A couple weeks ago I sat down to read the Sunday Chicago Tribune. It looked weird. Why? Because the front page was half covered by an advertising page wrapped around the first section. I couldn't start reading until I took the ad page off.
Then I go to the sports section - same thing! Scores and recaps covered by ads.
What are the newspapers thinking? Readership continues to decline, advertisers continue to drift away, and what do the papers do? They go out of their way to annoy the few remaining readers they have with the worst kind of interruption marketing. I don't get it.
In terms of online advertising, one thing everybody knows, whether they surf the Web or not, is that pop-up ads are universally hated. So what does the Tribune do? They come up with a print version of a pop-up ad. Well, I didn't bother to read it, but if I had, I wouldn't be much inclined to buy anything from any of the advertisers.
I wonder if newspapers ever ask readers what they'd like see in their publications. My view may be typical. I'd love to read a newspaper that was free of advertisements. If a paper listed its advertisers on a single page (page one for all I care), I would go out of my way to patronize each and every one of them. If that's not feasible, how about putting all ads in a single section dedicated to advertising?
Well, maybe the Tribune is listening after all. The wrap around ad pages have disappeared. But papers need to new more than maintain the status quo if they expect to hold on to their subscribers, let alone attract new ones. Fresh ideas are needed.
