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Advertising |
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Copyright © 2001 by Dave Badtke |
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Carquinez Review is a different kind of publication, a regional journal celebrating community arts, literature, people and history, which strives to look at community through the writing, art and experiences of neighbors. (Hopefully you’ve seen the publication by now, out last November, but if not, you can buy it at many local stores.) It’s neither a literary journal, though many refer to it as such, nor an arts journal. While it contains history, it’s not a history journal. And while it contains interviews and personal recollections, it tells our neighbors’ stories not to create celebrity but to remind us how extraordinary our ordinary lives are. As such, Carquinez Review is an experiment, unique in the region, possibly unique in the state and nation, that tests the theory that communities will benefit if their experiences and creativity are captured in a high-quality publication. Submissions to volume TWO have been very encouraging, and we anticipate that the next issue will contain more than 200 pages. But the publication will neither serve its purpose nor be financially viable without business support. And advertising has been the bane of Carquinez Review. ONE, which is the first volume, has no advertising, which many have praised, but without advertising, the future of Carquinez Review is indeed bleak. Not wanting Carquinez Review to become magazine-like, filled with random advertisements of varying quality, my original intent was to create ads that would tell a business’ community story and be creative and improve sales. Since businesses are as necessary as other community services but are different in that they seek monetary profit in addition to addressing social needs, I thought it would be easy to create such ads. To say that this idea has gone over like a high school prom scheduled during the first night of Passover would be an understatement. One business was interested in an ad but also wanted to review an article that’s being written about some employees who retired from the company many years ago. Editorial control? I said. Never. And another said that he didn’t like a story written by one of the contributors to ONE. Never mind that we were talking about TWO, the next volume. (Since I like all the articles in ONE, my suspicion is that the person really didn’t like the author, but who’s to know.) It was at this point that I realized, the epiphany seizing my brain like a migraine, that a community journal’s advantage is its disadvantage: Those who create the journal are known by the community. After all, diversity has its limits. Better would be a publication that includes only those whom everyone likes—we could change its name to the Willy Loman Review—though such a publication would neither reflect who we are nor be worth reading. As Rubin the rigger used to say as his workers were dropping, smashing, and otherwise destroying muon particle detectors three stories up on an experiment we were doing at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center: Dave, if you ain’t messing up, you ain’t doing nothing. (Rubin’s words were more colorful.) People who do things will invariably rub others the wrong way, and it sure is easy to rub people the wrong way when you write or create art. (Speaking is more forgiving: You can always claim later that you didn’t say what people say you said, and after a while you’ll even convince yourself that your denial is the truth—whatever that is. But let’s not get too philosophical.) So, a potential advertiser may look at ONE, not like something about it, and decide not to advertise. Since the circulation of ONE is small, 2,000 copies, there is no compelling reason to advertise, the assumption being that a small-circulation journal will not improve sales, hence the circulation of TWO remains small, or TWO doesn’t come out at all, thus continuing the vicious chicken-and-egg conundrum faced by all businesses: You can’t make money until you make money. (Never mind that throw-aways with much larger circulations are so named for a reason.) There’s another problem: Ads can work against a business if they’re not clever, if they don’t teach, or if they don’t catch the eye in a positive way. While I admit that scantily clad women catch my eye, embarrassment quickly follows. Or they can be an irritant. While I remember mountain grown, jolly green giant, we try harder, and 57 varieties, just because I remember the slogan does not mean I will buy the product. In fact, I may go out of my way to avoid the product. Just do it, for example, is a slogan that can really rub me the wrong way. But community advertising could be much different. If the business is new, it could tell more about the owner and his vision. If the business is older, it could tell a bit of the history of the business and some of its accomplishments. In all cases, community advertising should strive to explain why we should patronize local businesses. While it’s nice to believe that people will buy locally to support their town, the reality is that the automobile, telephone and Internet make it easy for us to shop elsewhere, and many do, in some cases simply because they know little about local businesses. If the ad tells us something we don’t know or surprises us or makes us laugh, which usually doesn’t take much additional effort, then the ad could enhance the publication and have a positive impact on the business’ bottom line. Carquinez Review is solving its advertising dilemma, in part, by becoming a nonprofit, which will allow organizations and individuals who believe in the goals of the publication to make tax-deductible contributions. But a community publication without business advertising would not represent who we are. Businesses play a crucial role in our town, and their contribution should be represented. Which brings me to my plea: If you’re an early-adopter of new ideas, if you occasionally take a chance but find bungee jumping, mountain climbing, or swimming with sharks too time consuming, why not consider taking a chance with Carquinez Review advertising. We’ll work together to create something new of which you’ll be proud, which will benefit both your business and community, and which will be captured in TWO, to be seen, read and admired for years to come. |
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- Dave Badtke can be contacted at: www.CarquinezReview.com; Dave@Badtke.com; PO Box 763, Benicia, CA 94510; or by calling 707-745-5540.
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