Ad Buyer To Publishers: 'Don't Cheap Out On Editorial'

By: Mark Fitzgerald Bottom-line oriented publishers who chop away at their paper's news content are undermining their business, an executive with the big media planning firm Newspaper Services of America told the Inland Press Association at its annual meeting Monday.

"Don't let your CFOs run your companies," Dave Gusse said. "Don't cheap out on editorial."

Gusse directs the Safeway and Mervyn's Department Stores accounts for Newspaper Services of America. He had plenty of specific advice for newspapers on how to land more advertising from those stores -- such as allowing stores to buy into TMC (total market coverage) products by ZIP Code -- but he returned repeatedly to the theme of editorial content and quality as a driver of advertising business.

"Unfortunately, in the last 10 years, certainly editorial has not become as much of a focus," Gusse said. "Unfortunately, in many chains, the CFO has taken over. And as editorial goes, unfortunately, so goes circulation."

Advertisers now have alternative media they can use, Gusse noted, including shared- and direct mail programs that offer "cleaner" ZIP Code and even sub-ZIP Code buys.

"For many of our advertisers, what separates you from the shared-mail products is your editorial content," Gusse told the Inland publishers. Inland's 120th annual meeting concludes Tuesday afternoon in Chicago.

On the advertising front, Gusse said he had noted a "disturbing trend" among newspapers that offer TMC products: the products are zoned by ZIP Code -- but big retailers such as Mervyn's or Safeway are offered the choice of buying all the ZIP Codes, or none of them.

In the San Francisco Bay area, that is forcing Safeway to advertise through Advo, the shared-mail firm.

Ultimately, newspapers must offer a quality news product that makes people want to subscribe, Gusse said. He added he was speaking as a reader, as well as a media planner and buyer.

"I love reading newspapers, myself," he said, "and I hate seeing editorial be run down."