R.R. Donnelley & Sons is acquiring catalog printer Spencer Press. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter. Spencer Press produces catalogs, press-pasted booklets, free-standing inserts and self-mailers. According to the company, Spencer Press’s capabilities will complement RR Donnelley’s existing Catalog and Retail Services platform.
Consumers are adapting to increasing gas prices by changing how they shop, according to a new study by ACNielsen released Tuesday. Lower-income households have begun using coupons more often than affluent households - 23 percent compared to 14 percent - and purchasing less expensive brands of grocery and lower grades of gas, Mediapost writes. More well-to-do households are shopping in warehouse club stores more often (9 percent versus 6 percent of less wealthy households) and online (7 percent compared to 3 percent).
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Free standing inserts (FSIs) in the first half of 2005 increased 2.3 percent from a year ago, with more than 136 billion coupons delivered in Sunday newspapers - the largest number of FSI coupons distributed in any six months since 1995, the Center for Media Research reports. Consumer packaged goods remains the largest sector using FSIs, with a 3.4 percent increase in page activity. The direct response sector, which has been increasing in activity steadily for the past three years, again posted positive growth.
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Newspapers and circulars remain the main source for parents to find back-to-school coupons, according to a poll by Prospectiv’s Consumer Preference Index released last week, DM News reports. But preference is growing for e-mail offers. While only 8 percent of parents polled currently get back-to-school coupons online, 28 percent expressed interest in receiving coupon offers via e-mail and web sites in the future.
The poll also found that 43 percent of parents expect to spend more on back-to-school purchases this year than last, 50 percent will shop at discount stores, and 62 percent will use coupons.
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Magazine publishers, eager to prove that they can compete with new media when it comes to flash, are offering advertisers new opportunities for showcasing their products. Case in point: next month, Rolling Stone and Us Weekly magazines will include a new ad from the WB network in which the headlights of an illustrated car will flicker on and off, music will play, and characters from the new drama, Supernatural, will offer sound bites about the program, the Wall Street Journal reports (via AZ Central).
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Stephen Goetz, a credit card marketer in San Francisco, contends in a lawsuit that American Express stole his idea for the tagline of the company’s “My life. My card.” advertising campaign, and a Federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that the case can go to trial, The New York Times reports. Goetz’s lawyers will subpoena evidence from Ogilvy & Mather, American Express’s ad agency.
Direct mail volumes increased significantly in the financial cross-selling category from January 2004 through the first quarter of 2005, DM News reports.
Chase tops the top five cross-selling direct mail list for both mortgage and banking product categories, according to data released last week by Comperemedia.
Valpak has developed a 43 million mailing and sweepstakes to target existing NASCAR fans and entice new ones to TNT’s 2005 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Race to the Chase programming, the company has announced. The sweeps awards a NASCAR fan and three friends a drive to school by the famed driver of the No. 99 Office Depot car. Cross promotional print advertising will include Valpak in TNT’s NASCAR programming advertisement in the July and August issues of NASCAR Scene Magazine, a 30 million Office Depot Sunday circular, and in-store posters at 1,000 Office Depot retail locations.
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Print media research firm Scarborough last week started releasing circulation figures that included both print and online readers, according to BtoB Online. The addition of the online audience failed to provide much in the way of surprises. There were plenty of online readers who didn’t show up in the print circulations figures, and they tended to be younger. For example, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution grew its weekly footprint from 51 percent of adult Atlantans to 56 percent when the online figures were tacked on, a gain of about 223,000 readers.
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