March 1998

Advertising Department Update By Chuck Boteler, Advertising Manager JCPenney's Switch ... JCPenney recently announced that it will turn over the placement function for its preprint and corporate advertising to Newspaper Services of America (NSA) by the end of summer. Since late last year, such placements have been handled by state press associations, including MDDC. The California Newspaper Publishers Association's advertising subsidiary, CNN, spearheaded the arrangement with Penney's, which originally proved to be a favorable situation for Penney's and newspapers across the country. The ability to consolidate the placement and billing functions helped JCPenney's a great deal. Penney's believes that press associations have provided excellent service, communications and savings. Now, however, Penney's has cited the inability of state press associations to provide contract negotiations and rate concessions as the major reason for engaging NSA. At press time, CNN was meeting with Penney's in Dallas to discuss the transition to NSA. MDDC Political NetworkÉ The MDDC Ad Placement Service (MAPS) is pursuing political advertising business for the upcoming gubernatorial and congressional elections. Eighty-five newspapers serving Maryland readership have been worked into a single statewide buy. Also, MAPS will be selling advertising based on congressional districts to any candidate wishing to use print to reach his or her constituency. Newspapers as a whole have not fared well in getting campaign dollars, aside from local elections. MAPS will work to make the educated, involved newspaper reader a prime target for these political budgets. Total circulation for a single ad throughout the state will exceed 2.3 million with the MAPS Political Network. Feel free to direct any campaign managers seeking wide-scale coverage to the one order, one check efficient service of MAPS. Partnership, part 2É For months now, MAPS has been talking about a referral bonus plan. Well, it's now in place. Any newspaper representative who senses that an advertising client needs help placing ads in multiple newspapers in the state, region or country, can tell this client about MAPS, fill out an easy referral form, and make his or her newspaper eligible for up to half of MAPS applicable commission earned for the first 60 days of business. Call me at the Association office if you have any questions about the details of the plan or if you need a referral form. Beware of Ad ScamsÉ Although the MDDC classified and 2x2 networks routinely research any new advertisers or complaints to the network, once in a while a new scam pops up. You should be aware of one that has been reported in the Northeast lately. Pretending to be a local business, a company going by the name of IFA, ISB or IAS will call in a classified ad to a newspaper, listing a bogus local address and a local telephone number. Then it will call back and add an 800 number to the ad. The local number turns out to be a fax number of an unsuspecting local business, so the caller invariably then calls the 800 number. After calling the 800 number, the customer is subjected to a high-pressure sales pitch for computer software that will enable the customer to work at home doing billings or bookeeping. Unfortunately, the local person's fax number is tied up for days and creates ill will with the newspapers. If you are aware of a similar ploy used through newspapers, let us know and we'll tell others. Back to March 1998 index

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