News America Marketing Announces National Release of Electronic Price/Value Signage Program
Ground-breaking New Options to Hit Entire Network of Stores in
Spring '05
New York, NY (TBD) – News America Marketing, a division of News Corporation (NYSE: NWSA), today announced that it has developed an electronic signage program that will permit the communication of price and value messages throughout its entire national network of exclusive stores. This newest addition to the dynamic SmartSource portfolio features a high-contrast, black & white Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen attached to the familiar Shelftalk red frame. This LCD screen offers an array of flexible advertising and promotion options, and was designed not only to communicate specific price-point information to consumers in the aisle, but a range of general, price-value oriented messages as well.
As such, the program will be offered by News America Marketing in two ways, depending upon the in-store marketing objectives of a given brand manufacturer. For brands wishing to communicate specific price points, SmartSource Electronic Price Plus will offer the opportunity to do so in the over 7,000 stores that are currently active with News America’s SmartSource Price Pop Guaranteed program. A secondary option, SmartSource Electronic Shelftalk, will allow clients to use the LCD screen to deliver a price or price-value message to consumers in the aisle, in upwards of nearly 20,000 exclusive stores in the Food, Drug, and Mass classes of trade.
With the LCD screen, News America Marketing clients can either highlight the exact price of their product, or simply deliver a message, in order to create a compelling value proposition for the consumer. Because, the LCD screen incorporates a highly durable, anti-glare lens, it’s ensured that messages will be clearly communicated even under the widely varying lighting conditions typically found in stores.
“We’re very excited about augmenting our portfolio of pricing solutions by using LCD technology; it obviously improves upon our current ability to communicate price messages to the customer," stated Jesse Aversano, EVP, Marketing, News America Marketing. “While we’ve had tremendous success to date with our Price Pop GuaranteedSM program, we wanted to find a way to create a program that allows the ability for price-message delivery, while continuing to offer our clients the security and creative flexibility that they are accustomed to with our Shelftalk product. Both Electronic Price Plus and Electronic Shelftalk allow us to do just that. And the fact that we can also deliver the Electronic Shelftalk program to clients that wish to highlight a price-value message, in nearly our entire network of stores, is simply an added bonus.”
News America performed extensive testing of the Smartsource Electronic Shelftalk program this past Fall in the Philadelphia market, and found that the program significantly increased customer awareness of the products promoted and generated extremely strong sales lifts. By the end of the testing phase, customers were so enthusiastic that both Electronic Price Plus and Electronic Shelftalk, originally slated to be rolled out in the late-summer of ’05, were instead fast-tracked to debut this Spring.
Chris Mixson, President, News America Marketing, is expecting tremendous results. “Electronic Shelftalk is the first News America program to truly merge many of the inherent benefits of Shelftalk with a price-specific communication. The ability for the LCD screens to deliver variable messaging offers our clients a unique opportunity in contrast to a printed price sign. At the same time, this program is not only more secure, it’s also more efficient, as it eliminates the need to print and swap out signs on a weekly basis.”
Mr. Mixson summarized by saying, “In all, this program is a natural evolution for us, as News America Marketing strives to continuously innovate and expand its SmartSource portfolio of marketing solutions to bring both clients, and consumers, the latest in exciting and cutting-edge technology.”
News America Marketing, a division of The News Corporation Limited, is the leading single-source provider of consumer advertising and promotional services. The company’s product portfolio, marketed under the SmartSource brand name, consists of the first branded free-standing insert, known as SmartSource Magazine®, various in-store advertising and promotional products, merchandising services, database marketing tools and online promotions. These products and services allow marketers to deliver a brand message to over 200 million consumers each month via a network of 1,161 newspapers and 34,500 supermarket, drug and mass merchandisers locations across the country, including Albertson’s, Kroger, Winn Dixie, CVS, Eckerd and Rite Aid.
News America Marketing’s diverse portfolio of consumer-marketing programs includes:
IN-STORE MEDIA
SmartSource® At-Shelf Sampling SmartSource Price PopSM
SmartSource Shelftake OneSM SmartSource® Bonus Box
SmartSource Price PopSM Banner SmartSource ShelfvisionSM
SmartSource CartsSM SmartSource Freezer Price PopSM
SmartSource Showcase® SmartSource Coupon Machine®
SmartSource Freezer ExtraSM SmartSource Showcase® Extra
SmartSource Floortalk® SmartSource Price Pop® Guaranteed
Merchandising Services
HOME-DELIVERED MEDIA
SmartSource Magazine®
SmartSource Custom PublishingSM
SmartSource Price Feature Plus®
INTERACTIVE MEDIA
SmartSource Direct® Relationship Marketing & Technologies
SmartSource Online Savings NetworkSM
News America Marketing—International provides consumer-marketing services in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to a network of advertising and promotion partners in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific Rim.
The News Corporation Limited (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NCP, NCPDP) had total assets as of June 30, 2004 of approximately U.S. $51 billion and total annual revenues of approximately U.S. $21 billion. News Corporation is a diversified international media and entertainment company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and the Pacific Basin.
Contact: News America Marketing
Laura Richards
212.782.8145
lrichards@newsamerica.com
Rubenstein Associates Public Relations
Robin Wagge
212.843.8006
rwagge@rubenstein.com
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