No Room This Season for Splashy Print Ads

Consumers who flip through December issues of major magazines will find a brand-new trend in print advertising this holiday season: quiet.

Gone are ads from recent holiday issues that used tiny silicon chips to play “Deck the Halls� and “Silent Night.� Gone are ads that lit up full-page Christmas trees or illuminated holiday scenes. Gone too are most ads with special stamps, pop-up art or cut-out games that gave consumers cheap thrills and postal workers extra weight on their backs.

This sudden retrenchment from the splashier print ads of recent Christmases did not happen by accident. The sick economy is playing a role. And the linchpin to the flashy print advertisements, the liquor industry, is having a terrible year.

But marketing experts say the real reason these ringing and singing ads are in the junk heap is simple--people are bored with them.

“The novelty of these things has worn off real fast,� said Gil Solnin, a brand manager for Crown Royal, distributed by Seagram Beverage Co. “So many people started doing it that consumers started to expect it.�

What’s more, the technology that creates these print spectaculars has failed to keep pace with the economic realities of mass marketing.

In some cases, the ad inserts cost advertisers more than $1 each. Even at that price, they didn’t always work properly.

Back in 1987, Brown-Forman Beverage Co. was among the first to place a musical ad in a publication, when it inserted an ad with a microchip that played “Deck the Halls� inside limited editions of People magazine. The campaign, for Canadian Mist, cost more than $1 million.

That was the company’s first and last experiment with such costly advertising. “If we had seen a major uptick in the business that we could have attributed to that ad, we would have done more of it,� said Ack Willets, brand manager for Canadian Mist.

Instead of investing in the costly print ads, Canadian Mist is placing splashier holiday displays at liquor stores--where its customers shop. For example, it is using lights and motion that give the appearance of snowstorms.

While glitzy print ads generated a lot of attention, “they had more PR value than financial value� for the advertisers, said Ron Prince, group publisher of City Magazines, which publishes LA Style and several other city magazines.

Also, the push to get more impact for the ad dollar is diverting advertisers away from these interactive print ads. “Advertisers are saying: ‘OK, we had some fun with this the last few years, but now we’ve got to get serious,’ � said Roberta Garfinkle, director of print media at the New York agency McCann-Erickson.

Domestic liquor industry sales fell 17% through the first nine months of 1991, reports the Distilled Spirits Council. “We have never witnessed anything like this,� said Janet Flynn, a spokeswoman for the group.

As a result, liquor advertising revenues nationally are off more than 2% in 1991, said Jim Guthrie, executive vice president of the New York-based Magazine Publishers of America.

In addition, some marketers--whose ads appeared in holiday issues alongside the print spectacles--have grumbled that their ads were being ignored.

“There is a definite backlash,� said Keith J. Kelly, editorial director of Boston-based Magazine Week. Regular advertisers began to wonder why they should buy ad space in magazines that are filled with distractions such as flashing lights and computerized songs, he said.

Indeed, most advertisers have pulled so completely away from splashy--and costly--Christmas print advertising that perhaps the most talked-about print ad this season is a Cutty Sark parody of the ad gimmicks from Christmases past.

The headline for the ad says, “A lot of people judge a product by how elaborate the gimmick in its Christmas ad is.� The ad features a cardboard tab that says, “Pull Here.�

By the construction of the ad, consumers who pull the tab might expect that the ad will flip open.

Instead, the tab simply pulls out a few inches and says, “A lot of people are wrong. Merry Christmas from everyone at Cutty Sark.�

Although the ad gives the appearance of a print ad extravaganza, it actually does nothing at all. “We’re trying to be anti-trendy,� explains Rob Peterson, account manager for Cutty Sark at the New York ad agency Della Femina, McNamee.

One of the few advertisers to buy extravagant print ads this holiday is Absolut Vodka. It began creating such ads in 1987 and hasn’t stopped. This year, it wrapped designer scarves inside ads appearing in 200,000 issues of Interview magazine.

“To cut out these ads just because business is down is not smart marketing,� said Richard McEvoy, senior vice president at Carillon Importers, which imports Absolut. “If we don’t remind people we’re here in December, we’ll lose the gift business to the tie makers.�

Briefly . . .

DCA Advertising, the U.S. subsidiary of Dentsu Inc., has selected Western International Advertising of Los Angeles as its media buying service. . . . Sizzler Restaurants has been quietly talking to other agencies about its $20-million account, which is now with BBDO/Los Angeles. . . . Foote, Cone & Belding says Orion Pictures, which last week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, actually owes it much less than the $14.4 million that Orion reported. . . . Alcone Promotion of Irvine and Sims Freeman O’Brien of Elmsford, N.Y., have merged to create one of the nation’s largest sales promotion agencies, Alcone Sims O’Brien. . . . At 1,046 pages, the upcoming February/March issue of Bride’s & Your Home magazine will be the largest issue of a consumer magazine ever published. . . . The Los Angeles Clippers--not the Lakers--became the first NBA team to address the AIDS virus issue in a public service TV spot for the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation that was filmed this month at the Sports Arena.