more than a few cents, for print publishers, including Gannett Co. And there's a fierce battle among the vendors vying to own this space.
The genesis of the print-to-Web ad phenonmenon was in the classified pages, where some advertisers run display ads that include all their listings. Papers needed a way to include those listings in classified searches.
Now papers are moving beyond classifieds to all kinds of retail display ads, inserts, and special sections - giving all an extra life online. Pushing the trend along is the ease of explaining print-to-Web ads, said Paul Wolfe, vice president for newspaper sales at AdExpedia, Inc. in Chico, Calif. "You don't have to spend hours training your print sales reps to sell online advertising," he said. "They're still just selling the print ad with the bonus of getting that ad online." AdExpedia just signed a plum contract with San Jose, Calif.-based Knight Ridder, which will roll out the service to its newspapers this year.
Large metros and big chains are leading the way, but smaller papers are getting in on the action, too. On Jan. 1, The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Mass., put all of its display ads online using technology and hosting from Town-News.com of Moline, Ill. The 20,403-daily-circulation paper raised its rates 4%, with 1% credited to the online division. Michael Forgette, production supervisor and new-media manager, expects to reap six figures in additional revenue from the project by year's end.
And for not a lot of work, either. In most cases, newspapers only have to send their display ads to a vendor that does all the work and, in most cases, hosts the service for them. Depending on the paper and vendor, the file transfer can be automatic - at some papers, the production department might have to resave the ads in a different format before shipping to the ad-conversion vendor. "We spend about an hour a day doing quality control, so the bulk of that revenue is pure profit," said Lelani Bluner, director of multimedia product development for Irvine, Calif.-based Freedom Communication's Inc.'s Orange County division.
Depending on the vendor, a number of sophisticated features can be offered. Robert S. Cauthorn, the San Francisco Chronicle's digital media vice president, refers to the process as "fluffing" the print ads.
It all starts with a basic image of the display ad from the print product on a computer screen. The ad is then tweaked to take advantage of the Web's interactivity. Readers have the ability to enlarge pieces of the ad, including otherwise undecipherable fine print.
Automatic links to the advertiser's Web page or quick links with store directions can be added - along with an e-mail button allowing the consumer to instantly communicate with the advertiser directly. A virtual shopping list also can be added, allowing users to save items they're considering for later review. Some services even let the sign up for e-mail alerts about future sales.
While vendors don't like to publicly discuss their prices, it can cost a paper from $1 to $20 an ad for this service, depending on features and the volume of business. Papers are charging advertisers $35 to $100 an ad for the service, with some making it a forced buy as they issue new rate cards.
-- Carl Sullivan (csullivan@editorandpublisher.com) is online editor for E&P
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