Advertisers Shift to Measurability

By: Lucia Moses Whether it's Internet marketing or direct marketing, advertisers are shifting to methods that promise accountability and measurability. But most media are far from being able to deliver that.

"There's no way to predict how people are going to react to a message," says sales consultant Mike Blinder. "However, you can talk about how many people are going to be impacted by an ad."

But The Virginian-Pilot's Michael Lambert says he's "coming close" to creating a mathematical formula that will demonstrate a link between newspaper advertising and sales. It works like this: He takes the size of a newspaper's audience, then estimates what portion of its audience will respond to the ad, and, of that portion, what percentage will make a purchase. He multiplies that result by the advertiser's average sales price to come up with a number representing sales that could result from a given ad schedule.

"Advertisers don't care about the extent of the reach of your medium if it's not getting results," Lambert says. He is still testing his formula, but feels good about the response so far: "When we've presented it, and the numbers are relevant and cognizant, they lay down and they buy."

Other forward-thinking papers are using broadcast's tool against them. They're measuring their gross rating points for advertisers who want broad reach or target rating points to aim at a slice of the audience. Unlike readership, GRPs and TRPs -- expressed in reach multiplied by frequency of the message -- make for easier comparisons with radio and TV.

Reps at The Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune, a 27,531-circulation daily, started talking GRPs two years ago. "We got a lot of new business, and we kept that business," says Kristin Wilson, its advertising sales manager, who says the strategy helped overcome rate objections. At The San Diego Union-Tribune, instead of just talking newspaper advertising, reps use GRPs and TRPs to develop an overall media plan for the customer, says sales trainer John Goetz, "and they end up actually getting a larger share of the budget."