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Now
a veteran of 86 years in business, the O-Jib-Wa Vitamin Co.
had this advertising contract with The Journal in 1918.
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Newspapers get creative in high-tech times
By
Jamie Kelly
Journal
Advertising Writer
The American genius for advertising was coming
into full swing when The Flint Journal was founded 125 years ago.
Advertising:
the ‘Moral problems’
In
1976, when The Journal took stock of its advertising department
for the special Centennial section, business writer Ed Conaway
examined the “moral problems” of advertising, such as rejecting
exorbitant claims in ads.
He also remarked upon the issue of the day: advertising for
X-rated movies (which played at drive-ins and cinemas in that
pre-VCR era). The Detroit News would not accept such ads,
he said, but The Journal ran some, if the movie were not “lasciviously
titled or pictured.”
Advertised that same week in The Journal — on the same page
as G-rated fare such as Disney’s “No Deposit, No Return” —
were “Anyone But My Husband” at the Royal, “Hot Summer in
the City” at the Sceen drive-in, and “Diary of a Bed, rated
XXXXX” accompanied by this mixed-message warning: “If you
would be disturbed by very explicit scenes of full disclosure
of the private side of married life, please do not see this
film.”
—
adapted from
a Centennial report
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In
the earliest copy of The Journal known to be in existence, advertising
takes up much of the front page — a practice The Journal has long
since abandoned.
In those early days, a changing economy was expanding the realm
of advertising.
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Jamie
Kelly
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According
to a 1990 history of American advertising, the need to mass-produce
uniforms and shoes drew women out of the home to work in factories.
Their income created a whole new market of consumers who had never
bought ready-made goods. Women began buying bread from grocers and
clothing off the rack without feeling like inadequate homemakers,
said authors Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple in “Advertising
in America: The First 200 Years.”
Post-Civil War advertising played a huge role in the introduction
of new products such as the electric light bulb, radio and, eventually,
television.
In most cases, advertising sold products consumers were getting
along just fine without. Advertising helped justify spending money
to make life easier and more entertaining. As is the case today,
it was necessary for companies to spend a great deal on advertising
in order to profit from mass production.
Today, contrary to many predictions, newspapers are surviving the
Internet age — not that it’s easy going.
Wendy Brimley, Journal retail advertising manager, said the world
of advertising is vastly changed from even 10-20 years ago. Then,
she said, “the first thing a business did (when it opened) was to
call the local newspaper. ... Now, it may be on their mind, but
there are so many other selections.”
She said cable television, targeted mailings — by ZIP code and even
delivery route — and a proliferation of telephone directories have
narrowed The Journal’s slice of the advertising pie. The Internet,
too, takes a bite, although The Journal also offers online ads through
its Michigan Live affiliate.
“That
takes a lot of dollars from in our market,” she said of the competition.
“We have to be sharper; we have to hone our skills.”
But newspapers can gain, too, from high-tech advertisers. In December
1999, Editor and Publisher reported, IBM spent an estimated $2.8
million for a 32-page insert in some newspapers nationwide, geared
toward e-business owners and executives.
The magazine quoted Steve Hayden, an advertising executive at Ogilvey
and Mather:
“The
irony is that the Internet, which was supposed to kill off all traditional
media, has proven to be the biggest boon for traditional media advertising.”
Technology also allows The Journal to provide retailers with marketing
demographics data and household counts that would be nearly impossible
to compile without today’s technology.
Computer software makes it easier to arm sales representatives with
easy-to-read information on population, income, age and other characteristics
about local people and businesses.
“Today,
we can tell a client not only how many people live in an area, we
can tell them the income and age breakdowns and much more,” said
Pat L. Goss, a sales representative in the classified department.
He started working at The Journal in 1952, and said changing technology
through the years has meant new jobs and new ways of doing jobs.
“Our
credibility skyrocketed as we could tell clients so much more about
their market,” he said.
Projects such as one in April 1995 helped an advertiser, Carl Appliances,
find potential customers by profiling his current customers. The
marketing staff analyzed his customer mailing list to learn who
was behind the addresses and predicted who could be likely customers.
The Journal advertising department sees itself as not just a sales
force, but as a partner in business with advertisers. Retailers
count on ad staffers to educate them on how to communicate with
customers.
Flint-area businesses also have recognized dual benefits of advertising.
They realize they must position themselves in the mind of the consumer,
whether for profit or image.
For example, many local business ad dollars are supporting an “advertorial,”
or advertising-based, special section in May about Catholic Charities
of Shiawassee and Genesee Counties, a social service agency.
John S. Suhler, president and co-chief executive officer of Veronis
Suhler, a media merchant bank, has analyzed media for more than
three decades and advises many of the world’s leading media companies.
He calls newspaper advertising “a business that has got good, solid,
dependable growth in its future.”
Journal New Media Manager Mary Ann Chick Whiteside contributed to
this report. Advertising writer Jamie Kelly started at The Journal
in 1983. She can be reached at (810) 766-6289 or jkelly@flintjournal.com.
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