Cozying Up to Youth p.

By: Tony Case

The venerable and staid New York Times is reaching out to
twentysomething media buyers in uncharacteristic ways sp.

NOT SO LONG ago, the word "change" was Greek to the venerable and staid New York Times.
But soon the Old Gray Lady will become a brilliant kaleidoscope when some of her sections appear in full-color, and the newspaper plans to open not one but two high-tech printing facilities.
News pages reflect an increased awareness of minority and women's issues, and Page One headlines now say "gay" instead of the long-preferred "homosexual."
Even the executive suite has had a changing of the guard?and the new publisher, like President Clinton, is younger than the Rolling Stones.
Clearly, the hallowed halls of this institution have seen a spate of technological, editorial and executive changes of late, but the advertising side?not exactly defined in the past for its willingness to bend?has also shifted gears.
To tap new revenue sources and build on an already successful national advertising base, the newspaper has worked vigorously to forge relationships with some of Madison Avenue's most prominent ad agencies, among them Grey Advertising, Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam.
One way it has attempted to gain access to the agencies is by cozying up to their young media buyers, an important link between the newspaper and advertisers because they arrange the ad schedules and can influence a company to use the Times.
To bring these upstarts?most of whom are twentysomething?into the fold, the Times has given them subscriptions, sponsored luncheons and creative workshops, and thrown some uncharacteristically wacky shindigs.
The site of last year's Halloween party was a theater prop house, replete with tombstones, bubbling cauldrons, dancing monsters and thumping, hip-hop music?a far cry from the stuffy atmosphere that has come to define Times functions.
That fete attempted to paint the Times as approachable, not forbidding, according to Robert S. Czufin, managing director of advertising for media, agency relations and books.
"We're looking to reinforce our relationship with younger people in the industry, which is an initiative that we have really emphasized over the last year," he said.
To demonstrate its approachability, the Times has also literally opened its doors to agency people by inviting them to its midtown Manhattan headquarters for professional and social conclaves.
"Getting them over, walking them down the Pulitzer hallway [where the Times displays its 65 Pulitzer Prizes], being able to engage them in conversation and talk a little bit about the industry . . .
is a little less formal," Czufin explained. "It's something that we think works, and we would like to do a series of these in 1993 in different areas and on different topics."
Last December, the Advertising Club of New York sponsored an exercise for young media buyers at the Times building, where non-creatives could try their hand at designing ad campaigns.
During the three-hour session, which was conducted by Kevin O'Neill of the agency Lintas:New York, around 50 participants were divided into groups and instructed to create a faux newspaper advertisement for IBM's new personal computer.
Dan Balsam, an assistant account executive with Grey Advertising, related, "As an account person, I don't get too involved in the creative aspect of the business, so it was fun to get a taste of layout and page placement and so on."
Balsam says he came away with "a good impression" of the Times. "Everyone seemed friendly, and happy to have young people around. It's nice that they hosted it."
Melissa Bourestom, an assistant account executive with Franklin Spier, called the workshop "well-organized" and "educational," adding that she returned to work the following morning with a real appreciation for the copywriters and art directors she works with every day.
Such programs are "a good opportunity to meet people, do some informal networking, and see what goes on at your level at other agencies," she said.
They also give Bourestom and her peers the chance to meet folks from the Times and the newspaper's people the opportunity to mingle with the young pros who will direct the advertising industry in the next century.
"Obviously, these are the people getting in on the ground floor, but at least some of them are going to be in the business 20 years from now," Bourestom observed. "You've got to think long term and look down the road because the younger end of the business is the future."
Gary Levine, a managing partner with Levine Associates in Ossining, N.Y., looks to such events to build his skills, get the inside scoop on the industry, and consort with agency people like himself, but he says it was an added benefit that the Times hosted the function because he was able to make contacts in the newspaper's ad department.
The Times, he believes, "can further enhance its image and be of community service to the advertising world" by sponsoring these workshops.
The Times keeps the agencies thinking about the newspaper on a daily basis by sending complimentary subscriptions to 1,000 young media buyers at 15 key agencies.
"Younger people in the agencies today haven't necessarily been brought up as a newspaper generation, with television and MTV and things like that, so this is a way to introduce our product to those that may not be getting it with any sort of regularity, and give it to them every morning," said Donald E. Melanson, advertising sales manager, agency relations.
Although many agency people?from CEOs on down?regularly tote the Times to work each day, "They weren't using it to a degree that we feel they should in behalf of their clients," Melanson related. "We felt that if we showed them the paper, opened it up and redirected their attention to it . . . then prepared the ground to make it more accommodating to national advertisers, we would start being able to grow more national advertising."
There was a time when change did not come so easily to the newspaper industry. Ad departments had become used to playing order-taker; for the most part, they simply sat back while ad dollars poured in.
In recent years, however, as revenues have faltered, newspapers have regrouped. Now they listen intently to their advertisers, and they are eager as never before to satisfy their needs.
In the mid-1980s when the Times began its agency relations program, it already had more national advertising than any other newspaper in the country, according to Melanson.
Then retailers such as Macy's and Bloomingdale's each were spending in excess of $2 million annually on advertising in the Times, he said, and the newspaper was "just out the kazoo" with real estate ads as developers constructed luxury condominiums and office towers all over town.
The Times realized, however, that the go-go years would someday be gone, and the newspaper wanted to be in a solid position to compete with other media and keep its national advertising segment healthy.
Under the direction of Lance Primis, then executive vice president and general manager of the newspaper and now president and chief operating officer of the New York Times Co., the Times began to approach the agencies.
"In order for the newspaper to grow 10, 15, 20 years beyond, we were going to have to develop national advertising," Melanson said. "Always broadcasting is there, always cable is there?the big numbers, the glamour, the glitz?and you've got to be constantly at it . . . enticing them with what you've got. It's tough out there."
The ad department began by setting up meetings with agency people to educate them about what the Times had to offer; as a result, the newspaper has cultivated an impressive coterie of agency contacts over the years, Czufin related.
Czufin, a 35-year veteran of the Times, says he is encouraged by the newspaper's new attitude.
"Not too many years ago, I think a lot of us around here weren't very good listeners, and I think today we realize that listening is a very important part of the sales process," Czufin said.
"We've got to be flexible nowadays, and we've got to be willing to do things that some years ago we would never consider doing. Now it's a different ballgame. We're not selling ads, we're selling ideas."
Bourestom related that Franklin Spier, which buys large amounts of ad space in the Times for book publishers such as Little, Brown and Co. and Avon Books, has had an excellent working relationship with the newspaper.
Recently, a publisher she represents wanted to create a full-page ad in a short time, Bourestom recalled. "We were concerned that the client was happy, and that the Times would have the space available. I felt that I could really be honest with their people, and they really worked with us."
Czufin and Melanson are obviously pleased with the success of the agency relations effort, and they say they are enthusiastic about expanding it. Immediate goals include establishing agency contacts in markets outside New York, making a major presentation in the spring to the agencies' creative element that includes an orientation on the Times' color capability, and keeping the agencies abreast of new Times ventures.
So many tasks for a team of two is "a hell of a tall order," Czufin admits, "but it's fun."
Czufin believes that what has worked for the Times can work for other newspapers, and he is heartened that representatives of publications such as the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post have approached him for information about the Times program.
"The more newspapers that we can get to care about agencies, care about the way they think, care about helping them," he determined, "the better off it is for everybody."