The Commercial Appeal

PRIZM Analysis Targets Prospective Customers for Advertisers

The Company

With a daily circulation of 150,000 and 194,000 on Sunday, The Commercial Appeal is the predominant daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee and its surrounding metropolitan area, which includes 64 counties in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. Founded in 1841, the paper, nicknamed "Old Reliable," is owned by The E. W. Scripps Company, a major North American media company. Today, as a multi-media company, The Commercial Appeal reaches nearly seven in 10 Memphis adults weekly either through its locally-zoned newspaper, its websites, or its growing number of niche publications.

The Challenge

Many local Memphis retailers perceived The Commercial Appeal as too expensive a media option for their advertising budget. However, with the creation of zoned advertising, targeted inserts, direct mail services, web and niche promotion, the newspaper provides more affordable ways for advertisers to reach their customers than ever before. Accordingly, the newspaper's marketers needed to develop a compelling service that would encourage local retailers to consider The Commercial Appeal for their promotion plans.

The Solution

The Commercial Appeal developed a campaign to offer local Memphis businesses free Nielsen Claritas PRIZM segmentation analysis of their existing customer databases.ý This analysis identified four types of customers, which were:

• Core Customers – high customer index, high index market composition
• Niche Customers – high customer index, low index market composition
• Developmental Customers – low customer index, high index market composition
• Non-Targets – low customer index, low index market composition

Armed with this information and its wide portfolio of media options, The Commercial Appeal designed customized marketing recommendations created to provide the highest number of impressions among each business' Core & Niche prospects while staying within the retailer's promotional budgets.

The Results

In one year, nearly 100 Memphis retailers took advantage of the PRIZM analysis program, half of which signed new ad revenue contracts with The Commercial Appeal. Moreover, 65 percent of the existing clients who received a PRIZM analysis increased their ad spending with the paper year over year, and the total increase from these accounts represented a 57 percent upswing in ad sales from the previous year. Finally, a key driver for this growth came from 25 businesses that had spent nothing with The Commercial Appeal in the previous year.