What you need to know about wrap-around advertisements

Some readers are irritated when the Nation front page is half-covered by an advertisement.

The four-page wrap also covers the back page. A reader needs to rip it off, or patiently turn it over as another page, to read the bottom half of the front-page news.

One annoyed reader describes the wrap-around as “a mini-skirt-like piece of litter”.

In the advertising industry, the wrap-around, also known as “spadea” or “spadia”, provides advertisers with an opportunity to compete with front-page news for the attention of the reader.

Advertisers pay a premium for this privilege.

EDITORIAL CONTENT
Advertising is critical for any newspaper. Typically, a newspaper needs to carry 60 per cent advertising and 40 per cent editorial content to be economically viable.

In truth, the amount of space available for editorial content depends on the advertising space sold.

While newspapers survive by selling advertising space, most of the advertising is confined inside the paper.

The front page is normally off-limits to advertisers because it’s reserved for editors to fill with the most important news of the day.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, advertising wrap-arounds — also colloquially known as “flaps” — have become fashionable and acceptable to newspapers around the world, including quality newspapers such as the New York Times.

VISIBILITY
Newspapers also allow advertisers to place “strip advertising” at the bottom of the front page and small ads called “ears” or “ear pieces” next to the newspaper’s masthead or nameplate.

Nation Media Group newspapers, however, do not carry “ears”.

Advertisers go for “wraps” as they are highly visible and are a perfect way to grab the reader’s attention or to showcase a new product or service and to create awareness and instant recognition.

But they can also annoy some readers. Many, including yours truly, yank them off before reading the paper.

However, what has triggered this write-up is a complaint from Isaack Onyonyi.

On December 30, 2017, Mr Onyonyi, a marketer, wrote to express his frustration with the wrap-arounds.

He titled his complaint, The Piece of Litter Attached to Nation Lowers the Paper’s Value Proposition.

NUISANCE
For a while, I thought I could ignore the complaint (sometimes there is merit in letting sleeping dogs lie).

When I received this complaint, there had not been wrap-around ads for quite some time. So I thought it was a non-issue.

But on February 19, 2018, the Daily Nation arrived wrapped up in a dark blue ad for NTV titled This is it. Then I thought it was time to let Mr Onyonyi have his day in court.

“I don’t know exactly what it’s called within Nation or advertising circles,” Mr Onyonyi wrote.

“Personally, I would refer to it as a mini-skirt-like piece of litter attached to my favourite newspaper. I call it a piece of litter because it makes handling a newspaper while reading it a serious inconvenience."

I’ve seen people, including myself, buy a newspaper and, if the irritating loose attachment is on it, it is plucked off and sent to the dustbin as the advertiser falsely prides himself of enjoying front-page visibility that never was.

COMPROMISE

“Alternatively, I will buy the alternative newspaper if it carries the conventional form, free from the attachment.

“Though I acknowledge that a newspaper must make money to sustain itself as a business, I insist that editorial content must not be sacrificed at the altar of revenue generation. The primary business here is selling news and not ads; the former is what we buy from the vendor stalls and not the latter.”

Mr Onyonyi concluded: “It’s my humble submission, as a reader, that pressure for revenue generation should not allow greed, most likely touted as innovation, to compromise the value of this newspaper.”

What do you think? Are you also offended by wraps?

Send your complaints to [email protected]. Text or call 0721 989 264