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Notes from the Advertising Director
We’ve been working with a number of agencies to develop
community newspaper plans over the course of the last month, with a few of them
already having evolved into large campaigns.
This activity suggests that community newspapers continue to be viewed
as vital cogs for large advertisers.
A lot of the current activity relates specifically to
accounts in the agricultural sector.
While it’s hard to say at this point whether or not that can be
attributed to the purchase/release of the Ipsos Agriculture Communications
Review, what we do know for sure is that our website analytics confirm a high
traffic flow to the Ipsos data on our website.
We are also in the midst of ‘renegotiating’ volume contracts
with our key clients in our automotive and federal gov’t sectors. Our goal at this point with the automotive
accounts is to preserve our 2012 rates as best we can. Indications are, the automotive accounts have
been successful in achieving significant rate decreases from our colleagues on
the corporate side which makes our job that much more challenging.
I have also had some preliminary discussions and made a
preliminary proposal to Cossette Media for their client PWGSC (Federal
Gov’t). The current agreement expired on
March 31, 2013 and sees volume discounts of 18% honoured in AB and SK and 12%
in MB. These levels are down from the
22%, 20% and 14% VIP levels in 2011, which, in combination with annual rate
increases saw the Federal Gov’t account rates increase by 7-10% in our current
agreement. The new proposal is based on
further scaling back decreases to 15%, 15% and 8% to better align with
volumes. Factor in the 2013 rate
increases and we’re essentially proposing absolute rate increases of between
10-12% with our 2013 contract.
I will be travelling to Ottawa on April 30 and have arranged
a meeting with the Director of Advertising Coordination and Partnerships for
PWGSC for May 1 to discuss the future role of community newspapers in the
governments overall advertising strategy.
I will follow up this meeting with a meeting with the Agency of Record
on May 3 in Quebec City.
Manitoba NDP Caucus
Presentation
I, along with the MCNA board of directors, participated in a
presentation to the NDP caucus of the Manitoba Government in February.
From my perspective, I felt the meeting was successful and
that our objective of promoting the continued strength of the community
newspapers industry was well-received.
In fact it was noted by Premier Selinger at the conclusion of the
meeting that the message was ‘heard loud and clear.’
Advertising
Coordinator Recruiting
A shortlist of candidates has been developed for the AdWest
Advertising Coordinator role. The goal
is to have the position filled within the next month barring anything
unforeseen.
AdWest has operated for the past year without a full time
Advertising Coordinator having made the conscious decision to re-allocate that
budget into 3-4 critical areas including website development, application
enhancements and marketing. With those
initiatives now complete we feel comfortable in shifting some available budget
back into staffing.
By re-integrating the Advertising Coordinator back into the
equation, we will be better equipped to allow Jeff and Crystal’s efforts to focus
on client outreach (meetings, presentations, events etc.) as the day-to-day
tasks of managing projects, client requests and their moving parts can be
shifted back to a full-time dedicated resource.
New Initiatives for
2013
We are currently working on the development of two
initiatives that serve the dual purpose of increasing revenues for members AND offer
the potential to provide AdWest with a sustainable source of ancillary funding. We’ll have more to report on these
initiatives in the coming months.
Publishers Report
Activity in Q1 of 2013 has been significant. Client activity
has been strong across a number of verticals, notably agriculture, retail,
automotive and financial. Compelling evidence points to the newly developed
AdWest tools and the effective use of third-party research on the AdWest
website contributing to this motion in the first quarter. Specifically, web
traffic results and the shear number of ‘unsolicited’ requests from agencies
for research and quotes support this correlation.
This is not to underestimate the strong and solid
relationships that all of us at AdWest professionally maintain and grow. The
immutable knowledge we can deliver to agencies that community newspapers are
strong and thriving certainly facilitates the ease of our relationships.
