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Dueling directories When Terry Hepler and David Akina sold advertisements in the Yellow Pages directory for Oahu, they both heard executives from GTE, now Verizon, warn them the directory business was vulnerable to competition.
for Oahu
The Paradise Pages heads
into its second edition challenging
Verizon's Yellow PagesBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comThey accepted the message, then created the competition themselves with "The Paradise Pages," Hawaii's first islandwide directory to compete head-on with the phone company.
Now they are close to wrapping up the second edition, which they say will be bigger, by 200 pages or more, than the 600-page initial publication, which came out last year. Not only that, The Paradise Pages is cheaper for advertisers than the Verizon original, they said.
Verizon said it is no stranger to competition, Its Oahu Yellow Pages is well established and, contrary to what Hepler and Akina say, advertising space rates are very similar, Verizon said. The Verizon yellow pages runs nearly 1,100 pages.
Besides, Verizon says, it can offer something the Paradise Pages cannot, an Internet component.
As in any competition, this quickly gets into a "he said, she said" argument, but the bottom line to advertisers is that competition is good, both companies said.
About three years ago, the two GTE sales representatives quit and formed Paradise Media Group, with Akina as president and Hepler as vice president.
Akina and Hepler said they are entrepreneurs who truly believe in competition. They knew they were taking on a giant but felt there was a role for their publication.
Running a tight shop, with 36 employees in a Halawa Valley warehouse district, they say they were able to keep costs to a minimum and undercut Verizon, giving their advertisers a better bang for their buck.
"Most cities have one directory, some as many as 20," Hepler said. Mostly there is an "overlay" directory for the city and several localized ones for districts outside the city.
Verizon agreed. Deanna Kriege, a spokeswoman for Verizon's regional directory headquarters in Dallas, Texas, said the directory business, unlike the phone business, is not regulated and is freely open to competition.
In Dallas, for example, Verizon has phone service in the suburbs and outlying areas but not in the city itself, she said. However, Verizon took the logical step of publishing a directory for the city that matched its suburban versions. There are several cities with similar arrangements, Kriege said.
In Honolulu, the Paradise Pages people said their advertising rates are much lower than Verizon's, less than half in some cases.
Verizon took issue with that. Kriege would not divulge rate details but said the rates advertisers pay are as little as $100 more at Verizon but there are a number of ways Verizon can bundle or package advertisements through its Internet site in connection with local directories.
Hepler said that is far from correct and that his full-color, full-page ads sell for less than half Verizon's. Not so, said Verizon's Kriege.
What this back-and-forth adds up to is competition, which is Paradise Media's whole point.
"We have a little over 400,000 books out there," Akina said, pretty much blanketing Oahu. This time, they intend to be sure that every residence and every business on the island has one.
"It took 22 to 24 months to get the first one out, but it was undoubtedly a success," he said. "Sales have virtually doubled in the second year."
They are adding features this year. Audio help lines in the front of the book are being expanded and the call-in lines are being listed regardless of whether an organization pays for an advertisement.
"We're enhancing the community guide sections, adding maps of local shopping centers," Hepler said. "We're revamping the government pages, adding voter registration information."
The publishers are offering full color in the white pages section, which is limited to those who buy advertising.
What the color will do, Hepler said, is allow advertisers to run small color photos or logos along with their white pages listings. Also new, he said, is listing e-mail addresses in blue in the white pages section for no extra cost.
"We believe advertising works," said Hepler, who added an old ad-sales representatives' pitch, that advertising is even more important when times are bad.
"We've doubled our sale staff from last year," Hepler said.
Akina said the distribution goal of hitting every household and every business on Oahu will be met this year.
Hepler said the pages are "a good return on your investment, 30 cents on the dollar," Hepler said. A $1 investment in directory advertising brings $30 worth of business, on average, he claimed.
He acknowledged that one ad that brings a surprisingly big response can skew that average.
Verizon said it has been reaching every house on Oahu for years. Kriege said her company's Oahu Yellow Pages brings a 22 cents-on-the-dollar return to advertisers.
Verizon provides a measure, a special phone number in Yellow pages ads that lets each advertiser know precisely how many calls came in from the book.
Paradise Media said it will be doing the same kind of sampling, with special phone numbers, in the new edition that will come out in July. Advertising sales stop in early May, the company said.
Advertising agents said directories work for a lot of consumers, particularly those in need of fast service, like a plumber to unplug a drain or a company to replace a car battery.
"Our view is, it depends completely on the category," said Buck Laird, head of Laird Christianson Harris Advertising Inc. It works well for infrequent purchases that come up suddenly, he said.
"You get in a wreck and say, who can I sue?" Laird said, that takes you right to the yellow pages to look at the listing for attorneys who handle auto-accident cases.
Basically, advertising agencies don't much like the directories because the publishers work closely with their clients and tend to bypass agencies.
"They feel they have earned the right to that one-on-one relationship" and doing a directory advertisement in a hurry can be a chore, Laird said.
But directories are "an important part of the communications system," said Laird, who recently was delighted to find a replacement bolt for his bicycle by looking up "Bolts and Nuts-Retail" in one of the local directories. Both have that category.
"They're good for locals who decide to go shopping for a place to eat" and look up the "Restaurants" category, and in a "visitor-centric market" they provide lots of help for tourists who need services and supplies while they are in Hawaii, Laird said.