Through strong faith, good people, The Bargain Hunter turns 50
Abe and Fran Mast, back, began publishing The Holmes Bargain Hunter in September 1973. Fifty years later, the company, now owned by their sons Dave, left, Michael and John, publishes a dozen weeklies.
One of the oldest jokes in golf says, "If you’re ever caught in a thunderstorm, hold up your 1-iron because not even God can hit a 1-iron."
Abe and Fran Mast believe God was on their side 50 years ago when they started The Bargain Hunter, which has evolved and grown into a chain of newspapers throughout Northeast and East-Central Ohio, doing much of its development during a historical period that, for most newspapers, has been the journalistic equivalent of a 1-iron out of the deep rough.
Yet here the Masts are, along with their three sons, who two decades or so ago took the reins from their parents and kept swinging away.
“Why would anyone start a newspaper today?” Abe Mast said, fully realizing his sons, who are now running the company, still start one from time to time.
Back in 1973, it wasn’t so outlandish. But the Masts weren’t interested in starting a plain, old newspaper. They had other ideas, and The Bargain Hunter was born, a new concept — a free product that went through the mail to everyone, rather than only to paid subscribers.
The story of the start of The Bargain Hunter is now legendary. The Masts were putting together their first edition in the wee hours of the morning, staring down deadline, when the power went out.
Within minutes the power returned just in time to get the paper to the printer. Later the Masts learned only those in their immediate vicinity had electrical service return — as if for them help came from an unseen source.
“We had no choice but to form a circle in the dark and pray,” Abe Mast said. “When you’re up against a wall, it’s what you do.”
The deadline was met, and the paper got to press and eventually to all the readers. The Masts were off and running.
Looking back, the entire project could have been derailed. Or it may have been just a slight delay, a speed bump on the road to success.
Regardless, the Masts believe it was divine intervention, that God indeed struck somebody’s 1-iron that night, just not theirs.
“We would have never met deadline and would have had to call the printer in Medina and tell them, ‘Our power’s out; we’re not gonna make it. Can we reschedule?’” Abe Mast said. “That’s all I know. God just led us.”
In the wake of a bolt of lightning that took out everything around them, but not them, the Masts successfully launched The Bargain Hunter. Now they celebrate as their sons — David, John and Michael — run the show and celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary.
Fran and Abe Mast started with an idea few others had at the time, developed it, and with it their sons have carried on the family tradition, which continues to flourish far beyond anything their parents could have imagined 50 years ago.
“What we did filled a need for the advertisers,” Abe Mast said. “Instead of spending money in three or four newspapers to get the coverage, we gave them all the coverage in one paper. That’s why it’s successful. Nobody else was offering every-home coverage.”
To say the Masts were ahead of their time is understating a bit. They were challenging people to find Waldo, for instance, about 30 years before there even was a Waldo hiding amongst crowd scenes in his red and white hat.
The Mast’s version of Waldo, better known as Mr. Bargain Hunter, provided a little game for the readers, who found Mr. BH hiding somewhere in the paper and mailed their guess to the company’s office. Correct guesses were entered in a drawing with prizes going to the winner.
What the contest really did was give the Masts a way to physically show prospective advertisers exactly how much engagement their ads had with readers. In order to find Mr. Bargain Hunter, one had to look at everything in the paper.
“They had to look at all the ads to find it,” Abe Mast said.
Trying to nail down a double-truck — newspaper jargon for the two-page spread in the center of the paper — ad from Kroger, Abe Mast met the grocery chain’s head honcho, toting what looked like Santa’s sack with him. What he really had was a bag of unopened Mr. BH contest entries, which numbered in the hundreds, maybe even thousands.
“Their goal was to have everyone read their ad,” Mast said of Kroger. “I turned the bag over, and all these letters, unopened letters, poured out. I said, ‘These are all people who looked for Mr. Bargain Hunter this week and found it.’
“There was no doubt I got him in the paper.”
For half a century, The Bargain Hunter has been driving customers to local businesses while providing coverage of the goings-on throughout the area.
“What I have found is that people around here have provided me with an unlimited number of inspiring, heartwarming stories,” David Mast said of the local content.
The Mast family has tinkered with the formula over time but not messed too much with success.
“When my parents started TheBargain Hunter and mailed that thing to every home, it was like a fire had been lit,” Michael Mast said. “That phenomenon they started thrived and continues to this day. That’s how we can publish a 120-page Holmes paper this week. They developed that phenomenon, and we’ve held on to it.”
Held on to it with a strong grip, like on a Callaway iron while eyeing a long par-4.
Then, just after the turn of the century — or about halfway through the company’s history to date — Abe and Fran Mast handed their sons a 1-iron at a time when the journalism world and newspapers were sheltering from one thunderstorm after another.
Using their combination of skills, the second generation has stepped up and collectively striped one down the middle of the fairway, and it’s still rolling.
Dave Mast is the journalist, John is the artist and Michael is the visionary.
And while 50 years is a long time, betting against The Bargain Hunter pulling it off for another half-century seems like a risky proposition.
“Print is alive and well,” Michael Mast said. “Apart from being ordained by God early one morning 50 years ago, one of the reasons we’re successful is we’ve had a lot of practice.
"In all this time, we’ve gotten really good at what we do.”