Having been gone all day until just a few hours ago, I only now opened up the paper version of today's (Sunday's) San Jose Mercury News and received a shock (in a good way):       After randomly opening the Sports section onto page 17C and seeing the quarter-page "Lady with Ice Cream Cone" Quakes ad that we've seen several times before (this time its headline reads "Lick the Burn"), I then turned back to page 13C and saw a full-page Earthquakes ad!       That's right - an entire full page ad, and a nice-looking one at that! The headline on top reads "Congratulations Earthquakes on making the 2003 MLS Playoffs." with a picture of the players in a pre-kickoff huddle on the bottom half and text in between about ordering tickets for the remaining home-games. Just below the San Jose Earthquakes wordmark reads "Think Soccer! Think MLS Cup!", and at the very bottom of the ad reads the line "Good luck on your quest to regain the MLS Cup trophy!", followed underneath by "San Jose Mercury News" and "Nuevo Mundo".       I'm not sure whether it was the Earthquakes or the Merc (or both) that paid for the ad, but at this point who cares? It's there for the entire Merc sports readership to see... whether they want to or not (it's about friggin' time something like this was done!).       If you haven't already seen it, open up your paper copy of Sunday's Merc and check it out. It's a pretty cool (albeit rare) full-page Quakes ad!       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Good coverage Good stuff. Usually the only paper I buy is the SF rag on Sundays, with the Merc on Sundays about once every 3 weeks. Did I pick a good edition for football/soccer in the sports section? Looks like it. When you combine those ads you mentioned with the top (highest) article on the front page being devoted to the Women's World Cup and WUSA; one third of page seven devoted to Quakes and MLS; all of the copy on pages 16 and 17 covering WWC (and its WUSA connections); and 100% of the copy on the "chat room" page (p.19) on the women's game: that's one hell of a lot of football/soccer coverage. All rather spoilt by the yukky picture of a half eaten Rancher's Reserve Safeway Beef Rib Eye Steak on the back page. Only an ad-man could redefine a piece of rotting meat as "aged to perfection". Talking of perfection: congrats to Landon on the hat-trick, and an excellent victory for the San Ho's, the first of five matches I watched this weekend (Manure vs Arse, and three WWC matches). Goosebump quality first goal by the USA if anyone missed it.
      Great points Californiaspurs (especially about the "aged to perfection" meat ad )!       I wonder how irritated the soccer-haters among the Merc readership thought of this Sports edition...       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
      By the way, who did pay for the ad... the Earthquakes or the Merc (or both)?       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
      Ian is probably looking that way and thinking "How do you readers like this ad?"       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Any chance one of you could bring that ad to the tailgate on Saturday? Would certainly like to see it. Ain't nothing in the CoCo Times.
Re: Re: Full-page Earthquakes print ad (Sunday, 9/21/03) I don't know the exact arrangements of the Merc's promotional deal with the Quakes, but whenever you see a SJMN logo branded onto an ad like this, it usually means it's promotional. So my 99% informed guess is that part of the overall promotional arrangement included this ad, which would be at the Merc's expense.
      It seems that the Quakes/Merc promotional arrangement is paying dividends, especially for those season-ticket holders who received a free 26-week Merc subscription.       GO EARTHQUAKES!!! -G