February 2008

The printed flyer is still king
Q & A with Ed Strapagiel, executive vice president, Kubas Consultants.

What can you tell our readers about flyer use in Canada?
We do an annual study called the Major Market Retail Report (MMRR) and it’s a consumer survey base so we do ask people about their usage of shopping and general product information and at least in 2008, the printed flyer is still king in Canada.

What are the most popular uses for flyers and what influences their use?
There are several uses of flyers and one great one is as a source of general product information. People go to flyers to see what’s new, what flavours are available, etc. What we are finding in recent years is that the Internet is moving up rapidly as a source of general product information. It’s actually number two behind printed flyers and it gets the highest excellence rating among consumers. This is due to the quantity of product information and the detail that consumers can access online. You can find out more from a product manufacturer’s Web site than you can from any flyer or other source. This kind of undermines the value of the printed flyer as a source of general product information.

What else is happening and how else are flyers being used?
The second thing that is going on is that the Internet is also moving up and gaining ground as a source of information on local shopping. [Another major use of flyers is to answer the question “Where do I go to buy the product?”] The Internet has moved up in importance in this category for a number of reasons. More people are online and today, most retailers have a pretty good Web site.
Certainly over the last five years, e-flyers have become more popular so you don’t necessarily need the paper version anymore. What the flyer does for a consumer has largely moved online. Some of the e-flyer programs out there are really quite sophisticated; you can turn their pages, you can also click on the product’s image and a pop-up provides product specs and pricing information.

So then, what kind of effect are e-flyers exerting on paper ones?
This means that advertisers are able to use printed flyers more judiciously. If a marketer is not so sure about the appropriateness of dropping a flyer or Free Standing Insert (FSI) in a particular niche or neighbourhood, they can skip distribution to that area completely and just allow the consumer to view the e-flyer online. The availability of an electronic version helps to make the printed flyer campaign tighter. As well, more retailers are developing their own e-mail news and loyalty programs [Shoppers Drug Mart is a good example of this] which also may allow marketers to tighten up on the flyer program and even reduce the number of printed flyers they produce.

So what do you expect will happen to printed flyers in future?
Coming up in 2009, given the competitive pressures and market circumstances, the one place to cut back will likely be the printed flyer program. The other thing that has been happening over the last two or three years is that paper prices have gone up.

So you look at all that and think, this is costing us more but we have other means of getting at people so maybe we don’t grow it [the flyer program] or maybe we leave it where it is. So from the point of view of the retailer, it is probably the first place you go when you’re looking for savings. When there is a lot of change in the marketplace, some retailers do better, some do worse. Over the years, we may have reached the saturation point in flyer advertising and now for a lot of retailers it’s a big dog and that’s the one you don’t grow any more.

Given the tough economic times, wouldn’t a lot of consumers look to a flyer for information about saving money?
A lot of flyers do provide that. They offer information on discounts and provide coupons in the first couple pages. On a competitive level though, if everyone is doing it, it becomes ubiquitous – a washout. And yes, there is a sense that people are more value conscious right now and maybe flyers should be more important but most people are getting one anyway [on the Internet] and elsewhere.
Are there any other trends we are likely to see developing in the near future?
Depending on paper prices and market conductions, trends are likely to include using cheaper grades of paper, cutting back on flyer dimensions a little bit, and cutting out that last percent or two of least productive distribution.

Kubas Consultants is an experienced, results-oriented marketing research and consulting firm. It serves U.S, Canadian, and international clients in sectors such as retailing, media, financial services and allied industries, on both consumer and business-to-business issues. For more information, visit www.kubas.com.