Newspaper offers advertisers a competitive edge

Advertising! I have spent over 60 years selling advertising. I know it works for some and for others not so much because of the way they do it.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

Obviously, I am not an authority about advertising, but I have been to many seminars, studied it in college, and I constantly read about it, so I have a better than average understanding of how it works.

I bring this to your attention because of the upcoming May primary election. On the Republican ticket will be several candidates. The nominee could likely be decided by the 5th Congressional District which is heavily Republican.

No doubt a ton of money will be spent, mostly on television, for advertising. I, for one, have never been convinced about the effectiveness of the ads on TV. More than anything I find them annoying because they are so repetitive.

For years I have analyzed local elections on who won and how the winners advertised. Take the last local primary election for example. Some of the big spenders won and some lost, but one thing all the winners had in common was that they advertised in this newspaper.

There are a lot of reasons candidates win elections that have nothing to do with advertising of course.

Look at the November General Election. Every major candidate that ran informational ads in this newspaper won with the exception of Seth Reeves, but he won in Whitley County which is in our coverage area.

Candidates won for a variety of reasons, but the leading vote getters ran ads in the News Journal.  Even the write-in candidates made a good showing by running ads with us.

Having said this I doubt that any of the Republican candidates for governor will run a newspaper ad, but they should. This could be the edge that one of the leading contenders could use to win, especially in this area.

Advertising agencies that represent candidates have people that mostly grew up with the Internet and television. Our ad department has developed a plan that fits into that line of thinking. It is unique and only with newspaper advertising can it be most effective.

So, not only to those who control the candidates purses, but to all others who like the Internet, give Melissa or Trevor a call at 528-9767 to find out how our newspaper advertising can work for you.