They still don’t get it. Even as they slowly wither away, the Yellow Pages industry still doesn’t get it.
“The Original Search Engine.” When I saw this Yellow Pages industry tag line in an ad campaign to resurrect directory usage, I thought it was pretty clever. But too little, too late.
Today I was assured that they still don’t understand that tag lines mean little when you don’t understand your customers.
Case in point: Yellow Pages sales reps quote costs on a monthly basis. This old trick implies lesser cost than facing the daunting numbers of an annual quote. However, they now also offer quotes and billing on an annual basis when a customer requests.
The monthly cost is tied to a 12-month lifecycle or, the 12-months in which the directory is on the street working for the advertiser. Sometimes the directory company decides that 12-months just doesn’t work for their purposes so they delay the next printing cycle a few months. They now call this a 14-month directory and they have the gall to charge for these additional two months.
Here are some analogies:
You contract for 30-second radio spots but the radio station decides that 60-second spots work better for their scheduling – and they charge you for it.
The magazine that sold you 6 insertions over six months just added a special mid-month edition – and they charge you for it.
You contract for a billboard that estimates traffic counts at 40,000 automobiles per month. Then a new lane is added to the highway adding 10,000 more cars – and they charge you for it.
You get the point.
I’m finally convinced that the medium will continue to wither and fade away. And not because social media pushed the Yellow Pages aside but because the Yellow Pages never moved past their 1980’s monopoly mentality.
Footnote: Many of you know I spent several years in the Yellow Pages industry. This rant is not new but now it is sad, indeed.