Against All Odds
On March 1, 2021, The McClatchy Company, a newspaper publisher founded in 1857, accomplished something remarkable. Despite a pandemic, financial restructuring, a sagging economy, and social upheaval, they made a radical transformation in sales and advertising operations. They accomplished this in just 7 months, across 30 markets, launching on time and with no disruption in…
New Media, Traditional Lessons
Originally Published March 23rd, 2005 I was rummaging through some old files the other day and came across some direct mail samples for an old, old client, Texaco Star Club. This was a private label auto club for Texaco credit card holders. Along with the samples was a direct mail matrix, containing details of a…
Three’s a Crowd
Originally Published 9/14/2005 One of the most interesting things about going to interactive conferences, or simply interacting with multiple clients, is getting a bird’s eye view of our business and gaining a sense of perspective. In other words, you get to see how other people handle their businesses. The question, “is it just me, or…
Closing the Vast Agency- Publisher Knowledge Gap
Originally Published 09/20/09 When it comes to ad operations, nowhere is there a wider knowledge gap than between publishers and agencies. And I’m not just talking about discrepancies in third-party ad serving. That’s the least of the issues. Over the past three to four years, I’ve had occasion to work on both sides of that…
Local Rules for Ad Operations
Originally Published 10/21/06 In the late 1980s, the fledging online service Prodigy created local content covering the Atlanta metro market. In part, the hope was that “Access Atlanta” would entice an audience to sign up and log on. But in this chicken and egg scenario, the egg was yet to be hatched. The online audience…
Protecting Your Business By Securing Workflow
Originally Published 07/11/07 Mention the word “workflow” to a room full of seasoned, intelligent executives and you’re likely to induce a mass attack of glassy-eyed narcolepsy. Nothing can put a damper on a spirited entrepreneurial discussion like visions of boxes, triangles, hexahedrons and decision trees that are conjured up by this topic. However, give me…
Anatomy of a Project Plan
Originally published 8/10/07 How does an icon in traditional media make the transition from an outsourced ad operations solution to in-house ownership of the tools and processes needed to facilitate online advertising? This is a story about how a logical, step-by-step roadmap can ease that transition. And in this case, how the process became relatively…
Ad Operations People: We Salute You!
Originally published 12/21/05 When our sun grows ancient and cold, and the inhabitants of this planet leave for a place far more hospitable, chances are one of the last lights flickering will be shining on an ad operations person trying to wrest the last impression out of a campaign. Exaggeration? Of course. But I guarantee…
Publishers: Take Control of Your Inventory
Originally Published 07/03/08 Most of us in ad operations are used to creating “work arounds” as a means of solving our most pressing problems. We are frequently handicapped by applications that are limited in their flexibility. We tend to adopt the attitude that “this is the hand we’ve been dealt, so let’s try to make…
The Roadblocks to Starting Your Own ad Network
Originally Published 05/24/09 Mainstream publishers are leaping into the ad network business with increasing frequency. Why, you may ask? After all, isn’t it hard enough for publishers to fill the ad inventory on their own domains? Or have they secretly been selling out 100 percent of all their ad placements without telling anyone? If so,…
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