Plan to Refocus MAPS Ad Program Approved by Board of Directors

"This is a first step toward getting MAPS back on track," said MDDC President Tom Schmidt. "In the coming weeks we will be putting together a formal plan and communicating with the membership so that by the time of the Board’s September 5 meeting, at the latest, we will have a final proposal ready to be acted upon," he said.

When established in 1996, the mission of the MAPS program was to attract more national and regional advertising to newspapers and keep current advertising from migrating to other media by offering advertisers and agencies a free one-order, one-bill placement service. By eliminating the difficulty of multiple-newspaper buys, the service encourages ad agencies to shift more of their media buys to newspapers. The placement service is funded by "holdbacks" (commissions) from the participating newspapers.

MAPS, which has placed more than $30 million of advertising in newspapers over the past five years, has been operating in the red for the past two years. The MAPS Working Group, composed of members of the Advertising Committee and the Board, has determined that a major reason for the shortfall is the current commission structure that determines how much the Association gets paid for its placements.

Last year, for example, MAPS placed $5.4 million of advertising but received commission on less than 40% of that business.

The MAPS plan approved by the Board at its April 26 meeting was an amended version of the recommendation presented by the Working Group. It calls for development of a business plan incorporating:

• a primary focus on pursuing state-wide business from state government agencies, business organizations, advocacy groups, etc.

• creation of a "state rate" program that would be attractive to the newspapers and to prospective customers (essentially a newspaper’s open retail rate grossed up15% for agency commission with a 10%commission on the net being paid by the newspapers to MAPS)

• maintaining the current 10% net commission for MAPS on all national/general business.

• establishing a 7% commission on new retail rate business. Currently MAPS places this business with member newspapers at no cost to the papers but at some expense to the Association. The Working Group stressed that MAPS has never actively pursued such accounts and would not do so under the new arrangement. Nevertheless, advertisers and agencies often request services like MAPS to place such business. "New business" was defined as any account a newspaper has not placed in the preceding 13 months.

• inclusion of a small "major account" fee to help compensate for occasional, labor-intensive, multi-million-dollar placement accounts.

The Board rejected a recommendation by the Working Group to include a 2% commission or handling fee on existing retail business

The Board instructed the Working Group and staff to develop a three-year business plan that will bring MAPS back to profitability; to refine the plan with the Board’s Executive Committee and the Working Group and to present a final proposal for implementation at its September 5 meeting.

"MAPS is a program that has brought considerable advertising revenue to many MDDC member newspapers," said Schmidt, president of Carroll Publishing Co. "Now we need to take the necessary steps to ensure that it continues to do so in the years ahead."

Working Group Chair Larry Effingham, publisher of The Star Democrat in Easton, said "MAPS is at a crossroads right now, and our intense study of the situation convinces us that this is the plan we need to move the program forward."

Both Schmidt and Effingham encouraged MDDC members to submit comments or views on the matter to them or to MDDC Executive Director Jim Donahue.