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Bay area gets more Yellow Pages

Verizon will offer a spinoff, portable directory, and Metro Directories is entering the Tampa Bay market.

By HELEN HUNTLEY
Published October 29, 2005

Two new Yellow Pages products are coming to the Tampa Bay area, giving businesses more advertising options and creating more competition.

The first is a Verizon spinoff, a portable directory about two-thirds the size of the standard SuperPages directory, with which it will be distributed. Verizon is launching the downsized directories, dubbed "companion" directories, across the country. The Tampa directory will make its debut next month, with St. Petersburg and Clearwater versions scheduled for publication in June.

Metro Directories is entering the Tampa Bay market, its first expansion outside its home territory of Atlanta. The company plans to publish St. Petersburg and Clearwater directories in August, then come out with a Tampa directory in February 2007.

"It's a good market," said Metro Directories president Gary Fascilla. "There are only two directories there now, and most markets in the United States have four, five or six directories in them."

Yellow Book USA already is in the market.

Verizon decided to produce the companion directories after seeing the success some competitors have had with similar products, spokeswoman Lisa Partain said.

The company envisions consumers taking the companion directories along in the car.

Advertising in the companion directory is being sold as an add-on to advertising in the larger SuperPages directory for "a very small, incremental cost," Partain said. She declined to provide specific cost information.

Metro Directories is entering the market with two major selling points - prices that it says are half those of Verizon's standard ad rates and a customer response guarantee.

A full-page ad in the Metro Directories book will cost $1,662 a month in Clearwater, $2,016 in St. Petersburg and $2,350 in Tampa, Fascilla said. (Color is extra.) He said businesses that don't reap the guaranteed response can get their money back.

To get the guarantee, a businesses must use an assigned telephone number in its ads.

Although the number will ring at the business, the calls will be routed through a computer that tracks details such as the telephone number and location of each caller and how many rings it took for the business to answer its telephone.

"These numbers are given to an advertiser at no charge so they'll be able to track how many calls actually came from our book," Fascilla said. "If a person sees they're getting 30 calls a month, it's much easier to go out and renew them."

Of course, not all businesses that advertise in the Yellow Pages are thrilled about the opportunity to spend more money.

"It's horrible for a small business," said Richard Feinberg, managing partner with Debt Relief Legal Centers in Tampa, a heavy Yellow Pages advertiser. "People don't know the difference between one book and another, and you can't advertise in every book. The market has been so diluted by these numerous books."

He is particularly critical of Verizon's new companion book: "No one is going to keep Yellow Pages in your car. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. They're competing with their own book."

Helen Huntley can be reached at hhuntley@sptimes.com or 727 893-8230.

[Last modified October 29, 2005, 01:44:11]