By: Mark Fitzgerald An advertising promotion The Citizens' Voice in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., created nine years ago to bump up typically sluggish summer linage has grown into a phenomenon that creates Thanksgiving-sized papers in the dog days of August.
On "Advertiser Appreciation Day," advertisers get a full-page ad for a little bit more than half the normal price. Almost from the beginning, the campaign swelled issues to more than 100 pages.
"It's not nuclear science," Citizens' Voice Advertising Director Mark A. Altavilla said in a telephone interview, "but it's been a lot of success for us."
In another indication of it popularity, this year's Advertising Appreciation Day will actually run for three consecutive days: Tuesday Aug. 2 through Thursday Aug. 4.
"We're doing it as much as anything to control the flow of advertising," Altavilla said. "And from a readership point of view, all those ads can be kind of overwhelming." The first appreciation days were always a Thursday, he said, and some advertisers were interested in different days.
During the promotion, advertisers can buy a full-page ad that normally runs from $1,000 to $1,200 for about $550. The earlier advertisers sign on, the better a rate they get.
While the promotion may sound like a loyalty program, it's not--first-time advertisers are welcome to take out full-page ads, too.
But the Citizens' Voice does encourage repeat business by offering Appreciation Days advertisers a 10% discount on full-page ads that run during the rest of August.
"It gives you a bump in August, when you normally wouldn't have that bump," Altavilla said. Advertisers range from the seasonal businesses such as retailers hawking back-to-school sales, to those just looking to take advantage of a bargain, he added.
The Citizens' Voice is running just ahead of a pretty aggressive budget, Altavilla said. It enjoyed a "wonderful" first quarter, and a satisfactory second quarter. But Advertiser Appreciation Days is something everyone on the paper looks forward to, he adds.
"From the point of view of the paper's ego," Altavilla said, "it's great to put out a paper as thick as it is on Thanksgiving."
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