Here’s a fun brain-teaser, while you’re settling in to enjoy that morning latté: What’s the last major packaged goods campaign you remember seeing in newspaper? You’ve got 60 seconds. Go.

Ding! Time’s up. What have you got?

Nothing? Well, there’s a surprise.

It’s not that packaged goods advertisers never use newspaper. But as a medium for brand-building, it generally ranks last on their list, after TV, magazine and even outdoor.

There are, to be sure, occasional exceptions. When, for example, Scott Paper launched its new double roll of toilet tissue in Western Canada a few years ago, the Mississauga, Ont.-based manufacturer ran an ad in major dailies, featuring an image of the roll running down the length of the entire page.

In this case, newspaper made sense because the launch was ‘newsworthy,’ explains Janet Callaghan, vice-president, corporate media director with Toronto-based MBS/The Media Company, which handled the account at the time. ‘Every advertiser wants news,’ she says.

While situations like this do crop up occasionally, they tend to be the exception to the rule. Packaged goods advertisers, Callaghan says, are looking for continuity – ‘You need to be there often’ – and that can be a costly proposition in newspaper.

Packaged goods advertisers also tend to prefer the superior production values of TV or magazine, Callaghan says – a particularly important consideration for brands that need to communicate qualities such as appetite appeal.

‘The reproduction [in newspaper] is uneven,’ agrees Sandra Cifersons, senior manager, media with Don Mills, Ont.-based Kraft Canada. If you want to create appetite appeal, she says, then you need the kind of glossy, four-colour printing that magazines offer – end of story.

Magazines have a number of other advantages over newspaper, Cifersons notes. They are circulation-driven, invite repeat visits and often boast pass-along readership; they are simply around the house longer than newspapers tend to be, which obviously spells more opportunities for exposure. ‘News, by definition, is immediate and then it’s over,’ she says.

A number of magazines, such as Canadian House and Home and Cottage Life, have also extended their brands into television properties, which creates potential synergies for advertisers.

The cost factor doesn’t really help the dailies’ cause, Cifersons adds. It can cost as much as $100,000 for a one-hit ad with page dominance across the country, she says. That same amount could give an advertiser four or five insertions in magazines – and, in some cases, as much as a week of TV.

While the medium can be used effectively for couponing or to promote new product innovations, Cifersons doesn’t see newspaper as a great vehicle for brand-building.

Newspaper advertising, that is. Editorial coverage in newspaper can do a great deal to boost brands, she says – and Kraft pursues every opportunity available. Recent media relations efforts have yielded coverage of both Post Cereals’ affiliation with Wayne Gretzky, and the launch of Kraft Dinner’s new Easy Mac brand extension.

Newspaper publishers may lament the absence of packaged goods advertising, Cifersons says, but it’s not as if Kraft has been stampeded by sales reps making a case for the medium.

‘They haven’t gone out of their way to solicit or provide research,’ she says. ‘If they had a story to tell, they haven’t been knocking on our door.’

Julie Myers, vice-president, director of planning with Toronto-based Optimedia, says the consensus in the media buying community is that newspapers still tend to work best on a tactical level, to promote news of an event or a product launch.

Cost, she confirms, is the medium’s principal drawback in the eyes of packaged goods advertisers. Few are willing to commit the dollars necessary for even a short-term trial – especially since they already know that TV and magazine work just fine.

‘If we had more money, newspapers would be [a medium] we’d evaluate,’ says Julie Davis, manager of Quaker equity and marketing for Peterborough, Ont.-based Quaker Oats Co. of Canada. But newspapers simply don’t deliver the same reach at the same cost as television, she says.

That’s not to say Quaker never has occasion to use newspaper. In one instance several years ago, for example, the company ran a newspaper ad contradicting a much-publicized study suggesting that margarine is not, in fact, a healthy alternative to butter. Newspaper was the ideal medium for this message, Davis says, because it offered timely and far-reaching exposure.

Because many Quaker products are, essentially, morning products, it is also conceivable that the company could use newspaper effectively in future to distribute samples, Davis says.

Many daily newspapers do, in fact, offer sampling opportunities, as well as other non-traditional advertising vehicles such as Post-it notes, belly bands and ad bags. But Myers says the possibility of executional glitches deters many advertisers from using these tools. ‘It’s unfamiliar territory,’ she says.

Other disadvantages of newspaper? Well, some packaged goods advertisers don’t like the fact that they have no way of knowing whether the editorial environment will be connected to or appropriate for the brand. A typical daily paper’s content runs the gamut from earthquakes to politics, Myers says – and it’s always unpredictable.

True, many newspapers do have food sections, but even those are only appropriate for certain types of advertisers. Because those pages are typically recipe-oriented, for example, they may not represent a suitable environment for a cereal manufacturer.

Sometimes, too, the problem lies with the readers themselves. As Manon Vincent, vice-president, media director with Montreal-based Groupaction points out, working women are the principal buyers for many packaged consumer goods. But research has shown that a high percentage of these women don’t have the time to read a newspaper every day. And when they do find time to read, they’re likely to opt for a magazine.

For what it’s worth, many media planners and buyers do defend newspaper as a medium for building packaged goods brands.

With their broad reach and immediate impact, newspapers can help brands create a great deal of noise, says Tom Batho, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Toronto-based Genesis Media – especially now that reproduction quality in the medium has begun to improve.

Newspaper publishers, of course, would love to see the packaged goods industry give the medium a second look.

Jim Orban, publisher of The Ottawa Citizen, says newspaper can be a cost-effective tool for packaged goods branding if it’s used as the reach component of a campaign. (Options such as inserts, Post-its, outserts and banners can all be employed to this end.)

Orban says The Citizen has been integrated into some packaged goods campaigns through the use of teasers and couponing. It has also carried the occasional launch ad in the food category – but seldom a full brand campaign.

Packaged goods advertisers, he says, still have ‘firmly entrenched perceptions’ about newspaper’s role in the media mix, he says. Those may change – but it will take time.

Janet Callaghan, for her part, says advertisers and agencies need to maintain a fresh perspective, and must always consider possibilities for using established media – including newspaper – in new ways.

‘It’s a responsibility for all of us to look at everything differently,’ she says.

Also in this report:

– CNA tells students to smarten up: Ads encouraging college kids to read newspapers play on fear of looking dumb p.B6

– Pulp group uses papers to dispel fiction: Mounts recycling awareness campaign to correct ‘misperceptions’ about pulp and paper industry p.B7

– Spotlight on…Newspaper Advertising p.B10