In the past few months, news reports and articles have been questioning the stability of the Yellow Pages industry and predicting its demise.   Declining usage coupled with the economic recession has had a drastic impact on many large Yellow Pages publishers, including R.H Donnelly & Idearc.  In fact, on March 31^st 2009, Idearc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Despite the setback, Iderac’s CEO Scott Klein remains optimistic for the company’s future.  The company is currently attempting to reinvent and reposition itself in the marketplace.               

Idearc has recently revamped its sales force and has created new initiatives to continue to drive consumer usage of their products.  Idearc recently launched its SuperGuarantee and Super Trade Exchange programs.  The SuperGuarantee program aims to reassure consumers of the services they seek by compensating consumers that have failed to receive the services advertised via Superpages.com or Idearc’s directories.  The Super Trade Exchange is aimed at advertisers, allowing them to swap inventory online.  Both programs have been received positively from end users and are helping Idearc differentiate itself from its competitors. Although challenges still remain, Idearc hopes to emerge from its bankruptcy with a limited amount of debt.  To read more on Idearc’s changing outlook, click here.  

It will be interesting to see how other publishers follow suit and reposition their company and their capabilities to cater to the changing market.  It seems that in order to survive the troubling economic times and changing Yellow Pages marketplace that most companies are going to have to face these issues proactively or face the inevitable consequences.