My new copy of Yellow Pages arrived this week. It has a QR code on the cover promoting the Yell app.

The smaller, neater format introduced last time has at least had one benefit, the directories don't sit around outside people's doors like the old doorstop version used to do, because they fit through a letterbox now.

At 400pp plus covers, this new edition is down nearly 30% on last year's pagination. Having resolved to actually look at the book (as opposed to delivering it directly to the recycling bin like my neighbours have done) I see that the coupons section at the back has diminished from 30 coupons in the previous edition, to just five (five!) in the new one. Hardly a ringing endorsement for the efficacy of this promotional ploy.

No wonder RR Donnelley was so keen to get that Avon contract for its Flaxby plant.

Yell is busy trying to reinvent itself (I heard a radio ad  the other day selling their website creation services for small businesses), and they are chasing digital revenues with plans for new websites and new brand names that will supposedly appeal to young folk. But it could well be too little, too late. The company is labouring under ?2.7bn of debt, which was built up when the previous regime at Yell decided it would be a good idea to acquire... yet more directory businesses. According to a report in Monday's FT, the group is now trying to reshape its debt and renegotiate its covenants before it breaches them.

Why the then-management seemed to disregard the impact of a certain Google at that time, only they know.  Much though I love to champion the efficacy of printed products, I'm also a realist. It's hard to see anything other than a niche future for directories.

Yell does provide a valuable lesson, though. Someone far more astute than I summed it up perfectly during a recent exchange about the travails and strategic mistakes of this household name: "Yell surely is a case study of how a market-leading, cash-generative business, missed the plot."