• NY Times, Wednesday, February 15, 2006 11:15 AM

Faced with slackening demand for advertising pages, the two major print media--newspapers and consumer magazines--are poised to break their first ad campaigns from new ad agencies. The Newspaper Association of America will launch a series of humorous ads from Richmond, Va.-based Martin Agency, targeting media planners and buyers. The Magazine Publishers of America, meanwhile, is poised to break the second phase of its three-year, $40 million marketing campaign, and the first from new ad shop Wehnam, Mass.- based Mullen. The efforts come on the eve of the 4As' Media Conference and Trade Show, the NAA's annual marketing conference, and the prelude to the 2006-07 upfront buying season, when advertisers and agencies will make decisions to spend billions of dollars in advertising budgets. The new ad campaigns also come as the print media are preaching the power of ads in their pages to engage consumers. Now they'll find out how well their ads engage advertising professionals. "Every day we try to print something that people on the right and the left can actually agree on. We call it 'advertising.'," reads one of the Martin ads, part of a $50 million effort by the newspaper industry.

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