Presidential-election years typically mean choppy waters for advertisers, but this year's race is shaping up to be more like a perfect storm. The candidates' hefty war chests, the ferociousness of their attacks so early in the season, and the strategic media plans that concentrate their spending in 17 battleground states will likely combine to knock many advertisers off the air, according to a memo the American Association of Advertising Agencies plans to issue to its members today.
Media-based advertising, which fended off a threatening shift toward consumer and trade promotion spending during the late 1980s and early 1990s, is once again losing share of marketing budgets. While U.S. ad spending has pulled out of recession and managed to expand at moderate rates, promotional and trade spending have been growing at much faster rates, according to the results of an annual study released last week by the Promotion Marketing Association and PROMO magazine.
A Long Island Press investigation uncovers evidence of dumped papers and other circulation irregularities on the heels of a $100 million federal racketeering lawsuit filed against Newsday, one of the largest dailies in the country. The Press's Christopher Twarowski finds mounds of Newsday circulars decomposing in wetlands behind a distributor's home, discovers piles of apparently unread papers in a town's recycling bins, and interviews shopkeepers who claim the paper credits them for fewer returns than they send back. The plaintiffs' attorney alleges that advertisers "have been ripped off untold amounts."
The Denver weekly's Julie Jargon won an Investigative Reporters and Editors Certificate for her story "The War Within," about two female cadets who were punished and kicked out of the U.S. Air Force Academy after they complained of being raped. IRE judges noted that the article "is a great example of tackling a sensitive story at a powerful institution."
Marty Beckerman was in a Washington, D.C., bookstore in March pushing copies of his new book, "Generation S.L.U.T.: A Brutal Feel-Up Session with Today’s Sex-Crazed Adolescent Populace." Mike DeBonis reports on the early success of the 21-year-old American University student. While Beckerman was a summer intern at New York Press in 2002, then editor John Strausbaugh helped him connect with a literary agent. The young author tells Washington City Paper the deal he struck with MTV/Pocket Books should get him through a semester of college.
In March, Indianapolis activist Carl Rising-Moore helped an Army private, Brandon David Hughey, cross the border into Canada after the young man decided to desert rather than serve in what he believes is an illegal war. NUVO's Jim Walker profiles the contemplative, defiant Vietnam War era veteran who has become conductor of the new underground railroad. In an accompanying piece, Becky Oberg describes Hughey's safe passage into Canada, where he was met by the CBC and some Quakers.
A series staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman wrote for the Village Voice in 2000 laid the groundwork for her new book, "Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett." The book, which was featured on the front cover of the New York Times Book Review March 21, describes Bartlett's life post-release. After serving 16 years for a drug offense, she tries to reconnect with the children accustomed to seeing her in a prison visiting room. "What jumps out at you from 'Life on the Outside' is the extent to which imprisonment has been normalized," reviewer Brent Staples writes.
Marketers looking to target women might try putting more humor in their ads. So say preliminary findings in a yearlong study prepared by Oxygen Media and Grey Global Group's MediaCom. The study focuses on women and humor. Initial findings were released today.
In another sign that commuter and youth papers are not a fleeting industry fad, free dailies now have their own national rep firm. Fittingly, perhaps, the Free Daily Newspaper Network (FDNN) launched today is headed by a former publisher of the Metro commuter dailies that spurred mainstream publishers in many cities to create their own free quick-read papers: James McDonald, now president of Journal Newspapers, which circulate in suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Bill Richardson is rumored to be on the short list to be the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, but he downplays his interest. James Oliphant describes the man who might become the first Hispanic on a presidential ticket as part Music Man and part minister with "a super-sized portion of patron thrown into the mix." The Santa Fe Reporter writer accompanies Richardson to the Nambe Pueblo and interviews him about a career that included offering a Sudanese rebel commander an immunization program in exchange for hostages and serving a troubled stint as U.S. Energy Secretary.
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