International advertising isn’t something we get to do very often. So, when we were given the job of placing an ad in an Israeli newspaper by Figaro’s Italian Pizza, we were anxious to do it. We had never done business in Israel before and we love doing something new. And really, how hard could this be? Well, what  looked like a simple enough task turned out to be quite a challenging experience.

It started out OK. A couple hours on the Internet was all it took to track down a short list of newspapers that looked like what we needed. And, with just a little more research we narrowed it down to the correct publication.

So far, so good.

Our next step was to contact the advertising department of the paper to get rates, deadlines, mechanical specs and payment procedures. That’s when the first little challenge became evident, and it wasn’t a language barrier as we expected. As it turns out, most speak English quite well over there. It was the time difference. Every e-mail, no matter how insignificant the subject, takes an entire day to get a response. That’s because their work day begins about 10:00 pm our time, and ends about 6:00 am. While I’m e-mailing, they’re sleeping, and vice versa. On a number of occasions I got up early to call them on the phone in order to speed things up. But, at this newspaper they don’t answer their phones. They let their phones collect messages that they listen to at their leisure. Add to that, my first three e-mails were not answered. My only hint that they were going through was that I was not getting a bounce-back notice. But, three unanswered e-mails equals three days of time.

For fear of looking totally incompetent to my client, I started sending several e-mails per day, so if there was anyone on the other end, they could not miss my messages. In fact, they would have to respond or continue to be annoyed by me forever. Thankfully, I finally received a polite e-mail along with an apology for not responding sooner.

Things were starting to look up.

After another few days of back-and-forth messaging, I was able to size the ad and identify a budget. I had asked how they wanted to handle payment and was told that the ad had to be paid three days prior to publication. Payment could be either by bank transfer or credit card. No surprises here.

I spoke to my banker and was told that the most practical way to handle this transaction was to use the credit card because it wasn’t very much money (it was a small ad). And, the bank guaranteed the transaction and safety of my account. So, I e-mailed my account information to the newspaper along with the art and insertion order, happy that it was done.

However, the Friday it was supposed to run, I received an e-mail saying that my card had been rejected and the ad could not run. I was embarrassed and shocked because our card was in good standing. I called my US Bank contact and he was also baffled. He could only advise me to call the service number on the back of the card. I called the number and was told that because it was from out of the country, their computerized fraud protection system had denied it. I then asked them to override the system because it was a legitimate transaction.

I was told that they could not do that. Once the computer decided to reject the transaction, they could not manually override it. They had to provide a manual security code which the Israeli newspaper must get verified when making the transaction. Only then could the payment go through. So, I asked for the code so I could give it to the newspaper.

Nope.

They could not give it to me. The newspaper had to call for it, then include it in the electronic transaction. So, I summarized all this as clearly as possible and sent it off to the newspaper. The next day I received an e-mail from the newspaper explaining that they could not call and get the manual security code because their billing department was completely computerized, and there was no provision for such an action. Great. Two computers who cannot or will not talk to each other and who have control over their human counterparts. 

Exasperated, I finally dug out an alternate credit card and sent the newspaper all new card information. Then, immediately called the number on the back of the new card telling them to expect a transaction from Israel. Miraculously, a couple days later I received an e-mail from the newspaper saying that the transaction had gone through and the ad could run. So, I asked that the ad run in the next Friday’s edition.

On about Thursday, I received another e-mail from the newspaper saying that the Friday edition I wanted had already been sold out to capacity, and the ad would not run. Over here they just add another page and keep selling space. That one really surprised me. They did include in their note that  it would run in the following Friday’s edition. Thank goodness this was not a time-sensitive ad.

I’m happy to report that the ad finally ran, I think. You see, I asked for five tear sheets after the ad ran. I was informed that they could only provide three. OK, so I’ll take three. That was about two weeks ago, and I still haven’t received any tear sheets.

Believe it or not, I actually expect to receive my tear sheets eventually. This whole experience has made me appreciate the efforts of international business people everywhere. And, no, I don’t consider myself an international businessman as a result of this. But, I got a very brief peek into their window and got a quick tutorial on how complicated things can get.

Would I do it again?

Oh yeah.

Rob Charlton

Few people, including advertising professionals, know how to calculate the expected response from a newspaper ad. A newspaper circulation of 200,000 doesn’t mean 200,000 people will be contemplating your ad.

Here are the variables you need to consider when calculating an expected response from a newspaper ad.

1. YOUR TARGET
Every product has a demographic that represents its prime target. Let’s say, for the sake of this example, that your target demographic is adults, 25 – 54

2. MARKET SIZE
If you are located in a city of 1.5 million people and the 25 – 54 demographic represents 40%, then your target population is 600,000.

3. DURATION BETWEEN PURCHASES
Since people don’t buy every product they use every day of the year, the duration between purchases is important to consider. Let’s say people buy your product one time per year on average. Then, your available market in any month is 1/12 of 600,000, or 50,000. Of course, you’ll have to take into account the seasonal fluctuations for your product and apply the same logic.

4. NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION
If your local daily newspaper has a 40% penetration in your market, calculate that against your available 50,000 market to reach 20,000 possible qualified exposures to your message.

5. READERSHIP
Not every subscriber reads every page every day. Studies have shown that if you get 10% of the subscribers to read your ad, that is a very generous number. Applying that calculation to our example reduced the number of targeted customers to 2,000.

6. YOUR MARKET SHARE
Unless you have an exclusive monopoly in your market, you have competition with some customers who are loyal to them. If your overall market share is 10%, you can apply that to the remaining targeted customers, leaving 200 as your reasonable expectation.

7. RESPONSE RATE
Assume a 2% response rate from your ad.

8. RESPONSE
Your expected response (customers making a transaction) will be 4.

These numbers can vary wildly. However, the chain of logic remains constant. The offer, size of ad, weather, lack of or heavy competition, time of year and numerous other influences can have a bearing on final results. But, this model is useful to illustrate the realities of advertising response.