• by October 9, 2000

By Debbi K. Swanson

The Los Angeles Times is developing new strategies to fill the void left by the closures of its Our Times community newspapers in mid-September. Bob Studebaker, automotive advertising manager of the Los Angeles region, says that on L.A.'s Westside they're using the resources of Times Direct to reach the entire market for its automotive clients.

"With the loss of the Westside Our Times, our 16 automotive advertisers in Santa Monica were concerned about their ads being lost in the regular Westside section of the Times," says Studebaker. "So we developed a program for two upcoming dealer car shows in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills [which has eight dealers]. In addition to an ad, we developed a 16-20 page automotive section. This will be sent to the regular Times subscribers by zip code in each area. And we're using direct mail to reach 100,000 local residents, twice the circulation of Our Times, guaranteeing saturation of the area."

With the purchase of the Times by the Tribune Company, which also owns other media outlets, he says opportunities exist for even more creative outreach. "We're going to depend on our primary strengths and bundle newspaper ads with spots on our local TV station KTLA to create new kinds of ad packages." Studebaker says a monthly tabloid is also a possibility, as are other products to serve the editorial as well as advertising needs of local communities.

"The creation of Our Times [under the Times' previous leadership] was a knee-jerk reaction to the closure of The Outlook in Santa Monica in 1998," says Studebaker. "Its first issue came out of the shoot at about 32 pages. That was also the biggest issue ever produced. So the Tribune felt we could develop a new and better product if we started over."

To provide another source of customers to auto dealers, The Times is also using the lead generation model of car shopping on the Web. "Through the Tribune's classified advertising network, Classified Ventures, involving 130 newspapers (owned by The Tribune Co., Gannett, McClatchy, Knight-Ridder, New York Times Co. and the Washington Post Co.) and its site Cars.com, we lead the consumer to the dealers. This is in contrast to the concept of sites like Carsdirect.com which sell directly to the consumer," says Studebaker.

Yet the online portion of the dealers' business is just one percent. Each lead costs about $25. Studebaker says they may spend $1,500 on the Internet per month while spending $25,000 in newspaper ads. He compares the benefits to McDonald's. "It's like when someone realized that even though McDonald's sold fast food, it wasn't served fast enough. So they developed the drive-up window. And they found out different customers used the drive-up than came in to sit down, so they increased their sales volume. Same principle with the automotive business online. Some buyers go into the dealership, some need to be lead there." But even buying cars online helps dealerships because