With the recent approval by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors of an ordinance requiring residents of the city to opt-in to receiving a yellow pages directory, advertisers have one more reason to shift their advertising budget to other areas.  Why should you, the advertiser, be aware of this change?  According to the analysis conducted by the city, there would be an 80% reduction in the number of directories distributed.  If you are buying advertising for your company, and your targeted audience was slashed by 80%, wouldn’t you expect a reduction in advertising rates?  Since yellow page sales are based on distribution, the logical answer to that question is yes, rates would have to come down because not as many people would receive a directory and therefore the views of your ad would decrease.

It will be interesting to see how the yellow page publishers respond.  Some are already shifting away from their print products, moving towards digital options such as SEM and building websites for their customers.  Others are segmenting into niche markets geared towards certain lifestyles or ethnic communities.  This segmentation is what Neg Norton must mean when he says the San Francisco ordinance “is a slap in the face to San Francisco’s… Hispanic, Chinese and LGBT communities, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and seniors.” 

If opt-in laws spread throughout the country, how will advertisers respond?  Is a simple reduction in rates from the publishers incentive to keeps business moving?  Or does all of this just place one more nail in the proverbial coffin for the yellow page industry.