President’s Letter

by Jim Elliott

Too many analysts have jumped on the “print is in trouble” bandwagon without specifying which kind of print they mean.  Evidence that some print is doing just fine is buried by lumping dissimilar products together.  Distinctions are lost when labels like “print” and “publications” are indiscriminately and inconsistently applied to all magazines and newspapers.

Here’s a case in point.  According to Josh Sternberg’s Digiday.com article of 06.29.2012, “Print is in trouble.  That’s hardly news. What’s new is publications looking to cross the chasm and go from print-first models to online-only approaches.”  Because Dow Jones is shifting SmartMoney Magazine from print to the Web, he concludes that print is hurting.

Salespeople need all the air cover they can get today. Establishing the magazine’s point of view at the industry level provides the most effective cover

by Fred Pfaff

(Click here to read Part 1 of this article)

Two months ago, I wrote: “The best air cover is establishing the magazine’s point of view at the industry level. What it stands for, why it matters, why its audience is attracted. That’s where marketing and PR people come in. The same reasons that make it tough to get a buyer’s attention let alone time—too much information, too little time—make it incumbent on media to market the ideas, people, tools and accomplishments that make them matter, and do it in more focused ways. Establish relevance and credibility before a meeting, and a rep can focus where “yes” lives—specific ways your audience can move the buyer’s brand.” 

President’s Letter

by Jim Elliott

Because my company runs national advertising sales for several print and digital publications and websites, I receive daily updates from salespeople in the trenches on what is working and what is not.  Because we sell large and small publications, and large and small digital media in consumer, association and b2b media sectors, we benefit from a huge flow of information and feedback about a very diverse sample. What we see gives me plenty of reason to agree with the remarks Bob Sacks (www.bosacks.com) made at the recent Publishing Business Conference & Expo in NYC:  the business of publishing is bursting with opportunity.

Sometimes the news sounds scary; print dollars in one publication were replaced by digital dimes. We have to think strategically to make sure we find ways to make up the potential loss of revenue. Often the answer is to create packages; a trade advertiser signed off on a multi-platform sponsorship centered on webinars featuring our publisher’s editor, promoted by the advertiser’s enthusiastic bloggers and website advertising, anchored by print.

Pulling marketing and PR can leave salespeople pinned down.

by Fred Pfaff

In every time of doing more with less, it’s tempting to cut back on marketing and PR, thinking that more sellers in the field is the most efficient way to advance the business. Nothing happens without sales, goes the argument, so more feet on the street will identify and seize more opportunities. We’ll add the other fun stuff when we’re flush again, but for now we need to buckle down and pound the pavement. 

There’s a hole in that plan. Salespeople are not efficient marketing vehicles. In fact, the tighter budgets get, the more inefficient they are. The reasons have nothing to do with the role or importance of salespeople; they have everything to do with the nature of sales in the media business. 

by Jim Elliott

There is never a shortage of challenges requiring creative solutions, and there are many ways to generate ideas.  As an active member for many years of TEC (The Executive Committee) and its successor, Vistage, I participated in countless brainstorming exercises with owners of mid-sized companies, who would bring their issues to the group for help.  These exercises take place in one location, with everyone in the same room, and they are conducted by professional group leaders.  

Now, to my great surprise, we read that brainstorming doesn’t work.  “Groupthink” in The New Yorker (Jan. 30, 2012), relates that experiments at Yale, Harvard and several other universities show that brainstorming (where ideas are generated rapidly by group members but not criticized) is less effective at generating ideas than either solo work or groups which debate and comment on ideas as they are proposed. Really?

President’s Letter

by Jim Elliott

At the end of October, I attended the ACT2 Experience. Hosted by Dr. Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, the conference was held at the University of Mississippi. This event was different from other publishing meetings, as Dr. Husni’s university students were very involved. Speakers had a student assigned to them, while other students were interspersed among the attendees.  

