Bill Ostendorf: Redesigning (and saving) printed newspaper classifieds

How bad do things have to get before publishers and classifieds managers are willing to do a complete (and badly needed) remodel of newspaper printed classified sections?

‘No one wants to be first. It’s amazing to me that they can’t/won’t/don’t want to try something different!’ -Bill Ostendorf

That question kept popping into my mind as I interviewed Bill Ostendorf, long-time newspaper designer and advertising consultant, about how to improve and save printed classifieds. As CEO of Creative Circle Advertising Solutions and Creative Circle Media Consulting (Providence, Rhode Island), Ostendorf is in the business of coming up with new ideas for improving newspaper operations and growing revenues, including lots of work with classifieds (print and online, but for this article I’m focusing mostly on print).

He and his team are creative folks, and just in the classifieds space they have at least a dozen concepts for improving and growing a newspaper’s classifieds that get presented each time they walk through a new door. Well, they’ve got many more ideas than that, of course, but those are the ones that Ostendorf is convinced will work at making a newspaper’s classifieds more successful — but haven’t been tried yet. As often as he’s pitched them to newspaper executives and gotten positive signals that they are good ideas that probably will work, no one has yet had the courage to implement them.

“I know they would work!” he says, and has the research to back it up. “But no one wants to be first. It’s amazing to me that (newspaper classifieds and advertising managers) can’t/won’t/don’t want to try something different!” (Ostendorf likens newspaper executives to lemmings, and says he wishes he could just push the first lemming over the cliff so the rest of the industry would follow.)

For example, one of the key weaknesses of most newspaper classifieds is that they are put off in their own section, which is read usually only by those people who are looking for something. Ostendorf believes, and he’s hardly alone in this thinking, that classifieds should also be included in other relevant sections throughout the newspaper:

• In the Sports section, add a featured grid of cars for sale. These ads can be from the regular Autos classified section, where advertisers have paid an extra upsell fee to be included in Sports.
• In the Gardening weekly section, include upsold ads from nurseries, landscape designers, and landscape construction companies.
• And so on.

Such classifieds-in-editorial-sections also present an opportunity for newspaper classifieds reps to sell some new and effective inventory outside of the traditional classifieds section, such as display ads from athletics stores and gyms to accompany the classifieds in the Sports section example above.

Ostendorf also advocates doing regular category classifieds specials, such as a weekly weddings and engagements ad special to accompany editorial content in the Lifestyles section. Or a special Graduates package in Lifestyles, where parents can buy classifieds ads — including photos — to celebrate their kids’ achievement. Do it in a classy way, he urges, with sophisticated design and graphics; avoid the cheesy balloons and flowers clip art.

The key point, says Ostendorf, is to add exposure of classifieds to newspaper readers who don’t know they want to buy something (like a set of golf clubs, say, spotted while reading the Sports section). That approach adds power to a classified ad beyond being in a section that a minority of newspaper readers don’t open because they’re not looking for something that particular day.

Stuck in the 1960s? You’ve got to be kidding

Getting such common-sense ideas implemented is tough in large part because of the conservative nature of middle-level newspaper classified managers, Ostendorf says. The typical classifieds section in a newspaper, after all, still looks like it could have been published in the 1960s. Not much has changed over the decades other than narrower columns and smaller type. There’s seldom color; there are seldom photos. “That’s so stupid, it’s hard to believe,” he says. (My head is nodding in agreement.)

And speaking of dumb, that would be a good way to describe the tiny type that many newspaper classifieds sections continue to use. I dare say I don’t need to explain why, as the average age of newspaper print readers continues to get older, small type is a really bad idea.

Ostendorf’s company does regular national surveys of newspaper readers on behalf of its clients. A 2006 survey focused on print classifieds found:

• 40% of classifieds readers said it’s hard to find things.
• 41% said classifieds sections are too hard to read.
• 38% said they’re too disorganized.
• 57% said they would use classifieds more if they were more legible.
• 59% said they would use classifieds more if photos accompanied ads.

That last point is a good innovation that more print classifieds sections should implement. (Though, frankly, to call adding photos an “innovation” is a bit silly. It’s more like an obvious feature that’s been ignored by many newspapers.) But the problem, complains Ostendorf, is that many newspaper front-end systems can’t accommodate classified advertisers uploading photos to accompany their ads.

That’s also a huge road block for many newspapers to effectively integrate print and online classifieds. “We’ve come up with lots of strategies (to do that), only to have newspaper executives say, ‘Our system can’t do that.’”

One key feature that Ostendorf would like to see is the ability for advertisers to change their ads from day to day; for example, for a 30-day run of a house for sale ad, the seller should be able to modify the price (or anything else) and have the change show up in the print edition the next day, as well as be reflected online.

Stamp out risk-averse thinking!

What is it going to take for newspapers to get serious about redesigning print classifieds so that they are relevant and successful in the Internet age? Ostendorf blames a risk-averse culture at many newspaper companies, where entrepreneurialism within the organization is still punished rather than rewarded. Many classifieds managers are compensated based on gross revenues or revenues minus costs, so trying something new and risky that has no guarantee of revenue success can mean personal loss. “It’s no wonder we’re not going anywhere,” he says.

What’s needed is for publishers to start providing incentives for classifieds managers to launch new initiatives, Ostendorf says, recognizing that two out of three may not work. Without a dose of entrepreneurialism, newspaper classifieds will continue to decline badly.

“Many of today’s classifieds managers were brought up in a culture where money was easy, so they didn’t take risks,” he says. They must not only be taught to take risks, but be incentivized to do so.

Newspaper classifieds are in a bad way. Things are truly awful enough that publishers and their classifieds managers can take some risks, try out some new ideas. Ostendorf has some for you to try.

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