Imagine my delight when I found that lovely yellow three inch thick directory sitting in its comfy plastic bag on my front door step. Apparently, I like these free directories so much that, without even asking for them, I’ve received no fewer than three this year. One is the official Yellow Pages, a second is a smaller, directory of neighbourhood businesses, and a third is a brand new “light green pages” called Go Local published by the same people who bring me my Ottawa Citizen every morning. For all I know, there are more to come. What does it say about marketing communications that in an era of brilliant search engines and mapping sites, somebody out there still sees fit to waste about six pounds of paper and a cup of ink (not to mention the energy required to print and deliver them) on books that we rarely if ever even remove from their comfy plastic bags?
What it says to me is that old-fashioned “sales” as a business philosophy is alive and well, in spite of what we may think about the inevitable supremacy of marketing. The longevity of these printed directories is a throw back to the early years of modern advertising when the emphasis was on selling advertising space at the highest possible price, rather than understanding and delivering what the customer actually needed. George P. Rowell, a pioneer of professional advertising, summed it up well in 1906 when he wrote in his autobiography (Forty Years an Advertising Agent): “Advertisers have very little idea of what an advertisement is worth” (p. 454). Rowell knew full well that skillful agents could buy ad space from publishers at a very low price and sell it to unsuspecting advertisers at a very high price.
Rowell’s solution was to publish a directory of all daily newspapers and include the prices publishers charged for advertising space; he also held publishers to those prices. Great innovation but publishing a firm price for advertising space doesn’t guarantee the price actually makes sense. Hire enough sales people to go out and pitch to busy business owners (some of whom might even be a touched confused by just which business directory is which) and you just might be able to sell enough ads to cover the costs of dropping these colourful anachronisms all over town. All of which may explain why Go Local seems to be advertising for its sales positions every week (and the good people at Yellow Pages are not to be outdone).
Bottom line: Buyer beware. Learn about online ads, search engines and what your customers actually do when they need information on products and services (you could, for instance, ask them). If you aren’t sure, ask someone who isn’t on commission and trying to make quota for the month.
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