Newspaper co-op ads touted as a way to get reluctant retailers in p. 15

By: M.L. Stein

TRADITIONALLY RELUCTANT retail newspaper advertisers like Wal-Mart can be brought into the fold through partnership selling with their vendors, said panelists at a workshop session during the annual Newspaper Association of America convention in San Francisco.
Mike Busse, co-op/new business development manager for the Los Angeles Times, said the co-op idea has worked with Wal-Mart and can be effective with other businesses.
Currently, Busse said, Wal-Mart, through its vendor, Ortho and Central Garden Supply, is running ads in over 100 West Coast Markets in small and medium-size newspapers.
The placement is possible, he said, because of a co-op one order/one bill system known as Dealer Newspaper Advertising Systems (DNAS). The advertising is paid for by the supplier.
According to Busse, manufacturers such as Kodak, Panasonic and Mitsubishi also have used this system. He emphasized that simply having a newspaper co-op department that assists retailers in preparing co-op ads is not enough to snare non-advertisers like Wal-Mart.
"We must help them with a revenue source," he said. "We must include funding proposals in our sales presentations. The alternative funding source is the retailer's vendors, be they manufacturers or distributors."
A second panelist, Virginia Moorhouse, publisher of the Bakersfield Californian, said her paper has been successful in developing new business with Wal-Mart and other retailers through the partnership arrangement in the past five years.
In the first year of partnership selling, advertising dollars increased 42%. Over the five years, the dollars billed through co-op have grown 192%, she said.
"Through experience, we have found that the more attention we give to co-op business development with retailers like Wal-Mart, the better the returns," Moorhouse said. "The media that present the most creative and user-friendly means to obtain these dollars will get them."
In the case of the Californian, the paper does all the preliminary work. The retailer simply sends the ad bill to the vendor and collects the money.
The extra work by the paper's sales staff not only increases co-op advertising dramatically, but the reps build important relationships with retailers, the publisher said.