It's Time, Ad Industry: Stand Up and Hold Marketers to Account

BoSacks Speaks Out: It's Time, Ad Industry: Stand Up
I've been reading and enjoying Rance Crain's written work for years, but today I think he had better step back from the Kool-aid dispenser at the Ad Age cafeteria.
He suggests that ". . . a more militant ad industry might have been a big help in preventing the financial debacle that's threatening to drag worldwide economies into severe recession." In a dream world I might agree with Rance, but in the nuts and bolts world of today's advertising, it is just a fantasy.

I have ranted for years that advertising is a system of over-communication excess that is out of control and on a collusion course with the public at large. There is no peace on this earth from the advertising onslaught. You can't even relieve nature's call without being bombarded by crass, in-your-face advertising. Now Rance is asking this very same adolescent advertising system to show some restraint and "just say no" when it comes to deceiving the public. Who is kidding who? Where will this strength of character come from? Within? Wouldn't that be nice?

Here's the deal - first take the damn ads out of the bathroom, then try and save the world.

"You can't talk your way out of what you've behaved yourself into."
Stephen R. Covey

It's Time, Ad Industry: Stand Up and Hold Marketers to Account
Remember This Adage: What's Best for Consumers Is Best for Advertisers
By Rance Crain
http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=123323

If tough economic times are ahead, advertising has to change. Claims had better reflect reality because consumers will become especially cautious and critical.

I keep in mind the adage of my old boss Stan Cohen -- what's best for consumers is best for advertisers -- and I wonder if those wise words are being ignored in three major areas: financial services, prescription drugs and sustainability.

It's very apparent that advertisers didn't hold up their end of the bargain in the subprime mess. I've said that the subprime meltdown is, in large measure, a failure of communications, and communicating effectively and clearly and completely is the job of advertising -- at least it should be.

But the sad truth is that many financial marketers didn't want prospective home buyers and mortgage holders to understand the downsides of their transactions: that interest rates can go up without notice, that buyers are taking on too much debt, that housing prices don't always go up.

A more militant ad industry might have been a big help in preventing the financial debacle that's threatening to drag worldwide economies into severe recession.

Ad leaders should have called for financial marketers to do a better job of disclosing the fine print of mortgage lending -- and, yes, Advertising Age should have been there urging them to do so.

Last August I talked with Wally Snyder, president of the American Advertising Federation, about the situation, and I quoted him as saying, "It's becoming pretty darn clear that we've got to accept this problem and bring ethical considerations -- not just legal -- to bear."

Yet, as far as I can see, nothing was done, and so everybody involved, including regulators, the Federal Reserve and ad people, dragged their heels. Now the Fed is requiring certain disclosures in lenders' advertising, but the ad industry could have taken a leadership position there.

One area where ad groups were very forceful was in their unified lobbying against an advertising moratorium during the first two years a prescription drug is on the market. But nobody knows what unexpected adverse reactions a new drug might have, and such reactions would be compounded if the drugs were widely advertised.

The groups argue that limiting drug advertising is an abridgement of commercial free speech, so how about the drug companies agree not to advertise a new drug to consumers for one year? (Of course, they would be free to advertise to physicians.) As Wally pointed out, food companies agreed among themselves to bar ads aimed at kids that might contribute to child obesity, and "even consumer groups have said what the food companies have done is impressive."

Another problem for big pharma is that the industry is running out of breakthrough blockbusters to bring to market, and more and more drugs will be forced to rely on highly imaginative advertising to differentiate almost identical products. We're going to see ads for diseases we never knew were a problem (restless-leg syndrome, anyone?), and critics are bound to step up their cries that the drug firms are getting people to ask for prescriptions they don't need.

Lots of scrutiny also will be paid in the coming year to the sustainability issue. Companies will be clamoring to show they are making important efforts to conserve our natural resources, and the big story will be when they overstate their contributions.

Marketers can't be too careful here. Seemingly innocuous (if stupid) promotions like Toyotathon can backfire. In the ads, people wreck their cars so they can justify buying new Toyotas. But as the Cape Cod Times said in an editorial, "In today's world, how funny is junking a quality machine in good working order and using up more energy and natural resources to replace it?"

So in 2008, advertising will be viewed through a new, harsher prism. It's our job to prod advertisers to stand up to the glare.

