Ads on the front page

It pains me to say...my paper has been on the cutting edge of this. We have had A1 adds since way before it was cool. For a while, we muttered under our breath that it made us pretty close to unique in the business. Not any more. We'll sell them postage stamp sized. On election day, the area below the fold looks like a scrabble game because some of the candidates buy multiple spots and use each to spell out "VOTE FOR PEDRO" or some such message.

I don't know if we should take the blame though. The industry generally ignored our, ahem, innovation for many moons until recently.

By the way, strip ads inside do happen with us, but they aren't an every day thing. We are pretty resigned to having a strip ad on college football Sunday sections, which has made us have to re-think whether or front page college scoreboard will remain, or in what form.

 

Trust me, it has been proposed....

 

It goes beyond just sacrificing your integrity...it's bad long-term business. The reason you don't put ads outside is to give the buyer some solid product to see. It creates the impression of a thorough product that entices the reader to invest his two quarters in your product (never mind the 60/40 ad-news ratio inside).

If the front of your paper starts looking like the Thrifty Nickel, it's going to be treated like the Thrifty Nickel (..."You want me to PAY for that??! That should be free, right by the door of the super market..." the potential buyer says).

 

I actually don't mind a wrap-around ad section, something like what SI does with its magazines you get in the mail. But only a four-page (one-sheet) wrap-around) and only on home deliveries. Don't cover up your product with an ad on the rack.

This is the problem with the (gag) island ad idea. Now, you aren't showing your product, you're showing someone else's. When I look at the rack, I won't want to buy your paper, but I may want to go over to Guido's pawn and adult novelties for their "We lost our minds!" after Memorial Day sale...

(Would your paper allow Guido's to be the island ad?...)

 

A wrap around ad is called a Spadea. That's something I learned in college and could never get out of my head, no matter how hard I tried.

 

I hate it, but ad revenue isn't exactly flowing in otherwise.

 

I find it out of place there since there is no Red Wing coverage on the page.

 

I doubt the advertiser is worrying about news judgment/packaging in the way we might. The space that ad is in is prime real estate, everyone's going to see it, and that's all that matters. That's why they (hopefully) pay prime rates for it.

The advertiser might even like it that way, with no other Red Wings stuff nearby.

You want Red Wings-related stuff?..Well, here it is, and this the only place it is. Step right up, and get your tickets here, for the only game in town, at the only place in town...so to speak.

 

Yup. All that matters in business is $$$ and product placement. That's a HELL of a place to put an ad. I am sure it did cost them a bunch to get that spot.

 

I think this long-term business point is spot-on. But I don't think this practice has anything to do with integrity. The integrity of the publication doesn't stop at the front page. Every page carries our name and is part of the paper. We put ads everywhere. To not put them on the front because we think the front is sacred is silly. And to not put them on the front because the pages are then ineligible for design contests is even more silly. Screw contests.

 

I hate seeing ads on front pages, especially A-1 in any capacity. Banners, strips, ears, anywhere.

Inside pages I dislike but can live with if they are stripped across the bottom in 1x6 or 2x6. That Red Wings add looks like something from the Podunk Shopper and probably at first glance makes some readers believe the paper (any paper) is root-root-rooting for the team.

But the ads pay the bills. The fucking Internets certainly isn't doing it.

 

The twice-a-week paper (no, it's not a biweekly because biweekly is every two weeks) has had a 1-inch strip ad for the past few years. I hated it at first (OK, I'm still not thrilled) but the ad is unobtrusive and nothing like that one for the Free Press.

And for more information, the ad-free front page is a product of the 20th century. Newspapers before that often had ads on the front page. In fact, many of them had nothing but ads on the front. The front page was printed first, so it was the first to be filled, and that's where the ads went.