Dynamic Pricing Sévérine Lago, Senior Strategist, Publicitas, Switzerland Publicitas, the largest media sales organisation in the world, is seeking nothing less than a revolution in the way newspaper advertising is priced and sold. It launched its Dynamic Pricing initiative in 2006, which combines classic and modern pricing methods, and is currently in the testing stage. Dr Lago described various aspects of the project, which is looking at a variety of approaches:  Ad space for specific positions within the newspaper is auctions to the customers. Ad space is limited to a certain number of pages to allow for auctioning.  A revenue share model in which customers do not pay for advertising space but give a pre-defined percentage share of their revenues.  Simplifying advertising formats through modules or standard advertising units.  Pricing differentials based on target, placement and creative formats.  Development of new multimedia packages.  New measurement tools. The current test involves 20 Swiss newspapers and 40 dynamic offers. The results will be reported in June and December to determine the value of the concepts in terms of revenue and image, says Ms Lago. Measuring Integrated Newspaper Audience Erik Grimm, Research Director, Cebuco, The Netherlands Newspapers reach across platforms with a strong internet presence, yet traditional audience measurements focus on print circulation and don’t reflect true audience. Dutch newspaper publishers have become multi-media. And, as print circulations are declining in the Netherlands, the question of reach has become critical. Cebuco, the marketing organisation for all Dutch newspapers, set out to create a new measurement that took into account true audience growth. "There are enough opportunities to let our business grow as long as we can report our audience across channels, we can show the audience profile, and we can deliver effectiveness," says Mr Grimm. "So it all starts with aggregated audience measurement." That is far more difficult than it sounds. Each channel has its own measurement "currency", and they’re not comparable. There is also the problem of cross-media competition: pure internet players see no gain, some measurement organisations fear a loss of influence, and advertisers argue for the priority of print/online over other platforms. And data fusion is not generally accepted. Focusing on print and online, Cebuco is introducing overlapping questionnaires and respondents to measure readership and usage. The objective is to create a combined data set for aggregated reach in print and online, to use familiar currencies and to make the data fit all media planning software. Mr Grimm explained the metric and provided examples of how it is used. It provides total audience but, perhaps more importantly, it shows unduplicated, or new, audience, and provides demographics of users. The next step is to build cases of multi-media effectiveness and share them, Mr Grimm said. Moving Toward Measuring Across Platforms Chris Boyd, President, International Audit Bureau of Circulation Newspapers are extending their brands across multiple platforms, and need a way to demonstrate "brand reach", says Mr Boyd. For media owners, a combined internet/print number is appealing and a sensible way to measure true audience. And while agency buyers want clarity for both print and on-line, they may be taking longer to accept integration, says Mr Boyd. In this scenario, Mr Boyd described the work of the Media Measurement Integration Task Force, a World Association of Newspapers initiative that brings together various measurement enterprises, including the IABC. The task force’s mission is "to explore, communicate and promote the opportunities to measure and report audiences of newspapers’ brands across multiple platforms to industry stakeholders". "It helps evangelise and educate the industry, both buyers and sellers," says Mr Boyd. Finding a common measure won’t be an easy task; there is a lot working against it, says Mr Boyd. There isn’t one standard aggregated audience measurement, and different markets are developing their own solutions. Advertisers are less enthusiastic than media owners. And digital media have other measures for effectiveness. Mr Boyd described several initiatives in the United States and the United Kingdom. Here are some of his suggestions for developing aggregated measurements: It is important for any measure to be media industry ‘owned’ and comparable. It should not be a case of trying to ‘achieve a bigger number’ - "you need to go into the quality of audience as well." For more on the global Media Measurement Task Force, go to www.wan-press.org/MMITF/home.php. Newspapers Get Their Swagger Back Mort Goldstrom, Vice President, Advertising, Newspaper Association of America It is time to stop being defensive about newspapers. Despite the disparaging remarks made about the medium, newspaper advertising has attributes not matched by any other medium. For example, it is more accepted - in fact, often sought after by readers - that advertising in other media. This attribute and others should be strongly communicated to advertisers and agencies. That’s exactly what the NAA did, with two major advertising campaigns supported by 108 sales presentations, research and other initiatives, to get the word out about the power and effectiveness of newspaper advertising. NAA even distributed "I’ve got my swagger back" buttons to newspaper sales executives. "It had a great impact on the moral of newspaper sales people in their own markets," Mr Goldstrom says. Some of the advantages:  Newspapers provide local brands, content and audiences - "nobody else has all three," he says.  