Charles Apple

Lately, we’ve told you about efforts to raise revenue by putting odd-shaped ads on page one, wrap spadea ads around page one and wrapping full-page ads around page one (here and here).

The tiny Anniston, Ala., Star — circulation about 23,000 — has found a way of attracting readers, rather than ad dollars, to a front-page wrap. For June 29 single-copy editions, the Star ran a faux front featuring the area’s most-wanted criminal suspects:

The wrap is clearly marked, with a reverse strip across the top:

A product of the marketing department of the Anniston Star.

Two full-page ads appeared on the inside of the wrap.

Liz Cox Barrett of the Columbia Journalism Review reports that Monday is the Star’s weakest single-copy sales day, perhaps justifying the boost the Star got from the promotion.

However, five of the eleven suspects shows are wanted for child-support reasons. Not exactly earth-shaking, page-one stuff.

Barrett writes:

Mug shots seem to be doing the trick, as two Star reporters mentioned to me, for Bama Busted, a 99-cent publication that has appeared in local convenience stores since March, features “weirdest mug shots” and “hot girls’” mug shots, and has been drawing local advertisers (something the Star’s marketing department has likely noticed).

The publisher of Bama Busted feels a little busted himself, Barrett reports:

While he would not share Bama Busted’s circulation, he offered that since his March 1st launch “we’re in 300 stores,” suggested Busted’s appeal was “gossip…who’s doing what,” and told me he felt ripped off by the Star’s June 29th look-alike “wrap,” claiming Star employees met with him a few months ago, talked of a partnership and wanted “to know what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”

And it’s easy to identify with the guy. That’s the Star’s wrap on the left, the garish Busted on the right (click the latter for a closer look – if you don’t think the colors will blow out your monitor):

In an update at the bottom of her story, Barrett reports the man who oversaw the project, vice-president of operations Robert Jackson…

…chuckled when asked about the wrap possibly rankling people inside or outside the Star newsroom, saying he “respects” the editorial side but that “with declining circulation sometimes you’ve got to try different things.”

But he claimed there was

…a “big difference between what we did and what [Bama Busted] does,” in that “they include sensational stuff, we include just public data, as a public service” for which the area police departments, he said, have been “very grateful.”

The St. Petersburg Times, for what it’s worth, started posting a local mug shots online site several months ago. Find that site here. Read about some of the ethical questions that came up here.

Find Bama Busted — and download a couple of issues — here.

Read Barrett’s entire story at CJR.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Innovative ideas, News design, Visual ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.