By Tara McMeekin
Associate Editor

The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser commenced installation of Harris Publishing System Corp.’s AdPower classified system in January.

The Advertiser (daily, 51,203; Sunday, 63,857) is slated to go live March 18, with 20 users on the system. Of those 20 users, 11 are from inside sales, 7 are from outside sales and two are administrative employees.

The Advertiser, a Gannett publication, will use AdPower for classified line and display ads and the software will be run on PC workstations.

AdPower’s WYSIWYG display allows ad takers to view the actual ad. Intellisell (shown in blue) will indicate any important information that is missing from an ad and make recommendations on keywords, etc. Dataview, AdPower’s integrated graphics browser (shown along bottom of screen) features drag and drop functionality.
Photo courtesy of Harris Publishing Systems

“Harris was chosen for past history and cost,” said Roy Paul, information systems director at the Advertiser. “We had [Classified Ad System by Harris] since 1995 … because CASH was being phased out, we were offered special pricing to upgrade.”

Paul said the functionality of the system was impressive, as were the WYSIWYG capabilities. AdPower provides a single window for ad composition that provides for both text entry and simultaneous WYSIWYG display. The system includes styling templates that allow ad takers to write and automatically style text. Line art, logos or pictures can be added to ads and space can be reserved for incoming art. Ads can be printed in final form for proofing and then faxed to the customer directly from that screen.

Remote AdPower will allow the Advertiser’s salespeople in the field to create, book, schedule and rate ads at the customer’s site, without having to immediately connect to the AdPower database. The remote functions are also WYSIWYG capable, so advertisers can see their ads right away.

The Advertiser faces some unique challenges in advertising. The paper purchased a local shopper a year ago and will be upselling between two systems.

“The shopper uses Endeavor from Target Media on a working system that really does not need to be upgraded,” Paul said. “We’ll be facing a challenge of being able to get ads entered into one system to the other system, and we are looking at how we may be able to import into each system.”

With AdPower the newspaper will have the ability to schedule one ad for multiple publications, the ability to define credit limits, as well as increased ease of complex rate settings.

Other Gannett sites using AdPower include The News-Chronicle and the Press-Gazette, both in Green Bay, Wis., and The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y.