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to test new products
Network discounts buys across 1,200 newspapers
By Gabriel Spitzer
With every budget cutback, layoff and lousy earnings report, advertisers are becoming more and more allergic to risk.
Media buyers who might once have plunged ahead with a campaign for a new product now approach their buys fretting and toe-dipping before spreading client money around.
Normally, newspapers aren’t the first place media buyers turn in this situation.
Papers don’t readily evoke concepts like "precision."
They’re more likely to bring up words like "unwieldy" and "expensive" and "pain-in-the-butt."
But that may be destined to change.
A new online buying service called the Newspaper Test Network makes the case that the American newspaper is actually the perfect place to test a new product or campaign.
The service is set up to allow buyers to make efficient, targeted and inexpensive buys before going national.
"Part of the reason newspapers aren’t considered for these types of buys is that papers are thought of as difficult to deal with, expensive and cumbersome," says Chuck Boteler, an independent media buyer and founder of the Newspaper Test Network.
"This service streamlines the buying process, taking it down from hours and days to almost minutes."
The service, located online at NewspaperTest.com, does so by giving buyers and planners over 1,200 newspapers to choose from and allowing them to select their papers and complete the buy in one motion, working from their PCs.
Each of the papers participating in the Newspaper Test Network has agreed to pre-negotiated rates, generally 30 to 70 percent below rate card. This means not only substantial cost savings but the convenience of knowing upfront just what a buy will cost.
There is a catch, of course: The service is only available to advertisers trying out a new product or service for which they haven’t advertised in newspapers before.
This is not a giveaway program but one that's intended to bring new business to newspapers, which like all media, are suffering in the ad slowdown.
Crest, for instance, could not use the network to place ads for regular old Crest toothpaste. If, however, Crest wanted to try out a new, cherry-flavored toothpaste for kids, Crest could use the network to target the appropriate audience, run its ad and see how it plays.
"If media buyers or planners have in mind a particular geographic area to undertake a test-market campaign, they can go to the platform," says Boteler.
"You can select the papers you want in the states you want, and one of three ad sizes. Then you select your run dates and you’re done. It’s a very simple platform to use."
Add an 8.5 percent surcharge to cover operating expenses, and the entire buy is sealed with a single check to the Newspaper Test Network.
"They don’t have to find a lot of different rate cards, deal with many different account reps, multiple bills, multiple checks, tear sheets coming in from all different areas, let alone negotiating rates with each paper. It streamlines the whole process and funnels it all into one bill," says Boteler of the network, which launched in March.
The network’s member papers range from small, community publications to suburban dailies to marquee metro papers like the New York Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Boston Globe and the Miami Herald.
Louise Guryan is the media director at Media Connection, a strategic buying service based in Seattle.
"The first time we used it, we had a financial client who needed to test the market in southern California.
"We had a little budget and we knew we wanted to go to suburban papers. We put it through the test plan, and we came out with a lot more coverage than we would have otherwise," says Guryan.
"I was looking to really test that market, so besides the usual suspects, we wanted to test the little papers. It takes a long time to do suburban papers, so this was very efficient for us."
Besides streamlining what was once an impossibly clunky and time-consuming process, Guryan says the money makes sense, too.
"We got much better rates than we could have gotten with a one- or two-time test. We think we got a very good read on the market," she says.
Getting a read on the market before committing major money is becoming more important as ad budgets shrink.
"In this day and age, when budgets are tightened and planners and buyers are more responsible for seeing that their buys are efficient, they should do more test marketing before they spend millions of dollars on a buy," says Boteler.
"There are a lot of buyers and planners out there that have a template way of doing things, and agencies need to start being a little more precise. They need to get the confidence of the clients. Rather than doing it at expensive national rates, this allows them to see how they do in print at a discount."
Boteler is quick to point out that he is not shilling for newspaper publishers. The service is independent but clearly benefits the papers by introducing new business.
"There are a lot of ways to buy media online out there, but this is by far one of the simplest. It gives people a nice reason to try print again."
June 18, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
- Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.
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