The following is a guest post by Jenna Bruce.
I had one of those experiences the other day that made me feel old and irrelevant. I was standing in line at Walmart behind a mother and her little girl of about 9 years. The girl noticed my cell phone but didn’t recognize it as an actual cell phone because it’s not a fancy smartphone like her mother and the rest of the world has. It’s just an old, reliable LG flip phone I’ve had for almost 10 years.
My phone has been dropped in snow banks and puddles multiple times and accidentally slammed in a car door. Though the outside screen no longer shows numbers and there is a
crack in the bottom where the charger plugs in, the phone still works great even after all this abuse. I can make and receive calls, text and check my email, and that’s about all I need my cell phone to do.
Compare this to my friends’ smartphones that run into myriad problems after only a few months of use and, I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m an idiot for relying on something that has consistently given me the results I need.
Newspapers were once the darlings of the advertising world, but with the advent of radio, television and, most recently, the World Wide Web, newspapers are now considered the old flip phones of the media landscape. But you want to know something? Newspapers work, and they work really well at delivering brand messaging to a target audience.
Here are a few reasons why smart companies are still advertising in newspapers:
Reach
No other medium has the reach of newspapers. Nationally, nearly100 million adults read a newspaper either online or in print on an average weekday, and more than 110 million read a Sunday newspaper. According to Scarborough Research, 7 in 10 adults read a newspaper or visit a newspaper website on any given week.
Newspapers Aren’t Intrusive
Today’s consumers no longer wish to be force-fed messaging. They instead wish to seek out advertising on their own terms. Because of this, newspapers are the medium of choice for shoppers in an average week. According to research conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates
in 2011, 52% of shoppers use newspapers, which exceeds television usage (36%) and online ads (11%).
Perceived Value
Newspaper advertising has been a proven valuable commodity to readers time and time again. Shoppers prefer seeing retail advertising in newspapers and use newspapers to compare prices and make purchasing decisions. Consumers have often stated they find newspapers to be the most trustworthy, believable, and up-to-date medium by far.
Quick Delivery
Advertising in newspapers offers one of the fastest turnaround times, thanks to extremely short deadlines that allow ads to be created and run in a matter of days.
Newspapers allow you to schedule a campaign around your key selling cycle and short lead times make it possible to refine your message rapidly to respond to real-world events and opportunities.
Flexibility
Newspapers offer advertisers great flexibility in design, placement, content and frequency. Ads can be almost any shape and size and can even include wraparounds. You want color to make your ad pop? That’s not a problem either.
Just the Right Mix
Advertisers seeking to elaborate their brand message should consider using a mixed media approach. By combining online ads with traditional media such as newspapers, advertisers get the highest penetration within their target demographic.
To those of you who still use flip phones (all six of you) because they are reliable and get the job done, I commend you. To those of you looking for a reliable media channel that can also get the job done, consider advertising in the good ol’ newspaper.
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