Newspapers giddy over Wal-Mart advertising dollars

Nothing like the peer-pressure of consumerism in America at Christmas to spur a little Big Media advertising!

I can almost feel the joy the National Advertising Sales teams at various newspaper chains must be expressing today in response to the stories breaking about Wal-Mart’s Newspaper Ad Blitz; it is, after all, an extremely rare event to see Wal-Mart take out full-page color ads in 50 different markets.

However, while Wal-Mart is clearly spending more aggressively then usual on advertising (across all mediums), part of this story is also about them shifting dollars around, as this BusinessWeek story points out. In brief, the BW article indicates that Wal-Mart is canceling its December national print circular and is instead committing to an online (“digital”) circular, which gives the company more flexibility to adjust pricing up to the last minute.

A Wal-Mart online circular could be a rare opportunity for ShopLocal.com, an offering of Cross Media Services (CMS), which as you may recall, was recently purchased by Gannett, Tribune and Knight Ridder… as well as CMS partner AOL.