Phone books vie for ads in Islands

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Keener Technologies, like other businesses around O'ahu, is getting increasing attention these days from people trying to sell ads in either the Verizon Yellow Pages or in its younger competitor, The Paradise Pages.

This year, for the first time, Keener Technologies will probably use some of the money it would normally spend with Verizon to also buy an ad in The Paradise Pages.

It is hardly alone. Around the country, the battle for phone book advertising dollars has spread to nearly every major market and has grown more cutthroat since the start of telephone company deregulation in the 1980s.

In Hawai'i, The Paradise Pages plans to reach beyond O'ahu for the first time and publish books this summer on each of the larger Neighbor Islands. So as phone book sales people try to lock down accounts in the next several weeks, businesses throughout the Islands will face the same decisions currently confronting ad buyers throughout Honolulu.

For Keener Technologies, a Kaka'ako-based security company, the 3-year-old Paradise Pages has been around long enough to gain credibility with customers. And they believe that advertising in both is the best way to spread their advertising dollars.

"Verizon Yellow Pages is certainly the most well-established, most used directory in the Islands," said office manager Joanne Taufa. "However, the cost of advertising, especially for the small-business owner, has become so exorbitant that we have to look at alternatives. We are a thriving small business, but we have to be cost conscious and we have to get the most for our dollar."

A black-and-white, half-page ad in the Verizon Yellow Pages costs $33,529 per year, according to the Yellow Page Publishers Association. A similar ad in The Paradise Pages is only a third as much, or $11,040.

Officials with Verizon Information Services in Dallas insist that Verizon advertisers get better value.

Around the country, the typical advertiser sees $14 worth of business for every $1 spent advertising in a telephone book, said Verizon spokeswoman Heidi Jaquish. In Honolulu, she said, the return for advertisers has jumped.

Last year, the average return was $22 in sales for every $1 spent advertising with Verizon, Jaquish said. Now, she said, every Verizon advertising dollar translates into an average of $32 in business.

"That is extremely high," she said, "well beyond the industry standard."

The reasons are better distribution of the yellow pages, Jaquish said, and a 4 to 1 preference among consumers for Verizon's book.

Verizon said it distributes more than 700,000 books. Paradise said its books are in more than 90 percent of all businesses and homes in Honolulu.

David Akina, president of The Paradise Pages, said he believes Verizon's prices are too high. He insists that his company has captured 30 to 40 percent of telephone book advertisers in Honolulu and hopes to reach 50 percent with its third annual book, which comes out in July.

"Verizon had the monopoly on this market for years, and their prices were among the highest in the country," Akina said. "Since The Paradise Pages was formed, it has brought much needed competition to the industry in Hawai'i, and advertisers now have a choice."

Akina acknowledged that businesses feel pressure to advertise in both books, rather than choose between the two.

"People are using one book or the other, or they're using both," Akina said. Businesses "now have to advertise in both if they want to stay competitive."

By working with phone book sales people, though, business people can spread the same overall money more efficiently between both publications, Akina said.

Dr. Peili Lin, an optometrist who advertises as The Honolulu Vision Center, bought a cheaper ad in The Paradise Pages last year to accompany the one he already had in the Verizon Yellow Pages. He said sales people from The Paradise Pages told him he needed to be in their book to remain competitive.

The pressure from sales people from both books, he said, "is incredible."

Peter Kim, who founded Ali'i Fire Protection Co. Ltd., finally agreed to buy an ad in The Paradise Pages last year that cost less than half of the ad he had in the Verizon Yellow Pages.

It wasn't the cost, he said, or the constant "spiel and pitch" from The Paradise Pages sales people.

"All my competitors seemed to be advertising with them," Kim said. "I finally said, 'I better get in there, too.' "