Please note: This is part six of a twelve part series. A new entry will be made each Thursday. To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.
The early teen years of Classified USA of Nevada were very educational. The more questions we asked, the more unanswered questions were presented. We knew that technology was the common answer to our problems; but we were uncertain how to get our clients and vendors to embrace it.
Providing our clients their own AOL screen names was just the first step. We knew more needed to be done. We knew that if we could make the entire ad placement process an electronic transfer of data, we could eliminate the most common customer complaint of ‘can’t you just get my ad right.’
Easier said than done; especially when you do not control the final step of the process. The newspaper does.
The next problem we attempted to tackle was getting the Review Journal to accept email ad copy for in-column ads (classifieds). We knew from our past experience of encouraging them to accept display ads via e-mail (rather than a courier delivering camera ready ad copy to be pasted into the newspaper flats) that this would be a battle.
Nonetheless, we began the process. We scheduled a ‘fact finding’ meeting with the classified advertising management of the Las Vegas Review Journal. As anticipated, every excuse in the book was used as to why we needed to continue to fax the ad copy and mistakes were just ‘never’ made on their end. “It was always the customers fault” – and they should pay for it, was their rationale.
Subsequent discussions were held with many of Classified USA’s ad reps, other managers and finally with the RJ’s internal IT professional. What it boiled down to was the computers used by the advertising reps were just not capable of receiving e-mails. They were programmed to manually enter line ads and schedule when and where those line ads would be placed (mind you – many times in the wrong category on the wrong day).
The only solution, we determined, would be to have one point person at the newspaper for ad in-take just as what had been established with the e-mailing of display ads. That point person then would be responsible for the distribution of the e-mails and/or entry of the ads into the system.
We don’t know what discussions went on behind the closed doors of the newspaper, but the end response was – “it ain’t going to happen.” The message sent loud and clear was – “If you want to do business with the Review Journal, it will be on our terms and you will just need to accept the mistakes we make. Pass the cost on to your client just as we have done for years.”
I am not a ‘quitter’ so I decided to give it one last effort. I developed my ‘value proposition’ and paraded into the office of the classified advertising manager and had the recruitment advertising manager present. My offer was simple – Classified USA of Nevada will (a) buy the RJ a dedicated computer for our e-mailed classified ads, (b) pay for monthly Internet service to that computer, (c) provide any media or storage required to transfer classified ads from that computer to the proper classified advertising reps desktop computer for placement.
The process would be simple. Open up the e-mail. Highlight the text of the classified ad for placement. Hit ‘Ctrl C’ or copy. Open up a document that would be used to transfer the ad copy. Hit ‘Ctrl V’ or paste. Save to disk. Transfer the disk (media) to a classified reps desktop. Open up the classified management system. Copy and paste the ad into the system. And now the classified ad, as typed by the customer, is perfectly set without any additional efforts or duplication; and most importantly, without errors (and if there were errors – there was a digital trail back to the client.)
With little discussion or consideration, the answer was still ‘no.’
Stay tuned: This is part six of a twelve part series. The next entry will be next Thursday. Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.
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