No quick fixes were offered or decided at the “Beat Craigslist” summit meeting of about 20 newspaper executives from about a dozen U.S. media companies Tuesday in Denver. The only consensus they reached, according to several sources, was an agreement to commission more research – and to meet again, possibly in September. 

At issue is whether newspapers should band together to form a single, national brand for the aggregation of private-party advertising to take on classifieds behemoth Craigslist. (See Peter M. Zollman’s blog post.) The execs in attendance weren’t in universal agreement that newspapers could – or even should. The closed-door conclave divided roughly into two camps, we were told: those who believed publishers should move forward fairly quickly and figure it out as they go, and those who felt that if newspapers did anything at all, they needed to begin with a well-plotted strategy.

AdPerfect’s Dave Gilmartin, SVP advertising and marketing, and Shawn Palmer, director of sales and bizdev, were the first of three vendor executives to present in Denver. As first they sat in on a roundtable discussion of participant goals, moderated by Mike Kment, formerly Gannett’s top classifieds executive.

‘There were lots of different camps where people lined up,” Gilmartin told us. “Some advocated free private-party merchandise ads only, with a charge for upsells. Some advocated including all classifieds, even commercial. Then there were the Classified Ventures newspapers who agreed with both but supported merchandise only, and were wondering about the relevance of it.

“Some said, ‘I’m not quite sure why I’m here,’” Gilmartin told us. He also said that some newspaper attendees thought a consensus was unrealistic.

They discussed the pros and cons, brainstormed about potential business opportunities and the pitfalls of an industry-wide collaboration. They also heard presentations from three vendors of private-party classified platforms.

At the end of the seven-hour meeting, the group decided that more research was needed to “better understand consumer needs in this space,” a participant told us. The American Press Institute — whose May report, Creating an Industry-Wide Classified Platform and Brand promulgated the summit – will lead the research. It will also develop a request-for-proposal document to explore technology options.

The next meeting was tentatively set for September, we were told. The API is working with the Newspaper Association of America on the initiative. 

Curiously, executives of today’s most prominent classified-advertising consortia –  Classified Ventures, CareerBuilder and the Newspaper Consortium –  apparently were not invited. (Our advance meeting coverage is here.) And the Classified Ventures newspaper partners in attendance “almost seemed to be of the mindset that it’s not possible – what do you do with automotive?” said Gilmartin.

“I didn’t walk away with any earth-shattering ideas — no rising bolts of illumination — but it was a nice chance to catch up on what everyone is doing,” said Bill Blevins, VP of Gatehouse Media, who was one of the few participants willing to talk to us on the record after the meeting.

“I’m sure some folks are going to follow up with this [classified network] strategy.”

Blevins said Gatehouse already uses many of the strategies recommended by the API in its May report, “Creating an industry-wide classified platform and brand.” While he didn’t say so, it seems that Gatehouse might have reservations about a classified network collaboration of newspaper groups. “We’re working with Zope [an open-source technology provider] and I see no reason to change. They’re fantastic — amazing. And while this [classified aggregation network] is a great idea, it’s also awfully complicated.”

Blevins spoke highly of the three vendors that opened the meeting: “It wasn’t a sales pitch, just a ‘here’s what we’re doing.’ There are possibly other vendors just as good, but AdPerfect is relatively new and pretty savvy; AdPay we’ve known of and worked with for several years, and Kaango is doing some cool stuff.”

It’s unclear whether the new classified aggregation platform and brand as proposed by API and its committee would focus strictly on the “stuff” category (merchandise and auctions) that, from a revenue perspective, is the least important to newspapers, or whether the group would try to include autos, real estate and possibly even recruitment.

The latter three would be fraught with difficulties, as some newspapers are participants in and their parent companies part-owners of Classified Ventures and / or CareerBuilder, while others have been excluded (occasionally causing hard feelings) because of territorial issues. For instance, Freedom’s Orange County Register wanted to participate in Classified Ventures, but was blocked a few years back because it competes with the Los Angeles Times, owned by CV part-owner Tribune Co.

In its report, the API laid out four goals and objectives: “Develop a unified, interlinked industry-wide online classified product; develop a better user interface and experience than that provided by Craigslist and other non-newspaper classified products; recapture at least a portion of lost classified volume, revenue and audience, [and] unite the industry for a common purpose; create an industry success story.”

David Israel, one-time CEO of Classified Ventures, told us in 1999, when CV had eight newspaper companies as part-owners, that building an aggregated national newspaper classified advertisement brand “is like herding cats.”

Speaking today in London, Israel said the “herding cats” concern is still a major challenge, and the “territory issues” between various newspapers, newspaper companies, their interactive-media products and their competitors is a significant issue — but some sort of newspaper aggregation play might just work.

“It probably is still very challenging, but once you get through the headaches, CV’s probably proven: It can work,” he told the AIM Group. “There was a lot of gnashing of teeth and tension here and there, but ultimately, now, it certainly seems to me here from a distance, it is working, and I’m sure those investors are happy to have it. Arguably, it could be even stronger with more investors [or participants], but they’d have to get through the ‘territory’ issues again.”

We talked with attendee Michael Kranitz, president and founder of Kaango, whose community-focused classified platform is about to roll out a series of upgrades. (More on this soon.) Kranitz’s task at the Denver meeting was to talk about why consolidation to a single brand is important as a newspaper response to Craigslist and other free-classified competitors.

“If newspapers maintain the status quo they will slowly lose their classified franchise,” Kranitz said. “It’s starting to erode already. To compete with a large scale classified platform, you have to bring a similar scale to the table — through syndication and aggregation.” Crucial elements he spoke of included uniform brand and experience. “The experience must be superior and it must be identical across the board,” he said. The advantage for the newspaper participants beyond competing with the Craigslists of the world is that the classified visitor need never leave the newspaper’s site.

“Kaango is a newspaper industry servant,” said Kranitz. “We’re able to do what is necessary to reclaim what has been lost in the classified space. We have no other masters to serve. MediaNews Group and Hearst [Kaango owners] have already bought into this classified consortium. Such a consortium has been Kaango’s sole purpose from the get-go.”

We also talked with Deb Dreyfuss Tuchman, sales EVP for AdPay. With clients in 50 of the top 100 DMAs, AdPay met with several of its own clients at Tuesday’s roundtable.  Regarding the proposed classified network Dreyfuss-Tuchman said,  ”We already put the foundations in place. We invented the classified network idea seven years ago.” 

She said as well that such a network, while it would require one portal, wouldn’t necessarily have to be driven by only one classified platform. “After all, AdPay’s a layered data repository with more than 60 vendors, such as Cars.com, Gabriels and Adicio.”

AdPerfect’s Gilmartin agreed with the multiple-provider concept. “We’re a data company and we specialize in integrating with other systems and taking databases and monetizing them,” he said. “We can have one database and maintain each platform that each [newspaper] has. We’re doing that now. There are ways to still have one look and feel, though there are challenges.”

Gilmartin believes in the value of a free classified newspaper network. “Both Shawn and I have seen the power that these papers have and the scale they can bring when they move into a network, whether it’s Classified Ventures or Careerbuilder or others. If they move in, they’re going to be a force. What matters is that there is an agreement to make it work.”