Complete Story
02/04/2016
Newspaper inserts hang on in digital age
Inserts – the circulars that come in newspapers, such as the big coupon books on Sundays – are the media equivalent of mean girls.
A lot of media people have complaints about them. Yet they remain popular.
What are the complaints? They’re expensive and they don’t deliver a big enough return on investment.
A study by Omnicom last year found inserts have the second-lowest ROI for any major media, about half that of radio and television.
But they’re important to newspapers, which is why the pricing remains high and papers push them so hard. They account for up to half of local newspapers’ profits, with the decline of other advertising, classifieds and circulation.
“FSIs remain relatively stable. In fact, they still represent about 90 percent of coupons distributed,” says Dan Kitrell, vice president of account solutions at Kantar Media’s Marx.
