evans ink

Anecdotally, it’s becoming apparent that restaurants are struggling as consumers pull in their spending reins. It seemed to start with the gas price crisis, and certainly is continuing through the economic downturn.  People are simply not going out as much as a higher share of earnings are applied towards savings, and as job security fears weigh heavily on consumer’s minds.

I discovered a year end research report synopsis on consumer restaurant spending by a small blog post on the finance blog, Infectious Greed, which linked to the NPD Group’s 2008 research results summary.  The details are insightful, and point to the critical importance of incentive offers to entice consumers into restaurants in 2009.

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image credit: motherjones.com

Somehow, the time feels right for some fresh/absurd, Hail Mary thinking when it comes to evolution in the troubled Local Media landscape.

When I look at the problems infecting two major sectors of local media  - newspapers and yellow pages - an idea springs to mind.  Try it on…

Slam them together into one integrated local media business.  Collapse redundant distribution and operations, re-align and trim the sales forces. Infuse the newspaper’s strength with promotion and retail into the scalable SEM/search infrastructure of the YP channel.  Construct a true local consumer portal and promotion channel that has local search and promotion embedded throughout.  Trim out the low-value display ad junk and create real local shopping applications that generate leads and solve consumer problems.

In the off-chance that you’re still reading, perhaps I can explain my thinking a bit more.

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