Los Angeles Times Goes 'Mad' with Front-Page 'Alice in Wonderland' Advertisement

I couldn't believe my eyes at first. The newspaper was in plastic wrap and I thought some kind of insert was partially obscuring the main page. But nope: The Los Angeles Times printed and distributed the main newspaper featuring a full-page advertisement for "Alice in Wonderland." This is not new. Ad buys on the front-page of broadsheet papers have taken off the last few years as publishers have sought to enhance revenue. No one, of course, can say that industry dignity or reputation is being similarly enhanced. I took a pic as soon as I brought he paper upstairs, and the New York Times has a report, "A Cover Ad That Mimics a Newspaper’s Front Page":

The entire first page of The Los Angeles Times on Friday was an ad that looked, in part, like the front page of The Los Angeles Times, as the newspaper again tested the accepted limits on where ads can be published and how they can blur the boundary with news.

A garishly multicolored image of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, in the film “Alice in Wonderland,” occupies most of the paper’s cover page, superimposed over what looks like the usual, sober front page. Above him is the “Los Angeles Times” banner, and bracketing his face are actual, recent articles.

The top editor of The Times, Russ Stanton, and several of his deputies vigorously opposed the ad before it was published, but they were overruled by the paper’s business executives, according to people with direct knowledge of the dispute, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Mr. Stanton said only, “Obviously, it was not my decision.”

John Conroy, a spokesman for The Times, said, “Stretching the boundaries was what we were going for.” He said Eddy W. Hartenstein, the publisher and chief executive, and other executives would not comment.

Ads that completely cover a publication’s front page, or are made to look like part of it — or both — are not unusual for trade magazines and some tabloid newspapers, but broadsheets have generally shunned them. But Mr. Conroy noted that however unorthodox the ad may be for print, it mirrors a common practice online of having an ad cover part or all of a Web site’s home page for a few seconds.

“It’s taking a concept that we normally apply to new media and reimagining it to a concept in a newspaper,” he said.

More critical reaction from folks at the Times (at the link).