The ACT2 Experience took place over a three-day period in Oxford, MS, a remote location off the usual circuit for people in the publishing business. This remoteness gave participants an opportunity to get to know each other. Participants included b2b publishers, a custom publisher, publishers from Europe, special interest vertical consumer publishers, editors and executives from several consumer magazines, and a large media company that owns magazines, newspapers, and radio. There were also support companies such as printers, ad reps, and providers of various types of tools for publishers, both digital and print. Many of the sessions are available for viewing online. You can see mine in this site's NEWS section.

by Joe Rafael

We have turned another page and are embarking upon a New Year, which leads me to ponder our current media marketplace.  Again, we have been burdened with a continuing tough global economic climate. Our media industry is still in transition, changing rapidly into digital and e-based solutions, with print properties struggling to create a well-balanced integrated package that effectively puts the advertisers’ messages out.  Selling advertising has become a complicated balancing act.

by Dennis Connaughton

Do you have any senior salespeople who are less productive than you think they should be?  Despite access to the latest technologies, are they lagging behind newer colleagues?  Assuming your stars of decades past are physically and mentally agile and capable, do some seem to have trouble adapting to today’s reality of media selling?  If you see senior salespeople struggling, trying hard without success, it may be time for a hard reboot.

There is an old saw that generals always fight the last war.  Economists fight the last depression.  What about magazine salespeople?  It’s the same story; people tend to cling to strategies that have made them successful, even after conditions change.  

By Reed Phillips

In the past year, the U.S. consumer magazine industry has been reshaped in ways that will impact the industry for the next decade. This summer, there were leadership changes at all four top consumer magazine publishers – Time, Inc., Hearst, Meredith and Condé Nast. 

First, David Carey of Condé Nast was tapped to succeed Cathie Black as President of Hearst Magazines (Cathie was elevated to Chairwoman). When David left his position at Condé Nast, Bob Sauerberg was promoted to President of Condé Nast (Chuck Townsend gave up that title, but retains the CEO title). Then, Jack Griffin, President of the National Media Group at Meredith, announced he was leaving. He was replaced by Tom Harty. And, now Jack is replacing Ann Moore at Time Inc. as CEO (Ann will remain Chairman until the end of September, then Jack will assume that title as well).

Also, in the past 18 months, several venerable magazine brands have been sold for nominal prices or shut down.

Weekly news and information magazines like Newsweek, BusinessWeek and TV Guide were sold for shockingly low prices, ranging from just $1 to $5 million. And, each of the top four consumer magazine publishers closed prominent, long-standing magazines. The most notable was Gourmet, which Condé Nast shuttered after 69 years of publication. Time Inc. closed Southern Accents (published since 1977), Meredith closed Country Home (published since 1986) and Hearst closed CosmoGirl (published since 1999).

President’s Letter

Do fewer ads simply mean...fewer ads? 

It has been almost two years now from the start of the meltdown of our financial systems. Clearly, the magazine industry has been in tremendous turmoil. Some have used the metaphor of the “perfect storm” to describe our industry’s plight  because, not only have advertising revenues declined, but the industry has been challenged by innovations such as applications for mobile devices big and small and the continuing challenge coming from digital media for the same ad dollars. 

But the focus on magazines’ revenue troubles fails to recognize that advertising revenues in just about every medium have been down. And, yes, it is true that some have been down more than others but this has been an advertising recession not a magazine recession. 

Fewer ads can often mean fewer subscribers since some publishers may no longer have the revenue to finance money-losing subscriptions.  Maybe it is the loss of cheap subs that fuel the “magazines are facing a calamity” talk. 

President’s Letter

As we move toward fall and start to look at 2012 ad budgets, no one in the magazine business will say that the transformation of our industry is complete. Crystal balls aside, history and understanding why and how things happen is always the best guide for moving forward. That’s why I called Baird Davis for this edition of Ads & Ideas. Baird’s background is in circulation analysis and through this lens, he is able to connect some dots that many people overlook.

Although many readers here are with associations, Baird’s perspective and opinions on the momentous changes that have occurred in the consumer magazine publishing business in this last decade are important, interesting and enlightening. I first met Baird Davis when we each spoke at a conference on the future of magazines at the University of Mississippi and later, when we participated in a webinar together for the Canadian Magazine Association. Here, Baird shares some insights that apply to all publishers.