MediaPost's Real Media Riff's column today caught my eye. Now that my career is taking me back into the online world and more specifically into the only advertising world, I'm paying more attention to a whole host of different things. MP essentially laid out ten things that print ad providers need to do in order to get their act together and keep the ball rolling. I offer these items, taken from this article, along with my commentary. What amuses the hell out of me is that there are many industries that just as clueless when it comes to customer focus. I mean, how freaking hard is it to simply give your customers at least a little of what they want.

1 - Help marketers understand print's cause/effect contribution to generating results and building brands long-term. You'd think we'd have this down cold by now. If a print advertiser wants to become anything more than rubish, you need to partner with your customers and get them value-added analysis that helps them to make decisions in your favor.

2 - Give us issue specific circulation and cumulative data that shows how an audience builds over time. By doing business reviews with your customers, you could head off those pesky "holy shit, we can't afford to do anything with you this year" moments when they have to cut somewhere. Be there for them, and customers will be there for you.

3 - Give us reader involvement insights that help us understand the unique connections publications have with readers. Target marketing!

4 - Tap into the creative energy that permeates editorial pages, and give advertisers some new, innovative, branded ways to sponsor publications. Custom publishing is what I remember this being called... This is why advertising on very niche websites and blogs (and RSS feeds) is going to be so powerful because it's all about getting creative with tieing into the content.

5 - Reduce the long lead times to secure space and submit materials to monthly magazines. Patience with a sense of urgency. There is competitive advantage in speed and time to market.

6 - This one's for agencies. Find new, cost efficient ways for us to test print creative - and to test more frequently. And...publish your findings!!! Again, adding unique value takes you slowly out of 'also ran' status and puts you in a unique and special place in your customer's wallet.

7 - This one's also for agencies. Raise the creative bar. Put some of your senior talent on print advertising. We want intelligent, visually exciting breakthrough print campaigns. Don't we all. Stormy Simon of Overstock.com was telling a story at this year's Internet Retailer conference about how, ironically, 3 seperate agencies came to her with almost EXACTLY the same idea for commercial spots. Idiots. None of them got the job. Overstock did it themselves (much, much better than some cheezy agency) and introduced Sabine Ehrenfeld as an icon.

8 - Either justify or end the practice of bleed charges. This goes for anything in any industry. Or do on an account-by-account basis based on risk of losing business. Customers have become very cynical to 'surcharges' that are really just hidden, long-term price hikes. Stop fucking around and just raise your prices if you need the cashflow. Honestly...

9 - Either justify or end the practices of surcharges for national newspaper advertising in local editions.

10 - Get with the digital program. Print media should be the leaders - not the followers - in this exciting realm.

Thank you Dana, for telling me who stars in the Overstock ads. I have Google Image-searched "Sabine Ehrenfeld" and am the better man for it. Here's to guilty pleasures!

Bottoms up,
Harry

PS - A fine post, BTW.