It's Really More Than Just a Bag

02/21/2008 - Those advertising pundits from outside the industry that comment on media have frequently noted that they don’t consider Yellow Pages to be a true ad media. While it may hurt our feelings to hear those kinds of comments, if you take a step back and look at how they came to that opinion, it may just start with how the industry chooses to deliver its cherished print products.

Consumers find it on their doorstep when they arrive home -- a bright new shinny Yellow Pages book which has been carefully assembled, tediously checked for accuracy, has the hopes and wishes of our advertisers riding on its quality, is printed on high end printing presses, and is now delivered in……….. a non-descript plastic bag. Look at this one which recently appeared at my door step with the top tied in a bow to keep the rain out. It certainly doesn’t do much for a publisher’s image does it? Hence it’s time to consider some new options to gain some more advertising mojo to prove those pundits wrong.

Ideally, we would like to avoid using bags at all but the reality is weather conditions are not always under our control when we deliver the book. We want the consumers to get a totally clean, unbent copy that looks brand new. Damaged directories will surely go straight to the recycling bin. And heck, it’s also a good opportunity to do some brand marketing for those publishers that are true innovators.

To understand the various options available to publishers we turned to Peter Taylor of Discovery Packaging who provided the information in this article which covers both the functional side of those delivery bags as well as the branding aspects, and a new requirement – being eco-friendly.

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