One Customer's View
Denver-based Gart Sports Co. is a major sporting goods retailer-and a heavy preprint advertiser, with more than 100 stores in both large and small markets west of the Mississippi. Fran Victor, Gart's vice president of marketing, has clear views on what she needs from newspapers, and some are at odds with the NAA Packaging and Distribution Committee's survey results.
What's important to Gart Sports? Here's Victor's quick list:
- Microzoning: Victor agrees with the survey that zoning at very
low (i.e., carrier-route) levels is currently not important,
although she feels it could become more so in the future.
- Lead Time: Ranked as a relatively unimportant ninth in the
survey, it's quite important to Gart Sports. Victor believes that
advertisers already need shorter lead times from newspapers in order
to react appropriately to market and competitive situations, and
that this trend will accelerate.
- Daily Zoning: Not addressed by the survey, but a significant
issue for some advertisers. Victor doesn't like the insert-day
limitation imposed by many newspapers.
- Positioning: Only ranked as the 15th priority in the survey,
it's a real hot button for Gart Sports. Victor says that having her
preprints "piled into one package" with other advertisers'
preprints detracts from her message. As a major advertiser in most
of her markets, she feels that newspapers must find a way to provide
her preprints with up-front positions within the package.
- Verification: On this issue, Gart Sports is back in sync with the survey. Victor doesn't think the staff expense and time required to collate and audit validation reports would be worth the effort.