R.H. Donnelley 1998 Annual Report

Directory Advertising Services

RHD Independent
Reinvents Itself in Cincinnati

R.H. Donnelley successfully reentered the independent yellow pages publishing business in 1998 with the launch of The One Book Yellow Pages® in Cincinnati. The One Book was distributed to 780,000 users and contained 1,260 yellow pages and 306 business white pages. Revenue generated by The One Book placed it among the nation's top five independent yellow pages directories.

"Donnelley's One Book launch was a big win for us," says Dave Swanson, president of Directory Services. "In a highly competitive market, we demonstrated that RHD can deliver a product that customers value."

The One Book is the only directory covering the entire Cincinnati and northern Kentucky market, with advertising also available via the Internet through a relationship with America Online's Digital City. The One Book offers businesses a unique level of market coverage.

The results of The One Book underscore R.H. Donnelley's extensive experience as an independent yellow pages publisher. Innovation is a hallmark of R.H. Donnelley, and the Cincinnati market serves as a field-research laboratory for testing new products and process concepts being developed by the company. Results from these tests provide RHD's other clients with compelling and powerful evidence of the viability and profitability of the innovative new services the company is creating, such as Internet services, YPTV and other sales-channel enhancements.

RHD Independent's Growth Strategy

RHD's strategy is to seek opportunities in fast-growing markets that offer attractive opportunities to serve the needs of users and advertisers. Another key component of this expansion strategy is to gain new partnerships and alliances with competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs).

"We can offer highly attractive, cost-effective turnkey yellow pages advertising and publishing solutions for the CLECs as they, in turn, seek new growth markets," says Swanson. "Our objective is to bring added value to advertisers and users by offering yellow pages directories with enhanced features, coupled with innovative multiple-media advertising solutions pioneered by Donnelley."

Previous | Return to Annual Report Main page | Next