Newspapers, both print and on-line, have the ability to deliver messages at the centre of the local community conversation. The Birth of a New Media Platform Robert Ray, Marketing Director, The Newspaper Society, United Kingdom Local media in the United Kingdom are booming: websites have grown from 750 to 1,100, magazines from 400 to 750, radio stations from 21 to 36 - all since April 2006. "In fact, there are over 700 new opportunities" for advertising in local media, said Mr Ray. This is a perfect environment to direct the Newspaper Society’s "The Wanted Ads" research project into Phase III - investigating the link between the local press and local on-line. The first two phases demonstrated the effectiveness of local newspaper advertising. Phase III sought to find out if the positive attributes of the local press extended to on-line is well. The answer, said Mr Ray, is an overwhelming yes: advertising in local media is more trusted and reliable, more relevant, more timely and more likely to spark action than other media, according to the study. Building Newspaper Brands Maureen Duffy, CEO, The Newspaper Marketing Agency, United Kingdom UK newspapers are powerful and influential: 8 out of 10 adults read one of the national newspapers every week. At the same time, national newspapers were losing share of display advertising revenues. The Newspaper Marketing Agency was created to reverse that trend. Ms Duffy described the work of the NMA, which is based on four "pillars" of activity: delivering consumer insights, effectiveness research, helping to encourage effective creative work, and communicating the results. Ms Duffy put heavy emphasis on the critical role of creative newspaper advertising in making them effective. "The effectiveness tests have created a framework that allows us to work with leading advertisers and their agencies to ensure strong creative work is developed for newspapers for the test brands", she said. "In effect, we use the same discipline and process for developing newspaper creative as the advertiser would use for TV." Ms Duffy presented numerous examples of how creative work impacts effectiveness. The results? National newspaper share of display advertising revenues has risen from 12.5 percent to 13.3 percent from 2003 to 2007, in categories where the NMA has been active. Value-Added Printing Sabine Sirach, Product Marketer, Newspaper Systems, MAN Roland, Germany With all the talk about digital developments, it is important to remember that most newspaper company revenues come from print. Even more revenues can be generated from print, says Ms Sirach, who introduced the Value-Added Printing Project, an initiative of PrintCity, a global alliance of printing solution suppliers with more than 30 members. By "value-added," she means, "any combination of higher revenue, circulation, differentiation or reader satisfaction." There are many innovations occurring in print that provide added value, she said: high impact cover pages; special interest editorial supplements; high-impact ROP advertising pages with premiums; pre-printed advertising inserts; more and better colour; upgraded paper; "magazine-like" formats; alternative formats, folds and special effects; and tailored content. The project conducted a global survey of personnel across newspaper companies and in the advertiser and agency communities, to assess the value of seven different paper and print qualities. It found that replacing coldset newsprint with higher quality printing could produce a 20 to 40 percent premium on advertising rates, and that upgrading from one colour to four-colour could result in one-third more revenues. A 36-page report on the project is available from Ms Sirach by e-mail at Sabine.Sirach@mra.man.de Increasing print circulation through quality printing Christian Gaidies, Press Room Manager, Axel Springer, Germany Newspaper sales in German fell from 27 million daily copes in 1991 to 20 million copies today. Something needed to be done, says Mr Gaidies. "Why should people modify their behaviour if the printed newspaper doesn’t change?" he asked. Axel Springer is using a printing quality strategy to help get them back. "We decided we would not sit back and watch the decline, but support the printing industry campaign on quality," says Mr Gaidies, who described the special effects and supplements and other products as "sexing them up to attract readers." By quality printing, Mr Gaidies means anything that adds value optically or any special, pre-prints and supplements that can be inserted into the newspaper. Special inks and paper, and a wide array of new publications - commercial printing at Axel Springer’s offset printing plant in Ahrensburg rose 230 percent between 2000 and 2007 because of these measures. "Newspaper printing is on the move," he says.