POVs
IVS Demonstrates Value of Newspapers as a Preprint Advertising Medium
A Point of View By David S. Walker, President, Business and Strategic Development, Newspaper Services of America
The commitment a newspaper makes to its preprinted insert advertisers remains very compelling in today’s fragmented media space: to deliver the advertiser’s welcome message into the hands of a newspaper consumer. Advertisers count on each and every one of those desirable distribution points, down to the last insert, because every prospective customer contact matters. ABC’s Insert Verification Service (IVS) is perhaps the most significant step in representing the value proposition of newspapers to insert advertisers since the overall ABC circulation audit launched decades ago.
Results Have Been Encouraging; More Newspapers Stand to Gain Trust From Advertisers
IVS was born from years of dialogue within ABC membership, and with guidance from preprint advertisers, agencies and newspaper publishers. The objective of IVS has always been to provide newspapers a means to verify and make transparent the delivery proficiency of preprinted inserts. The IVS audit literally measures the accuracy of the newspaper’s distribution “build and deliver” process. Does the newspaper’s finished preprint package reflect the specific distribution orders and instructions from advertisers?
With an estimated 87 billion preprints in circulation annually, and more than half of those preprints distributed via some available targeting (or “zoning”) offered by newspapers, IVS will become critical to measuring the practical performance of newspapers in getting advertiser messages to the expected place.
More than 50 newspapers have committed to IVS audits and about half have completed and released their reports, with many having achieved proficiency rates ranging from 97.25 to 99.75 percent.
I am very encouraged by the first wave of results we’ve been seeing. First and foremost, early-adopter newspapers are demonstrating their willingness to win even greater trust with their preprint advertisers, a vital gesture in today’s volatile media marketplace. Secondly, IVS-audited newspapers are seeing independently validated results of their commitment to quality—and these results are solid. Finally, the transparency of this very special IVS audit, married with the overall circulation audit, gives buyers a renewed sense of how very valuable newspapers are in delivering real, measurable, quality media impact.
Today is the day more newspaper publishers must commit to an IVS audit. While the actual audit and its results may not be available for a paper for some time, a promise to ABC to engage an IVS audit is something that can be done right now. Conversely, an ongoing lack of commitment to the IVS audit, particularly for newspapers with large, national preprint advertiser packages, raises concern in the marketplace as clearly a lack of willingness to participate in an overall circulation audit. So if you haven’t yet signed up for an IVS audit, please do it now. You need it, your advertisers need it and the industry needs it.
About IVS Reports
IVS reports provide insert proficiency rates and other key distribution data. Included in the reports is a “Total Insert Proficiency” calculation that reflects a newspaper’s insert distribution performance. This is represented as an overall success percentage indicating the volume of inserts reaching intended newspaper recipients. The balance of the IVS report offers additional details on the verification field test and discloses error rates and conditions observed by ABC.
IVS reports are available without charge to current ABC eStatement subscribers at ww.accessabc.com alongside ABC’s Audit Reports and Publisher’s Statements. A sample IVS report is also available online.
- 55 ABC-member newspapers have enrolled in IVS.
- 22 have released IVS reports with proficiency rates ranging from 97.25 – 99.25 percent
More Information
For more information, visit www.accessabc.com/services/ivs.htm. For questions or to enroll in IVS, members are encouraged to contact at (224) 366-6412.
About ABC
With more than 4,000 members in North America, ABC is a forum of the world’s leading magazine and newspaper publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies. The organization provides credible, verified information essential to the media buying and selling process. ABC maintains the world’s foremost electronic database of audited-circulation information and an array of verified readership, subscriber demographics and online activity data. To learn more, visit www.accessabc.com.
David S. Walker is president of business
and strategic development at Newspaper
Services of America, the largest newspaper
planning and placement agency in
the United States. With 20 years of
marketing management, Walker helped
guide ABC in its development of its
Insert Verification Service program that
launched in 2006. He currently serves
on ABC’s Newspaper Buyers Advisory
Committee and has been a member of
ABC’s board of directors since 2004.
