BoSacks Speaks Out: Magazine-Style Life, Made Manifest

BoSacks Speaks Out:

I'm sending this article out because of it's an examination of out of the box thinking. I think the demonstration of advertising/advertiser cooperation shown here, can be applied by a small magazine as well as a large magazine. We all have a magic blend in our cauldron of readers, content and advertisers. How we use that mixture tells the tale of our success. A creative use of this power is demonstrated in the article below.

Any magazine can perform as the Hearst titles have done below. Take your advertisers, and get them unique exposure to your readers in creative ways. It's good for everybody.

Someday I will tell you all the details about the jamborees my first newspaper used to hold. It was a brilliant mixture of our advertisers (bars) and our readers (College Students), and the local bands they wanted to hear, coordinated by the newspaper that they read. It was a win-win for everybody involved.


In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.
David M. Ogilvy


Magazine-Style Life, Made Manifest
By C. J. HUGHES
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/realestate/09post.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


NEW YORK brokers can sell new condominiums with little more than a mock kitchen and bath, tucked into a sales office, and some floor plans. But they don't deny that buyers are won over more quickly with actual apartments, especially if furnished.

In the last few years, design magazines (and their advertisers) have been increasingly happy to help out, sponsoring the decoration of units in exchange for short-term branding rights.

One developer-publisher cross-promotion is taking place at 10 West End Avenue, a new condo between 59th and 60th Streets developed by the Manhattan-based Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

There, four 18th-floor two-bedroom units, with two baths and 1,200 square feet of living space, have been transformed into showcases for designers and editors at a quartet of Hearst publications: O at Home, Country Living, House Beautiful and Veranda.

The group has crammed each condo with a photo-spread-worthy medley, including porcelain chandeliers, spa tables, canopy beds and leather-topped desks, styled in the tastes of imaginary inhabitants.

For example, the dark-wood dining-room furniture and thickly fronded plants in Veranda's apartment are supposed to evoke the lifestyles of a jet-setting actress and her husband, a banker.

Throughout the fall, the condos will be the settings for a series of charity fund-raising events, which may double as open houses, said Kelly Mack, the president of the Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which is handling sales.

Unit prices start at $1.6 million, Ms. Mack said, though for an extra charge, buyers can keep certain furnishings.

In a year and a half, about 90 percent of the building's 173 units have sold, she said, though 13 others are still on the market, with three-bedrooms from $3.2 million and four-bedrooms from $5.7 million.

"It's incredibly helpful to the sales process to show how buyers can live in a space," Ms. Mack said.

Another Hearst title, Esquire, along with its advertisers, will also sponsor a makeover, at 111 Central Park North, a new 19-story condo at Malcolm X Boulevard in Central Harlem. The magazine is commandeering one of a pair of penthouses, a 4,000-square-foot triplex with an additional 1,700 square feet of terraces.

One room will gain curved corners and a projection screen to mimic an airplane's interiors, courtesy of Lufthansa. Versace, working with the designer Campion Platt, will fashion the living room, with its 22-foot ceilings.

Over all, 20 percent of the 48 units are available, including Esquire's penthouse, which is listed for $8.5 million, according to Louis Dubin, the president of the Athena Group, the building's Manhattan-based developer.

Most are three-bedrooms, with two and a half baths and 1,900 square feet of space, and start at $2.1 million.

"This is a much better way to get people up here than a wine-and-cheese party," Mr. Dubin said.

Having that much repeat foot traffic, though, can take a toll on the elevators and floors, according to Donald J. Trump, who in 2003 played host to Esquire's first show condo, at Trump World Tower, at 845 First Avenue.

That four-bedroom condo, with 5,000 square feet of space and five and a half baths, sold for $17 million the same year, though Mr. Trump plays down the role the cross-promotion played.

"I don't really know if there's any bounce," he said. "In the end, the building and the market determine what happens."