An ad for a Des Moines-area watering hole pictures Larry Eustachy, the former Iowa State basketball coach, lifting a cold beer alongside the man who called for his resignation. The ad, which appears in the July 9 edition of new AAN-member Pointblank, did not amuse ISU officials even though at the bottom of the advertisement, in small print, is a disclaimer - "ad is purely satirical." A university spokesman called it "a cheap grab for attention." Other ads for the bar, Autographs, feature unlikely drinking buddies, such as Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinksy.
Donald Bren, a developer and GOP stalwart in Southern California, is on both Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans and OC Weekly's list of "scariest" Orange Countians. Despite OC Weekly's frequent exposes of Bren's “shenanigans,†his company was a regular advertiser until a few weeks ago, when it yanked ads worth about $120,000 a year. "Our crime? We’d forgotten to adhere to Bren’s prime directive: thou shalt not publicly discuss the actions of my wandering penis," R. Scott Moxley writes.
AAN member papers report that once again classified advertising sales, especially real estate and rental, are keeping overall revenues steady. At the two alternative newsweekly industry national ad sales networks, AWN and Ruxton, sales are running well ahead of last year’s first quarter, but that was one of the worst quarters on record for the industry. “Normally I’d be excited about 20 percent growth,†Michele Laven, president and COO of New Times’ Ruxton Group tells AAN News. “We have a long way to go.â€
If you started at the beginning, in 1955, when The Village Voice was founded, and ranked companies by how much they spent on advertising in alternative newspapers, Tower Records would probably end up at the top of the list. After several years of financial difficulty, the Sacramento-based chain that has long been a beacon of pop culture was recently put on the block. "I expect that the new owners will keep the values ... we stand for," Russ Solomon, the company's founder and owner, tells The Sacramento Bee. "(W)hich is the idea that, as much as you can afford to, you represent as many kinds of music, video and books as you possibly can."
Columbus Alive Inc. is launching an e-mail brand campaign to call attention to its five-month-old redesign, its new focus on arts and entertainment and its new name: Alive. Publisher Sally Crane says the ad sales have climbed about 18 percent since the campaign began and projects an additional 25 percent through the end of this year. Alive's 2002 ad sales were more than $1 million, Kathy Showalter of Business First of Columbus reports.
Some alternative weekly publishers tell AJR they have cut back on ads from adult advertisers because raunchy ads scare away traditional advertisers. Others, like the Memphis Flyer, insist on tops for their advertisers' topless dancers. Alison Draper, publisher of the Dallas Observer, says she just wants to "clean up the book" to attract higher-end advertisers. Others are taking the same steps, breaking with a traditionally significant sector of alt-weekly advertising.
Howard Altman, executive editor of Philadelphia City Paper, describes for AJR how a Saint Jack's Bar ad featuring the Thai King in hip-hop regalia nearly severed relations between the United States and Thailand. "It certainly was not the first advertising complaint City Paper had ever received, considering that we once printed an ad for a bar depicting the Virgin Mary with udders," Altman writes. "But this complaint was different. It was from an unhappy representative of a foreign government."
From a rebellious underground paper in the '60s, The Georgia Straight has grown to a 120,000 weekly circulation institution in Vancouver, B.C. It hasn't gotten that way by resting on its hippie laurels. Publisher Dan McLeod demonstrates that by once again shaking up his sales department, firing a vice president and parting ways with the consultant who helped double the paper's sales. "There's going to be some loud howling, but it's a way to grow the business," McLeod tells AAN News.
The Stranger this week publishes its First Annual "Best of [our advertisers in] Seattle 2002" issue, taking a few pot shots at Seattle Weekly's recent "Best of Seattle" issue in the process. "We know when we're licked," the newspaper says in its introduction to the feature. "Dump the irony, screw the humor, and cut out the fucking middleman. Kissing the asses of advertisers is a game that two can play."
