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Sheila Owens
NAA VP of Strategic Communications
(571) 366-1089
Sheila.Owens@naa.org

November 30, 2005

Vienna, Va. – The Newspaper Association of America today announced the formation of a new Executive Advisory Council, made up of senior executives from major advertisers and ad agencies. The development of the Council is a primary component of the industry’s continuing initiative to communicate and demonstrate to advertisers the actual size and value of the audience newspapers reach.

The Executive Advisory Council will work closely with NAA and the industry in taking actions to continue driving measurement techniques that count newspapers’ total reach and audience. Serving on the council are:

• Craig Desens, chief operating officer, Newspaper Services of America
• Beth Fidoten, senior vice president/director of print services, Initiative
• Michael Francis, executive vice president/marketing, Target Corp.
• Irene Grieco, print media manager, Unilever
• Scott Kruse, senior vice president/director of print, Mediacom
• Jeff Piper, vice president and general manager, Carat Press
• Andrew Swinand, senior vice president/group client leader, Starcom
• Gary Vasques, executive vice president of marketing, Kohl's Corp.

“Newspapers sell themselves short if they talk only about circulation numbers, without looking at their total audience,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. “As a recent NAA analysis shows, paid circulation, while clearly important, represents only a fraction of the total number of people who read newspapers. Communicating the real value of newspapers to advertisers will involve changing some long-held views, but this group of talented executives will help us continue to advance the dialogue on more inclusive measurement techniques with the advertising community.”

Andrew Swinand of Starcom said: “In today's newspaper business, the focus has rightfully shifted toward the unsurpassed localized relevance of the news content versus the physical paper on which the content is printed. The potential activation of newspaper content within the world of digital media will be key to the industry's evolution, and the promise of success therein drives my personal participation in the EAC.”

The formation of the Executive Advisory Council is the latest in a series of sustained newspaper initiatives to answer advertisers’ needs for measurement data that reflects newspapers’ true reach and audience. In October, NAA released the Newspaper Audience Database (NADbase), a source of detailed newspaper audience demographic data, reporting newspaper readership and Web site usage for 100-plus newspapers representing most major markets. In early 2006, NAA will release new research that focuses on newspaper advertising effectiveness to the advertising community, including an engagement study, media usage and a local market “footprint” analysis of the total reach of newspapers in selected markets.

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing the $59 billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. NAA members include daily newspapers, as well as non-dailies and other publications published throughout the world. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., in Vienna, Va., the Association focuses on six key strategic priorities that affect the newspaper industry collectively: marketing, public policy, diversity, industry development, newspaper operations and readership. Information about NAA and the industry also may be found at www.naa.org.

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