Outsourcing — A memo going around the L.A. Times says the paper plans to outsource graphics work to India for a two-month trial, starting with classified ads in the Orange County edition. The newspaper Our Weekly broke the story. LA Weekly publisher Beth Sestanovich, who used to work at the Times, says in the story, "It’s hard to imagine a function with this level of detail to be farmed out across the world 12,000 miles to India.”

Ad campaign — The Times is about to launch a new print ad campaign pitching the idea that Times readers "know the right people," thus are attractive to advertisers. The small type in the ad here includes gems like "The Los Angeles Times is the best way to get to know the right people. More and more urbane, wealthy, sophisticated, influential people want to read the Los Angeles Times." Today's memo from Senior VP John O'Loughlin follows:

From: O'Loughlin, John
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 8:20 AM
To: zzAll LATimes Employees
Subject: Telling our Story: Advertising Community

Dear Colleague-

In our ongoing efforts to build momentum in the marketplace, I am pleased to share a series of print ads that are set to run in select trade publications. The intended audience for these particular messages includes agency account executives, media buyers, advertising decision-makers, and related individuals that have influence over where advertising dollars are spent in the LA market.

The theme is "Knows the Right People" (pdfs attached) and the timing / rationale for the campaign includes:

(a) Communicate our great growth in individually paid copies - the category of circulation advertisers value the most
(b) Underscore our Readership value proposition / Audience Composition
(c) Showcase our integrated print and online approach to audience development - where LAT is a leader in the industry
(d) Give our advertising sales folks a boost in a competitive marketplace

The campaign will run in Ad Age, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, LA Business Journal, OC Business Journal, and Women's Wear Daily among others over the next 4-8 weeks. In addition, we are looking at several select OOH/Billboard locations throughout SoCal to further drive the point. Finally, we will be using a variation of this campaign theme in overhauling and designing our HR/recruitment collateral.

For those with difficulty in opening the attachment or without email, we will be sure these messages are displayed throughout our various properties.

JTO

John T. O'Loughlin
SVP / Mktg, Planning & Development