Herald Parent Company Announces New Ad Sale Strategy

Today was Miami Herald's parent companies McClatchy Co.'s shareholders meeting. The troubled newspaper giant -- what newspaper giant isn't troubled? -- faces a tough road ahead, but all CEO Gary Pruitt had to offer was a slightly tweaked advertising strategy for the entire chain. According to Editor & Publisher, the...

By Kyle Munzenrieder

May 20, 2009

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Today was Miami Herald's parent companies McClatchy Co.'s shareholders meeting. The troubled newspaper giant -- what newspaper giant isn't troubled? -- faces a tough road ahead, but all CEO Gary Pruitt had to offer was a slightly tweaked advertising strategy for the entire chain.

According to Editor & Publisher, the chain will begin paying commissions to ad agencies. They'll also switch their classifieds focus, selling the printed ads as compliments to online ads found on sites like CareerBuilder (McClatchy is a minority holder in the site), strengthen their ad relationship with Yahoo!, and specifically target former advertisers who have strayed.

These aren't exactly the blockbuster ideas that are going to revolutionize a deeply, troubled industry and it seems McClatchy isn't going to take drastic risks as yet to try and turn things around. But these ad tweaks may help to keep the papers float a little while longer.

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