It's easy. Want to know who's getting real desperate? Just look at who's advertising in the trades for your 100% accurate litmus test to reveal who's desperate and who's not.
Remember our friends at Howard Stern's old radio station? They found the need to own every single page in the trades to cry (weakly and pathetically) that FREE FM was the way to go...that there was Life after the 30-second Howard. Ratings certainly demonstrated how right they were - to advertise (thou dideth protestest too muchest) in the first place and also the integrity and accuracy behind the message
Then there was our dear brethren at the Magazine Publishers' Association (yes, the same association that loves getting bitch-slapped by overpriced celebrities like Jon Stewart instead...but I digress) So the MPA enlisted Fallon I believe to convince us that many things will change in the future...including bathtubs that double-up as hovercrafts or trash that disintegrates on impact...and yet (drumroll please), people will still read magazines just the way they did it back in the familiar 20th Century. They'll giggle with joy as they find their me-time; their quiet place on the crapper as they seek out advertisements...especially those pharmaceutical ones with 50,000 disclaimers on the back of them. And if they get REAL lucky, they'll get a scratch 'n sniff or 3-D commercial.
And now, comes our sisters from the Newspaper Association of America, with their delightful Monty-Pythonesque campaign which just broke trade-wide.
With punchlines like: "What made freedom of the press so important to its founders? Maybe it was the coupons", can there be any doubt where you should be heaping all of your ad dollars?
Their tagline is "Newspaper advertising: A Destination, not a distraction" and while newspaper advertising is certainly less intrusive than television advertising, the only destination that resonates with newspapers is the trash can they end up in after the morning speed-reading commute.
I go back to my industry-wide challenge, "Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?" The solution is going to involve adapting to a changing consumer. Instead of going the route of creative 101, why not tell us about what you're doing with respect to blogging and podcasting? Why not advertise on blogs for that matter? Part of the problem here is the very traditional route you've chosen to go to market...it's predictable and it's reaching the lowest hanging fruit that arguably are fine and dandy doing things the way they've been doing them for the past 20-30 years.
You can even "view the ads" (print) on their minisite and when you do, you'll see pithy lines about people being as interested in jewelry advertising as political commentary, or automotive advertising above editorial. Of course that's true - but a) it's relative to only those who are celebrating anniversaries or looking to buy a car which is not all of us, and b) it ignores the fact that people are talking to one-another (word of mouth) and doing all their research online anyway and in doing so c) it insults the intelligence of everyone reading the ads in the first damn place.
I can hardly wait for the next trade campaign to break in the trades. Proceed at your own risk my friends.
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