LIVONIA, Mich., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Valassis , one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, and the Daily Herald, suburban Chicago's largest daily newspaper, today announced a new partnership with the Chicago Tribune, a leading media company in the Chicago area. Valassis first entered into an alliance in the Chicago area in 2005 with the Daily Herald. This expanded alliance will provide advertisers with a new alternative for reaching their audiences in the Chicago market.
Through the alliance, Valassis will combine advertising inserts from its RedPlum(TM) Direct Mail Package with the Chicago Tribune's midweek ShopLocal mail program, creating a single, shared offering that will reach 3 million households weekly in the Chicago market. Through the new program that will begin in October 2008, Chicago Tribune will continue to deliver preprinted insert advertising in its Wednesday newspaper edition, and Valassis will continue to deliver to these Chicago Tribune subscriber households in the RedPlum Direct Mail Package.
With this partnership, consumers benefit from advertising that is delivered by trusted, reliable sources -- Chicago Tribune/ShopLocal, Valassis' RedPlum product and the Daily Herald. In the households where two mail packages are currently delivered, consumers will now experience the added convenience of more value-related content in one package. This package will be co-branded RedPlum-ShopLocal. Similarly, the Daily Herald-RedPlum-ShopLocal package will continue to be delivered with the Wednesday edition of the Daily Herald and mailed to non-subscribers in the Daily Herald market area.
"Combining inserts that go to non-subscribing households will streamline efficiency while providing richer content and greater consumer appeal," said Jack Whisler, Chicago Tribune Vice President, Advertising. "At the same time, both companies will retain their own proprietary targeting options and compete as before in the marketplace."
"Our alliance with Valassis has allowed us to provide our advertising customers a broader reach of the Chicago suburbs and that continues to be important to our success," said Scott Stone, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Daily Herald. "The addition of the Chicago Tribune to our alliance will heighten the awareness of the RedPlum package, ensuring it will get even wider market recognition among consumers as the trusted source for essential advertising messages."
"We are committed to delivering value to consumers, and as a result of this alliance, we will extend our reach and provide them with the savings opportunities they seek in an efficient way," said William Blackmer, Valassis Senior Vice President, Strategic Sourcing. "Our advertisers also benefit from this joint distribution plan that maximizes response through both the power of newspaper and the mail. We are very pleased to continue building our relationship with the Chicago Tribune in this important market."
The new combined midweek mail program will be produced at Tribune Direct Marketing, a Chicago Tribune Media Group subsidiary located in Northlake, Ill. The advertising wrap that carries the adverting inserts will be produced and printed by Valassis.
About Valassis
Valassis is one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, offering unparalleled reach and scale to more than 15,000 advertisers. Its RedPlum media portfolio delivers value on a weekly basis to over 100 million shoppers across a multi-media platform -- in-home, in-store and in-motion. Through its newest offering -- redplum.com -- consumers will find compelling national and local deals online. Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan with approximately 7,000 associates in 28 states and nine countries, Valassis is widely recognized for its associate and corporate citizenship programs, including its America's Looking for Its Missing Children(R) program. Valassis companies include Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., Valassis Canada, Promotion Watch, Valassis Relationship Marketing Systems, LLC and NCH Marketing Services, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.valassis.com/ or http://www.redplum.com/.
About Chicago Tribune Media Group
Chicago Tribune Media Group publishes the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune as well as related print and interactive media serving Chicagoland like RedEye, Hoy, Triblocal, chicagotribune.com, chicagosports.com and metromix.com.
About the Daily Herald
The Daily Herald is the largest daily newspaper for Chicago's suburbs. In addition to the Daily Herald and dailyherald.com, it also publishes Beep, a weekly entertainment tabloid and Reflejos, a weekly bilingual newspaper.
Safe Harbor and Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements found in this document constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Valassis to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following: price competition from our existing competitors; new competitors in any of our businesses; a shift in customer preference for different promotional materials, promotional strategies or coupon delivery methods including as a result of declines in newspaper circulations; an unforeseen increase in our paper or postal costs; changes which affect the businesses of our clients and lead to reduced sales promotion spending including a decrease in marketing budgets which are generally discretionary in nature and easier to reduce in the short-term than other expenses; challenges and costs of achieving synergies and cost savings in connection with the ADVO acquisition and integrating ADVO's operations may be greater than expected; our substantial indebtedness, and our ability to incur additional indebtedness, may affect our financial health; certain covenants in our debt documents could adversely restrict our financial and operating flexibility; fluctuations in the amount, timing, pages, weight and kinds of advertising pieces from period to period, due to a change in our clients' promotional needs, inventories and other factors; our failure to attract and retain qualified personnel may affect our business and results of operations; a rise in interest rates could increase our borrowing costs; the outcome of ADVO's pending shareholder lawsuits; possible governmental regulation or litigation affecting aspects of our business; and general economic conditions, whether nationally or in the market areas in which we conduct business, may be less favorable than expected. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additional risks include, but are not limited to those risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2007 (the 2007 Form 10-K) and our other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC").
