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Oahu will get a 3rd
telephone directory
A third islandwide telephone directory -- in two volumes -- will land on Oahu doorsteps beginning Dec. 26.
The new directory by Ad-ventures Hawaii LLC is competing against the nearly seven-pound Verizon directory and the slightly more than five-pound Paradise Pages, both of which are bound in thick single volumes.
Ad-ventures' offering will be a less-than one-pound volume of white pages, listing residential and business numbers; and a less than three-pound volume of yellow pages that will also include abbreviated regional white pages.
The Oahu directory was initially planned as a single book, but Ad-ventures decided to split the volumes, "in answer to the public response to the other two directories," said Cindy Sortor, president and publisher.
Clients have been calling asking the company "please don't deliver another monster phone book," she said.
The company began publishing single-volume white-and-yellow-page directories for the neighbor islands in 2000.
Ad-ventures' competition, the voluminous Verizon directory, has generated love-it and hate-it responses from customers.
When distribution of this year's newly combined directory began this month, KHON-TV did a man-on-the-street survey "and eight out of 10 people did prefer a combined book and we were very pleased with that," said Ann Nishida, Verizon Hawaii media relations manager. "We do research and listen to customers and that's how we make improvements to the book."
Reaction from other customers, such as at the Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Retirement Community, has been negative because of the book's weight.
Naomi Morse of Kaneohe was happy to hear about the smaller, separate volumes.
"I think that is wonderful," she said. "At work, we can't even put (the larger directories) under the phone."
The thick directories don't fit well on shelves "and when you try and take it down, it's so heavy," she said.
Unlike Verizon and the Paradise Pages, Ad-ventures allows businesses to purchases ads on a zoned basis.
"We are definitely at least 70 percent less (cost) than Verizon," Sortor said. The company is also competitive against the Paradise Pages "then when you add zoning, that gives another option to dramatically reduce the cost of their yellow page advertising."
Advertising in the yellow pages is offered islandwide or by zone, "so the little pizza place in Kailua doesn't have to pay to be in the North Shore directory," Sortor said.
Unlike the 70-some pages of coupons in the other directories, Ad-ventures' Oahu book will have none. "We believe that coupon-clipping is a thing of the past," said Sortor. The books will be distributed with a card that after payment of a one-time, $15 activation fee offers savings with more than 200 businesses, she said.
The directory is yet another medium putting pressure on businesses' advertising budgets. "Whatever the total pie is (of available ad dollars) it's under a full frontal attack by everybody who's got a communications device to sell, whether it's the Internet, or signage or print or broadcast," said Buck Laird, president of Laird Christianson Advertising Inc.
