Newspaper ads placed second in a Harris Interactive, AdWeekMedia, survey of most helpful ads by medium. Full story here.

Banner ads ranked last as the most ignored type of advertising.

The results of this survey are particularly surprising when you consider what a similar survey would look like if advertisers were polled. My guess would be (this is only a guess, a quick search for a similar survey didn't yield any results but I will keep looking) that advertisers would rank the effectiveness of mediums quite differently.Which means that advertisers don't really know what is really working.

Online advertising has response measurements built in- anyone can see how many clicks or views they have received. Newspapers and magazines have done a lousy job introducing similar measurement metrics. So, despite the fact that readers say newspaper ads are extremely valuable when determining future purchases, advertisers don't know it. The scary part is- neither do publications.

You want to know why newspapers' advertising revenues are down more than other mediums? Readership and competition are no doubt issues but the big one and the one that print publications can directly control is that advertisers do not see the value in the medium. If people in the print industry don't show them, who will? Please note: I said show, not tell. Print publications generate results but advertisers don't consider the tracking of results to be their job, newspapers and magazines have to do that job themselves.

At Mediabids, we have taken this approach, in many instances, for the past 3 years and it works. Advertisers still buy print when you can show them it works.