The Star wants to know what you think about putting ads on the front page

About a month ago, I signed up to take surveys for The Kansas City Star. I’d forgotten about it until yesterday, when I was sent the first survey from Research & Analysis of Media. Guess they really wanted to know what I thought about the ad on the front page of Sunday’s paper ($.99 coleslaw! $2.99 watermelon!), the first but not the last to appear in print on A1 according to reader’s rep, “Double D” Derek Donovan, who wrote this on his blog yesterday:

It’s an ad sold by the McClatchy Company, The Star‘s parent, in all

its papers with a Super Target in the area. The campaign will run for

several weeks, and there may be other advertisers in that spot as well.

It’s currently planned to run on Sundays only.

It’s not like we have to recap the hard times at the Star

(layoffs, falling stock prices, declining subscriber base, etc.). No

wonder they’re looking for money wherever they can get it. But that doesn’t mean the Star wasn’t fishing for reader input from helpful subscribers like me. I’ll skip to the questions about the ad ’cause who cares how long it takes me to read the paper.

The Star wanted me to measure how I felt about the ad:

How closely did you read/look at the ad?

(between “not closely” and “very closely”)

How did you like the ad?

(“Did not like it at all or

“liked it very much”)
Did you react emotionally to the ad? (“no, not at all” or “Yes, a lot”)

How difficult or easy was it to understand the source/sender of the ad?

(“very difficult” or “very easy”)
How well did you previously know the advertiser? (“don’t know at all” or “know very well”)

How did I react emotionally to the ad? Really? Blinding rage. Uncontrollable weeping. Or just indifference. Too bad I could only select somewhere between “no, not at all” and “yes, a lot.”

They asked a bunch more questions, like if the “ad appeals to you” or is it “interesting” and “easy to understand.” It’s a flippin’ Super Target ad.

Finally, I could give a 250 characters worth of extra thoughts. I only needed 23 characters.

I hope it was worth it.

Read the rest of the questions after the jump.