Client Activity
- Federal
Government contract negotiations
- Bayer Velocity multi-title
proposal (SK and MB) geo-targeted by key community
- Milligan BioTech
targeting key communities in Alberta's Peace Country
- Koodoo Wireless
location openings
-
FP Genetics
targeting newspapers with density of canola farming activity
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Agency change
involving one of our key accounts, Western Financial Group, required a revamped
analysis all community newspaper markets on the prairies
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Xplornet
facilitating rates, bonuses and contract details region-wide
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Chrysler 2013
contract negotiations
-
Monsanto multi-market,
region-wide quote
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Dairy Farmers of
Canada proposal with geo-targeting of dairy farm communities, targeted flyer
delivery, ROP, Wraps
-
Telus Mobility
(and Telus Mobility ‘Phones for Good’) quotes (SK & MB)
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Sears Travel research
of leisure travellers (package travel tours) with radius mapping
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Servus Credit
Union – Market Analyzer research on RRSP contributions
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Mark’s by FSA communities
served research (AB & SK)
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RBC Insurance 10km
radius mapping by select FSA (targets: young families, established families,
and RBC loyalists) for year-long campaign, premium positioning
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RBC Reward Points
mapping select FSAs throughout region
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Dow Prestige select,
region-wide farm area research and quotes
- Canadian Tire recruitment
rates region-wide
- UFA Fuel
Campaign multiple insertion, multi-market quote with specified budget (AB &
SK)
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Rocky Mountain
Equipment region-wide quote by farm count
-
SK Ministry of
Agriculture quote based on farm count by publication
-
Dow Simplicity iMapper
mapping and quotes on various markets based on farm count
-
Enbridge quotes
on public notices
- Financial
Supplement facilitated cooperative effort with AB using Market Analyzer data to
achieve client buy in
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Assiniboine
Community College Market Analyzer research (25-60 without high school, HH w
females 16-20), radius mapping, analysis and quotes
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Koodo quotes SK
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Dow Liquid
Achieve radius mapping, farm count and quotes on multiple markets
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NEW- Apple
commencement of quotes on premium spacing
Circulation Levels Still Strong with Member Community Newspapers
Based on a number of recent client requests,
we’ve done some extensive analysis of circulation trends over various time
periods for member community newspapers. Unlike the ‘doom and gloom’ stories
we’ve all read ad nauseum about the
decline of ‘newspapers’, our member publications have NOT experienced the same
overall decline affecting most urban dailies.
In fact, where there have been declines it often occurs with the TMC
products. In other words, circulation
decreases in our experience is more indicative of the changing complexion of a community
itself rather than a reflection on the health/popularity of the newspaper.
You can read Jeff’s recent blog post on the
topic HERE.
New Tool and Research Benefits
This quarter has begun to see the benefits of the new tools
and research deployed on the AdWest website. The recently launched iMapper tool
as well as the recently promoted Ipsos Research has
without question created an ability to provide information in ways previously
unachievable as well as to draw (as experienced by web traffic and client
requests) a heightened number of inquiries that, arguably, we may not have seen
otherwise.
AdWest.ca March Traffic Report
Visits: 1,106
Unique Visits: 741
Pageviews: 2,588
New Visitors: 672
Returning Visitors: 434
Top 10 visited areas:
1. Homepage - 932 pageviews
2. Advertising Rates - 211 pageviews
3. Market Coverage Maps Search - 169 pageviews
4. Market Coverage Maps - 146 pageviews
5. AdWest Members - 106 pageviews
6. Advertising Rates Search - 100 pageviews
7. Interactive Mapper - 88 pageviews
8. Contact - 59 pageviews
9. Detail Sheets Tool - 56 pageviews
10. Careers - 52 pageviews
Please Let Us Help You
With many of our tools and resources being marketed as
‘Advertising Opportunities' OnDemand and updated in RealTime it is
critically important that you help us keep our Special Supplements, Regular
Features and Special Products information current for your publication. Please
review the information that is appearing on our site under Planning Essentials and
make changes as required. This can be done either by accessing the DB Update Portal directly or emailing your updates to: updates@adwest.ca. For
instructions on how to use the Update Portal, click here.
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