CRIS-Crossing a Market
by Steve Ostrofsky
The vision is "database integration": forging a single database of subscribers and advertisers, including lifestyle, community and census information. Such a tool could turbocharge the efforts of advertising, circulation and editorial.
At The Gazette Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, this vision has been made real. For several years, the company has operated a Corporate Reporting Information System that combines information from circulation and ad systems, state driver's license and automobile files, census data, and numbers from National Demographics and Lifestyles.
According to Steve Hannah, vice president of information technologies, the system has created benefits throughout the organization. Internally, the Oracle-based system is used by advertising and circulation to fine tune the Gazette newspaper's marketing efforts. The newsroom uses it for story research involving lifestyle and demographic patterns. Other arms of the Gazette Co., including local free shoppers, radio and TV stations, also use the database.
The system's demographic sorting capabilities have enabled the Gazette's sales staff to offer added-value, consultative selling to ad customers. An advertising-sales rep can match the customer's targeting needs with individual and household information to help advertisers maximize their marketing efforts.
The CRIS system was developed in only 12 months through a massive, companywide effort involving more than 70 people. Throughout the process, the needs of the system user were a primary concern.
Hannah firmly believes that the cross-departmental effort broke down many walls in the company, as all departments were forced to appreciate one another's requirements. This resulted in a team mentality that many "bridge building" programs simply could not produce.
As word of the Gazette's database began to spread, Hannah started getting phone calls from other papers. The Gazette Co. seized the opportunity, renamed the system MarketInfo and created a separate division to market it to the newspaper industry. Currently the system is operating at the Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin and The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. Hannah says that installation at other newspapers is not overly difficult, since MarketInfo accepts straightforward, comma-delimited files. While many in the industry have coveted a truly integrated database, achieving this dream has not been easy. But don't lose faith: The Gazette's effort shows that it can be done.
Steve Ostrofsky is president of Publishing Productivity Systems, Bremerton, Washington. E-mail: stevevelo@aol.com; phone (360) 308-0121.