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The Wall Street Journal will begin placing ads on its front page, a move that could bring in tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue, The New York Times reports.
The Journal refers to the front-page ad as a “jewel box,” and will probably begin offering the real estate in September. The ad, which can be in color, will probably be square-shaped and run in the bottom right-hand corner. A second option might be a strip ad along the bottom of the page.
It is unclear how much the ad will cost. Media buyers speculated that it could bring anywhere from $75,000 to somewhere in the low six figures. The journal is offering the space to its largest advertisers.
The move could influence other newspapers to also open up their front pages. USA Today, owned by Gannett, has run a strip ad on the bottom of its front page since 1999, and most Gannett papers also run front-page ads.
Last year, The Journal began selling ads on the front of some of its individual sections and on the front pages of its overseas editions.
This month, The New York Times began selling ads on the front of its business section; the paper had already been selling ads on the front of The Metro Section on Sundays and has run small classified ads on its front page for years.
“The big question for all of us is, Will the pricing be offset by the return?” said Nicholas A. Utton, the chief marketing officer for E*Trade, which already advertises in the Journal.
Mercedes-Benz indicated that it would hesitate to place ads on the front page because “the idea is to be around brands of a similar caliber,” said Donna Boland, a spokeswoman for Mercedes. “So I’m not sure that strategy would lend itself to Page 1.” And she cited another drawback: “Honestly, I think that would be a really expensive ad.”
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Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
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