Time to explain ANR's marketing campaign

There is a lot of anticipation in the air for Friday’s opening-round playoff rematch between Aurora and Central City, though some of the dialogue this week took a detour down a path that had nothing to do with football, due in part to a marketing campaign by the Aurora News-Register.
Many Central City residents may have been surprised and a bit confused on Wednesday to find a copy of this week’s ANR in their mailbox. The front page featured a photo of an Aurora player celebrating the Huskies’ upset win over the Bison, which some Central City fans unfortunately took as an attempt to rub salt in the wound. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As ANR co-publisher, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to school and community representatives on both sides of the river in the last few days and feel obligated to share an explanation of what happened.
Back in August, ANR staff became aware that the Central City newspaper had changed ownership and would no longer be offering commercial print services to that community. Though most people think of ANR as the Aurora newspaper, many may not know that a significant part of our business involves a full line of commercial printing, including digital imaging, banners, vinyl signs and a variety of specialty products.
After one of our sales representatives began making weekly contacts in Central City a few months ago, we discovered that there was considerable interest not only in our commercial printing services, but also in helping businesses there reach potential customers here in Hamilton County.
In an effort to help bridge that gap, we started planning to sample copy the ANR to the 68826 ZIP code. We’ve done that before, elsewhere, as a means of target marketing a specific message. Our timing had nothing to do with the football upset, and of course when the saturation plan was set in motion we had no idea who would win Friday’s regular season finale, nor would it have mattered. 
In retrospect, what we should have included was more information explaining the marketing campaign. That was our mistake, and I take full ownership of it. To Bison fans who felt slighted by the inadvertent timing of this effort, I humbly apologize.
At the end of the day, high school athletics and local journalism are both about building community pride. Whether you wear red and white or green and gold, we all value the same things: hard work, sportsmanship and support for our youth. We’ll take this experience as a reminder to communicate more clearly, and to keep working together in ways that lift up both of our communities.
KURT JOHNSON can be reached at kjohnson@ hamilton.net