Quick - bring to mind an advertisement that you think was great advertising, that is, an ad which attracted the target audience's attention and made them more likely to purchase the advertised product or service.

Quick - name all of the advertising media in which advertisers spend more than $15 billion a year for paid advertising space.

Chances are that you mentioned a television ad as an example of a great ad and that you named television, radio and magazines as media in which advertiser expenditures exceed $15 billion per year.

Chances are that the yellow pages never came to mind.

In spite of the yellow pages being among the dominant advertising media in the United States (with advertiser expenditures exceeding $15 billion annually), few think of the yellow pages as a "real" advertising medium, in the same league as television and radio. Advertising textbooks tend to relegate the yellow pages to their discussions of "Other" or "Supplemental" media and industry research on consumers' media perceptions and behaviors tend not to include the yellow pages at all.

This document, Understanding Yellow Pages, is presented to help you better understand the dynamics of the yellow pages industry and yellow pages advertising. When you are done you will see how advertisers take advantage of the range of advertising options in both print and online yellow pages directories to successfully influence key members of their target audiences.

Each of Understanding Yellow Pages' six sections addresses a different aspect of the yellow pages:

Section 1: Industry Overview, will familiarize you with the characteristics and dynamics of both print and Internet yellow pages by answering questions such as:

• How extensively do advertisers use print and Internet yellow pages?

• What options do advertisers have with regard to where their ads appear in print and Internet yellow pages directories?

• How are ads placed within print and Internet directories?

• What is the relationship between print and Internet yellow pages?

Section 2: Media Promotion discusses how all media, including the yellow pages, compete for advertisers' expenditures and the specific techniques each medium uses to position itself against competitive media. The discussion then shifts to intra-medium promotion, that is, how different vehicles within a medium (for example, competitive magazines, yellow pages directories or radio stations) attempt to demonstrate their relatively higher value to advertisers who have decided that the medium, in general, is an appropriate way to reach their target audience.

Section 3: Advertiser Options provides an in-depth view of the range of advertising placement and format options for print and Internet yellow pages directories. This section provides detailed examples of how print and online yellow pages have evolved (i.e., increased advertisers' options with regard to core product offerings) and innovated (i.e., moved beyond its core product to provide advertisers with new and distinctly different advertising opportunities).

Section 4: Creative Development places the development of yellow pages advertising in the broader context of general advertising creative planning. First, the overall creative considerations of target audience characteristics, key copy points and advertising tone/approach are addressed. Next, specific creative guidelines for the development of print and yellow pages advertising are presented.

Section 5: Consumer Dynamics addresses three key areas: the type of audience attracted and delivered to advertisers by print and Internet directories, the reasons why individuals use print and Internet directories, and how consumers perceive and respond to directory advertising.

Section 6: A Look Ahead speculates on the future of both print and Internet yellow pages.