AWNA introduces AdVisor on January 1st

The association’s partnership with AdWest Marketing ends on December 31st. Our role as a trusted advisor on Alberta’s community newspapers does not stop there though.
We are re-branding our sales/marketing organization as ‘AWNA AdVisor’ on January 1st and will continue to supply our clients with the latest market research on your titles, as well as assist them in planning community newspaper campaigns.
On January 1st, we will introduce PCensus and Sitewise, which will enable us to continue the good work carried out by AdWest with its Market Analyzer program. PCensus and Sitewise will allow our advertising department to carry on with providing the latest coverage maps, along with custom demographic and spending analysis – complete with the latest data – on the 121 community newspaper markets served by AWNA.
We have communicated details about AdVisor to our clients to ensure a minimum of hiccups during the transition. Executive Director Dennis Merrell and Advertising Director Patrick Lessard are meeting personally with key accounts to assure them that they are in good hands and that AWNA’s solid team of professionals will be able to meet their needs.
AWNA’s member newspapers are a medium that is still a force to be reckoned with in Canada. In 2012, community newspapers accounted for $1.3 billion in advertising expenditures – more than ten percent of the overall ad spend in this country. This is because many clients know that advertising in community newspapers works. Still, there is a perception that print will continue to give way to digital. We need to work hard to change this negative view of our industry.
The owner of a company that tracks the results of advertising in print and online had this to say:
“Digital doesn’t generate any response. We track the results generated by tens of thousands of ads in print and online. Print outperforms digital on the basis of pure response by more than 10x (1 response from a digital ad to 10 responses to a print ad) and more importantly on the basis of ROI. So from an advertiser perspective, there is no comparison, print is the far more effective investment. What is truly unfortunate is that more publications do not take the time to track the results that their publications are generating. Tracking and owning response data could change (and save) the industry.”
It’s clear that our industry could do a lot better in terms of tracking/proving the results that our member newspapers produce. We will need to focus our efforts on developing the type of research that will back up the fact that community newspapers will achieve these results for advertisers.
AdVisor is dedicated to changing the negative perceptions (and minds) of advertisers that have strayed from print in favour of digital and other forms of advertising. The AdVisor team at AWNA looks forward to starting this process and serving your needs more effectively in 2015 and beyond.