By: Lucia Moses Advertisers Move Quickly To Reach Minorities, Women
What publisher doesn't want to reverse circulation declines while raising profits? The
Newspaper Association of America (NAA) says they can do that by tapping often
underexploited diverse and niche markets.
At its convention in New York this week, the NAA presented a series of tools - GOLD:
Growth Opportunities by Leveraging Diversity - designed to help newspapers build
diversity into their business strategies. The NAA cited three papers, the San Jose
(Calif.) Mercury News, Providence (R.I.) Journal, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
that developed ethnic and special-interest papers or altered their marketing strategies
to successfully reach more minorities and working women.
'If we are to remain the medium of choice, we must respond swiftly, as advertisers are
moving quickly to reach these markets, and many of them are not using newspapers,' said
Toni Laws, the NAA's senior vice president/diversity and NAA Foundation.
In its research, Vienna, Va.-based NAA found that newspaper executives often are aware of
the need to reach diverse markets, but are consumed by short-term goals, eroding market
share, and increasing financial pressure, said Chris Mahai, president of clavm inc.,
Minneapolis, who helped conduct the NAA study that led to the techniques.
In some cases, newspaper executives are reluctant to change a longstanding business model,
or - erroneously - don't think diverse markets are important to their advertisers, Laws
and Mahai said.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here