The Calgary Herald is moving to bolster its TMC strategy by putting its inserts where the money is. The paper this March expects to flip the switch on two In-Line inserters manufactured by Quipp Systems Inc. in an effort to make its total market coverage distribution more efficient, said Sheldon Ball, general manager of the Herald’s Flyer Force, the unit charged with overseeing TMC.

Ball said the 12:1 inserters will let the paper eliminate the need to require carriers to collate in the field and make it possible to get ad inserts and other information to 200,000 Calgary households more quickly.

“We’ll be able to do (inserting) in-house instead of making carriers do all the work,” he said.

The Herald (daily, 120,000; Sunday, 112,571) picked the In-Line units after evaluating two other vendors besides Quipp, Ball said. “These machines will let us handle different-sized formats and it’s very simple to change from one size product to the other with little downtime,” Ball said of the inserters.

Quipp last year entered the inserting market for the first time following its acquisition of USA Leader. Since purchasing USA Leader, Quipp has sold In-Line machines to The Villages (Fla.) Daily Sun and The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill.

Ball said advertisers wanted the Herald to be able to distribute fliers, preprints and other materials to households that don’t subscribe to the paper. “Our clients run (many) products through the Herald,” he said.