| Issue 5 If Your Goal is Offering Advertisers Maximum Exposure - Are Pre-Packaged Inserts the Best Way? |
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Advertisers
buy space or pay for inserts to sell products and services. They want
maximum exposure. The challenge to the newspapers who sell the advertising
is how best to deliver that exposure.
Collating all the inserts into a single plastic wrap, which is then inserted into the newspaper or distributed along with it, seems like a quick and efficient way to get the job done. But does this make it the best way? No! If the quick and easy way does not achieve the desired purpose, then it clearly is not the best way. In the case of inserts, their purpose – at least from the advertiser’s point of view – is getting the reader to look at the ads. Simple enough. But let’s be honest. If all the inserts were in a single bag, it would be all too convenient to take them out of the paper and discard them … without even a single glance at them. Isn’t that what most of us would do? Certainly this is not what the advertiser expects. Thus, the quick and easy way is not the best way. What if the inserts were interleaved with the rest of the paper? This means the reader must make a conscious effort to remove them from the paper. He must at least look at them, and – the advertisers hope – a particular product or offering just might catch his eye, encourage him to look at the insert more closely and – even better – purchase the product or service! Isn’t this exactly the result the advertiser, who is paying for this service, expects? No argument there: meeting the advertiser’s expectations is an important objective. There’s at least one more argument against packaging all the inserts together: security. Certain practices, ranging from unethical behavior to downright fraud, target bulk quantities of coupons. In one scenario, a person or organization collects large quantities of coupons, which are then sold in bulk over the Internet or via other avenues. In the most fraudulent version of this practice, a dummy corporation is set up to return the coupons – coupons which were never used to purchase products – to the issuing vendors in order to collect sizeable refunds. In other words, while packaging all the inserts together in a single bag not only makes stuffing easier downstream, it makes fraud easier and more efficient because it has reduced the effort to collect the coupons! In addition, there are incidents of bulk coupon dealers actually stealing the inserts from vending machines. See the pattern? When inserts are interleaved, the would-be crooks must use a little more effort to separate the inserts from the paper and pilfer the coupons, making for an economically less attractive scheme. Clearly, interleaving inserts throughout the paper reduces the temptation to traffic coupons in a way that frustrates the intent of the advertiser. Will pre-packaged inserts give advertisers maximum exposure for their ads? Don’t bet on it – unless the intended buyer is looking for bulk. (Read Neglect, Greed and Indifference.)
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