ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes part of a 30-year history at the Newspaper Advertising Bureau of the study of newspaper ads and newspaper ad reading. In the 1964 Newspaper Advertising Bureau study, 85% of brand loyal newspaper readers opened the average page containing an ad for the product, as did 84% of the brand switchers and 82% of the product nonprospects. In 1960, M. Yazmir, working for Politz, validated a page-opening question. He mailed out copies of a magazine to subscribers with tiny dots of glue pasting the pages together. When the subscribers were later questioned about their page opening, their responses correlated highly with the broken glue spots. Both the reader’s prospect status and the product category impact an ad’s effectiveness. The advertiser gets a searching glance from almost all newspaper readers automatically. In 1992, with several other organizations, the Newspaper Advertising Bureau became part of the Newspaper Association of America.
