Ad rep fails; sports writer likely punished

That's what we did. We had 28 pages for our tab, but everyday for the prior two weeks (since camps started) we ran feature stories, news stories, etc. So that when the readers got the tab, they're cool with team previews and the two player features that ran since every day they were getting a feature.

 

What I'm not sure I understand Boy Scout is how you are being "punished." Can you elaborate?

 

I think this thread should be retitled as "... reader punished" because that's who really suffers.
This would all be strange .. if it didn't happen EVERYWHERE I've ever been. I find it funny that the programs we get at games have tons of ads from local businesses, yet the ad department can't find people to advertise in the preview tab. Maybe the rates are different. I don't know. I just find it funny.
Somebody once put in a good way. Ad reps seem to spend so much time with their current clients that they don't have time to look for new business. They seem to keep going to the same well, from my perspective anyway. I'm not an advertising person so I don't know if they've suffered the same cutbacks we have. It doesn't seem that way, but I know it's probably no small task to keep your current clientele happy. However, there never seems to be that extra effort to get new business, and it also never seems like anyone kicks them in the butt. (but we know the mental capacity of most publishers) That's why I've always wanted someone like Blake from "Glengarry Glen Ross" to come in.
I'm sure there are some ad reps that are working hard, etc., but the ones I've encountered sure jet out of the office at 4:45.

 

He wants to put out a winter section, and odds are slim.

 

That, wicked, is life, not punishment.

And every word that fishhack posted is gospel.

 

And I think that's the problem, Fish. We keep selling the same stuff to the same people.

We keep preaching about trying to broaden our reader base. We really should try to broaden the ad base, too, beyond car ads, hospital ads and bank ads. Of course, having megacorps like Wal-Mart and Target kill local businesses doesn't help.

 

Any good ad rep is ALWAYS looking for new business because you're going to lose probably 20% of your business every year in any case.

But in the newspaper business, you can't sell a one-off ad--at least not to anybody with a brain in his head. If someone hasn't already considered advertising in your paper, why would they change their mind over a special supplement? What's the incentive?

I suppose you could make the argument that unlike the rest of the paper, the preview may stick around for a couple of weeks/months so you'll get more bang for your buck.

But the other problem with ad supplements is budgetary. The easiest way to shoo an ad guy away is to say, "There's no money in my budget" to which the proper reply is, "We'll bill you in January"

And I was being flippant about the Mamet quote. That ad mentality never works in a long-term media like newspapers.

I worked briefly at a very upscale magazine--BMW bought the outside back and Ralph Lauren the inside front--but we hated supplements--and when I say, "we", I mean editorial and sales.

It was the stupid fucking publisher who threw them at us at the last minute and everyone had to drop what they were doing to work on something that was eventually cancelled.

The only way to make previews work from the advertising point of view is to work them out ahead of time--for the upcoming calendar year so that the ad people can get their customers to budget for them well in advance.

 

Winter tab probably won't happen, and football next year is doubtful. Mostly, I'm in the shithouse because I worked 60-hour weeks for three weeks, and we actually get paid overtime here. I cost them a lot of money apparently. I'm not sure if they can write me up or whatever for just being expensive.

It's just a new experience to me. In my four years of news, we were totally insulated from this stuff. I go to sports, and all I ever hear about is how much everything costs. It's another world, really. I just wasn't sure if it's just my paper or everywhere.

 

Boy Scout

By the sounds of thinks you have a serious--and I mean serious--management problem at your place.

The publisher should have been on top of this. And your boss should have been talking to the ad people as well.

Sounds like you work in a place without any leaders.

Ain't your fault. You were doing your job.

 

Ha. I'm on my second SE, third ME and second publisher since working here. That should tell you something.

 

Tells me almost everything. Sounds like you need to dust off your resume, son.

 

It seems to me that a high school football tab is an easy sell, if you have good ad people and it's an annual thing that everybody budgets for -- the local car dealers, local sporting goods stores, any sort of athletic rehab clinics, gyms. Of course, some places do tab folks to death....I was at one shop that did a tab a month for all sorts of crap. I've worked with ad people who were real hustlers and would work hard...and I've worked with some that didn't. The worst was this ass-clown who got ripped off by a used car dealer, went and picketed his lot, got arrested after he and the dealer got into it, then tried to pitch the story to our dumb-ass business reporter.