The Asbury Park Press trades classroom training for Interactive training

Project Components

• Interactive multimedia training program
• Printed collateral materials including a Teacher's Guide

The Client : The Asbury Park Press

The Asbury Park Press, currently owned and operated by Gannett, is a premier daily and Sunday newspaper providing news, sports and entertainment about Monmouth and Ocean Counties in New Jersey.

Goals and Challenges: Improving training for salespeople in co-op advertising

Like most of its industry peers in the early 1990's, the Asbury Park Press trained salespeople in classrooms, using traditional teaching methods, with a more experienced colleague often as the instructor. In order to improve the quality and consistency of training, we needed to meet the following needs:

• By training staff in a classroom and using colleagues as instructors, the Press could not be certain that requirements were being met. Moreover, the quality of the training could vary from instructor to instructor, providing inconsistent learning. The Press needed a method of training that was consistent across sessions and instructors.
• Classroom training could be dry and static. The Press wanted a training method that would be engaging, motivating and effective.

The Project: Improving training using an interactive CD-ROM

To meet the Press's business needs, we developed the following:

• A video-based role-playing simulation - salespeople had the opportunity to apply their knowledge and practice skills in an environment that simulated a number of real-world scenarios. The user, appropriately playing the role of advertising sales representative, was required to interact with several characters who represented the kind of people the salesperson was likely to encounter in the field.
• A CD-based instructional program - using predefined lesson criteria, we built an interface that gave salespeople easy access to instruction. A tutorial illustrated important concepts and sales procedures. The lessons were set up consecutively in order to teach basic, intermediate and advanced sales strategies for taking advantage of cooperative advertising funds, and the skills for instructing their customers in the use of these funds. "Sam", a unique personality we designed to guide the user through the various lessons, taught the user the do's and don'ts of the sales process.
• Printed teaching instructions - a Teacher's Guide was developed to be supplemental material for use by a class facilitator.
• A testing module - in order to ensure quality training and measure skills learned, salespeople were required to demonstrate their new skills in test format and results were reported to their managers.

The Benefits: A motivating, self-running training program

• Improve training . By the end of the program, salespeople were not only instructed on sales procedures, but had practiced their skills on a virtual manufacturer representative and a retail store owner who had no knowledge of cooperative advertising. This hands-on training allowed the user to learn and practice skills and acquire a level of familiarity with the sales process before moving into the field.
• Motivate salespeople . The use of "Sam" as a teaching guide, as well as interactive role playing, engaged salespeople in the learning process.

Production Notes

The Co-op program was recognized internationally with the Invision Media Award in the category of "Training and Support". It was so successful that it was packaged as a retail product and sold to newspaper organizations nationwide, opening the door for other advancements in new media training. Not long after, a second title was launched entitled "Classified Advertising Interactive Training".