The Newspaper Advertising Bureau (NAB) – a division of Caxton & CTP Publishers & Printers – is responsible for the advertising, sales and marketing and administration of 150 community newspapers in South Africa. NAB deals predominately with national advertising clients, acting as a centralised division for ad agencies and clients wishing to use a multitude of Caxton community papers.

With a combined print order of 3.4 million copies freely distributed / sold across South Africa, NAB-represented community newspapers enable advertisers to communicate with the critical mass and the economically active South Africans.

In addition to offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban; NAB has an “Africa” division which represents community newspapers falling outside the borders of South Africa. NAB Africa represents 17 publications in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe – with a combined print order exceeding 1.3 million copies per week.

NAB’s sales and marketing departments provide clients with a variety of services including: optimal community newspaper recommendations, strategic media schedule proposals and presentations, as well as comprehensive analyses of local and international research.

Caxton has been investing in research studies since the 1980’s. The largest survey to date is ROOTS 2010 – the fourth ROOTS research survey following the release of ROOTS 2001, 2004 and 2007. ROOTS is the most comprehensive urban retail and readership study available in South Africa and has consequently become a well-respected survey and an invaluable tool in media planning.

NAB utilises a very sophisticated mapping system which allows for the spatial interpretation of information such as store locations, competitor store proximity, newspaper delivery footprint information, as well as additional ROOTS researched information. The maps generated by NAB can illustrate readership by area, demographics and various other reader or retail information.

The Central Intelligence Unit is a division within Caxton that gathers and houses marketing intelligence relevant to our industry. The services offered by the unit are available to all the businesses in the Caxton stable as well as to outside clients. Specific operations within the CIU include:

• Market Research – analysing and interpreting available industry research (AMPS and ROOTS); designing and implementing custom research as needed ; circulation analysis (ABC / VFD); adspend analysis and econometrix
• GIS – developing and maintaining location databases and geo demographic analysis
• Training – Using research and GIS to help understand your market and to sell more effectively.

These centralised departments coordinate advertising booking, production material, deadlines and the invoicing of all accounts. The professionals in these departments enable synchronization between national advertisers, NAB and the individual newspaper offices.