Being in the newspaper business can’t be that much fun today, they’re struggling to keep local advertising dollars coming their way, as printed newspaper readership keeps going down. Groupon is getting a lot of press as they were the first ones to break through with local group buying in a big way but newspapers can do that, too.
This banner ad shows how the San Diego Union-Tribune (U-T) is fighting back and there’s a lot of money at stake according to Mike Hodges, vice president of interactive at the paper.
From a marketers point of view, I hope the local newspapers keep finding ways to survive so we can leverage their historic relationship with consumers and combine newspaper ads with online ads in one neat bundle. I’m afraid that if too many one-off marketing ideas survive the local marketing landscape will become too fragmented, it’s tough enough as it is right now.