Letting the Figures Do the Talking
Lewis McGaffee knows a lot about sick trees. After all, he’s owned Hollywood Tree Service for 30 years. But the nature of his business has forced him to become an expert in something besides tree surgery. Specifically, the Yellow Pages.
“I hate ‘em with a passion,” says McGaffee. “But you can’t fight City Hall. And in this business, the Yellow Pages are City Hall.” After all, he figures that 90% of his business comes from the $19,200 he spends annually for ads in the Pacific Bell Yellow Pages. “I’ve tried all the others,” he said. “But people just throw away all those little books.”
Well, not all of them. “I’m sure that some are thrown away,” said Tibor Taraba, marketing director for Purchase, N.Y.-based Donnelley Directory, a Dun & Bradstreet Corp. subsidiary that publishes more than 500 directories. “But most of our books are kept and used.” Information on who uses which Yellow Pages--and how often--is what publishers, ad agencies and advertisers say they want. Currently, most advertisers have little choice but to accept the statistics that publishers hand them. But now, a few independent companies are gearing up to provide that for Yellow Pages throughout the nation. By mid-1988, at least two firms plan to let their figures do the talking for the Yellow Pages.
That suits U-Haul just fine. After all, U-Haul International Inc. is the nation’s largest Yellow Pages advertiser--spending an estimated $15 million annually to get people to rent its equipment. Its ads appear in more than 5,000 of the estimated 7,000 directories published nationwide. “We’re always looking for evidence that our Yellow Page ads are being used,” said Frank Ashton, vice president of U-Haul’s in-house ad agency, A&M; Associates.
Just as eager for the statistics is Robert Lamb, vice president of marketing at Telephone Marketing Programs Inc. His New York-based company places $120 million in directory ads each year for clients that include Midas Muffler and Ryder Truck Rental. “It’s reached the point where we have to have third-party information,” said Lamb. “It will give more credibility to the Yellow Pages industry.”
Indeed, the Yellow Pages is the last large advertising medium that is not nationally monitored. Companies with familiar names like A. C. Nielsen and Arbitron Ratings spend millions of dollars each year to determine who watches what television shows and who listens to which radio stations. Their findings help determine ad rates. And the readership of magazines and newspapers is also tracked by independent groups.
Until deregulation of the phone industry, there was little reason to track use of the directories. With no competition, there was only one Yellow Pages. But now, residents in some Los Angeles neighborhoods receive up to 12 different directories annually. And more than 122 directories are published in the Los Angeles market--the most anywhere in the country.
“It used to be that once a year, a Yellow Pages salesman would call and sell you one ad,” said Edward Blackman, executive director of the American Assn. of Yellow Pages Publishers. “Now,” he said, “you can hear from a salesman a day.” An estimated $7.5 billion in directory advertising was placed nationally last year compared to $6.9 million spent on radio ads.
At the moment, two outfits are vying to be the first to offer independent analysis of the directories on a national basis. These two rivals, Survey Sampling Inc. of Fairfield, Conn., and Advertising Research Corp. of Berkeley Heights, N.J., will gather their information mostly from telephone interviews. Both plan to sell their data by late 1988. Their biggest customers will be publishers, who may be charged as much as $500,000 each for the information.
“Because we’re a third party,” said Tom Danbury, president of Survey Sampling, “our numbers are more believable then the publishers’.” And the research firms will also help determine when ads in smaller directories pay off, said Sallie Bernard, president of Advertising Research. “Right now, no one knows what’s good or what’s bad.”
Toshiba Plans Its Next Move
Beleaguered Toshiba America officials met at corporate headquarters in New Jersey on Monday to plot marketing and advertising strategy with the firm’s ad agency. But there was no comment on the outcome.
The ad firm--Calet, Hirsch & Spector Inc.--handles corporate advertising as well as consumer electronics advertising for Toshiba. A West Coast ad shop is also heavily involved in Toshiba’s advertising: NW Ayer’s Los Angeles office has a $10-million account with Toshiba to handle its copier and printer advertising. That is more than twice the annual billings of the office’s second-largest customer--the Australian Tourism Commission.
Toshiba was condemned by many U.S. officials after a Toshiba unit sold to the Soviet Union and installed in 1984 strategic equipment considered important to U.S. national security. The anger aimed at Toshiba erupted June 30 when the U.S. Senate voted to bar Toshiba from receiving certain U.S. government contracts or from selling some of its products in the United States.
Last week, John Littlewood, president and chief executive of NW Ayer’s West Coast operations, told the 56 employees at Ayer’s Los Angeles office that, so far, there are no changes planned in Toshiba’s copier advertising. But he said he is awaiting instructions from the company. “Basically,” he said “we just can’t talk until we have all the facts.”
ZZZZ Best Staying Off the Airwaves
Don’t look for those familiar ZZZZ Best Co. television commercials anytime soon.
Although the troubled carpet-cleaning company refuses to comment on its plans, executives from its ad agency and its media placement company say that no television advertising has been scheduled by the firm. And none is currently running.
“We’re basically on hold,” said David Marchese, vice chairman of the Los Angeles ad agency Pearlman/Wohl/Olshever/Marchese. ZZZZ Best, which last week filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code, owes the ad agency $900,000. Marchese said that amount is not unusual. “Until now,” he said, “they’ve been paying their bills right on time.”
ZZZZ Best commercials--which feature the firm’s 21-year-old founder, Barry J. Minkow--have not aired in more than two weeks. And production of new spots--which would have advertised three household cleaning products that the firm had planned to introduce later this year--are also on hold, Marchese said. As for money that ZZZZ Best owes the ad firm, Marchese said: “We’re in line, just like everyone else.”
Just a Shadoe of His Former Self
After much speculation, the character of Fred Rated--who became a late night TV cult figure by swinging axes at televisions in commercials for Federated Group--has gotten the ax. But Shadoe Stevens, the actor who has played the zany character in more than 1,000 spots for the consumer electronics company, will remain as commercial spokesman.
Stevens will play a role he has seldom portrayed during his five-year stint with the City of Commerce-based Federated: himself. Created by Pearlman/Wohl/Olshever/Marchese, the spots, which break next week, feature a more soft-spoken Stevens.
Big Canadian Agency in Merger
The tenth-largest ad agency in Canada was purchased Monday for an undisclosed sum by the seventh-largest U.S. agency. Toronto-based Ronalds-Reynolds, whose clients include Air Canada and Wrigley Canada, was purchased by Foote, Cone & Belding Communications Inc. and will be merged with Foote Cone’s Canadian division under the name FCB/Ronalds-Reynolds. Combined billings of the two Canadian operations total $132 million.
