For several months, the Newspaper Association of America has offered a series of free, downloadable print and digital ads that papers can run. The ads mostly talk to readers but are actually subversively directed at advertisers.
Newspapers are not in trouble. They just think they’re in trouble and these ads just reinforce that idea with them, their readers, and their advertisers. They do not inspire confidence.
Newspapers, like all media, are in the eyeball selling business. It doesn’t matter if those eyeballs are looking at column inches or pixels — just as long as those inches or pixels are filled with good content.
I’m offering this version of one of these ads that any newspaper can use for free.
(Click the ad for a larger version to read the copy.)
Chris Houchens is a marketing speaker and the author of Brand Zeitgeist. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
The “top market” newspapers ARE in trouble with falling circ and ad revenues resulting in drastic declines in profits.
The NAA is primarily funded by these “top market” corporate giants and multi-market wannabes so naturally they have extrapolated the data to apply to all newspapers.
Your parody is spot on. Nice job.
Newspaperproject.org does a better job of highlighting why it makes sense to advertising in newspaper.
Suburban Newspapers of America does a nice job of explaining how their newspapers are different than the behemoths.