The Written Word? It's So Totally Over, According to Mr. IPod

The Written Word? It's So Totally Over, According to Mr. IPod
Nobody Reads Anymore, Steve Jobs Says. YouTube Addicts Might Agree -- but What Is 'Reading,' Anyway?
By Simon Dumenco
By all rights I shouldn't be writing this -- and for God's sake, you certainly shouldn't be reading it! Because reading is, officially, dead.

I have that on good authority -- from no less a trendmonger and trendsetter than Apple chief Steve Jobs, whom reporter John Markoff of The New York Times quoted last week as saying that the Amazon Kindle -- that much-hyped e-reader for wordy products such as books, newspapers and magazines -- is doomed. "It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is," Jobs told Markoff. "The fact is that people don't read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

At this point you should go check to see what's new on YouTube.

But if you -- you freak, you anachronism, you dying breed -- are still with me, then let's try to parse the math, and Jobs' grim logic, together.

While it's generally taken for granted that the newspaper industry is doomed and the magazine industry is under siege, it's worth noting that the book-publishing industry has been holding its own. According to the Association of American Publishers, in 2006 (2007 figures aren't out yet), "trade sales of adult and juvenile books grew 2.9% to $8.3 billion, a compound growth rate of 3.7% per year since 2002. The strongest growth in this category came from adult paperback books, whose sales last year rose 8.5% to ... $2.3 billion. Adult hardbound books [grew] 4.1% to $2.6 billion."

As for Jobs' stat, it seems he extrapolated it from an old National Endowment for the Arts study, which found that in 2002, just 57% of American adults reported reading a book. Then again, according to an Associated Press-Ipson poll released last August, 27% of American adults read no books last year -- ergo, nearly three-quarters did. In fact, the poll revealed that the "typical American adult" read four books last year.

"Who are these 'people' to whom Steve Jobs is referring?" Publishers Weekly Editor in Chief Sara Nelson asked me last week. "Not the million-ish who are devouring Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Eat, Pray, Love' or the ones who line up for Harry Potter and/or James Patterson novels." She added: "All I can say is that when I sat in restaurants and airports or on buses or trains and pulled out my Kindle, I got more attention than if I'd shown up naked -- with an adorable puppy."

At this point you should type "Sara Nelson naked with an adorable puppy" into Google Image Search.

And then check to see if the Kindle is in stock on Amazon -- which it probably isn't, because almost from the moment it was introduced, the product page has displayed this notice: "Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is temporarily sold out. We are working hard to manufacture Kindles as quickly as possible and are prioritizing orders."

In other words, Amazon is politely asking customers to be patient -- which is hilarious, because Kindle is all about instant gratification. As New York technology consultant Michael E. Gruen wrote in a comment he posted on the Silicon Alley Insider blog (about Jobs' Kindle dis), "I'll bet people are reading fewer books because they're not yet as 'on demand' as other forms of media like music and film (which Apple has solved) as well as e-magazines and blogs." Kindle is far from perfect -- I, like other observers, have disparaged its clunky look -- but with its built-in EVDO broadband modem, it's all about getting text on demand, anywhere.

Which brings up a larger point: What is reading? After all, you can use a Kindle to read Brontë, but you can also use it to skim BoingBoing (Kindle has deals with some 250 blogs). If you're not devouring "serious" literature or old-school A-list publications, are you not technically reading? Are you effectively nonliterate? Clearly, Jobs thinks so.

How else to explain his judgment that "nobody reads" in a culture in which more and more people seem to be more obsessively engaged in producing and consuming words than, possibly, ever in the whole of human history? I'm talking about not only blogs (Technorati tracks more than 100 million of them) but social-networking communication and Twitter "tweets" and even, yes, e-mail. Think of the countless people who live vibrant, effusive, all-consuming epistolary lives who, pre-internet, might never have made the effort to write a proper ink-on-paper letter. With apologies to Gertrude Stein, a word is a word is a word -- and storytelling is storytelling is storytelling.

Yeah, even if it comes in the form of "cellphone fiction." You probably heard about (or actually read!) the New York Times' recent front-page story about the rise of that genre: terse Japanese "chick lit" written on cellphones and meant to be read on them, though an increasing number have been able to cross over to print best-sellerdom.

The Times, actually, was really slow to notice -- The Wall Street Journal covered the phenomenon last September. And when Ben Vershbow, the editorial director of the Institute for the Future of the Book (which is affiliated with the University of Southern California and funded by the MacArthur Foundation), blogged about that Journal article, his colleague Bob Stein, founder of the Institute, wrote, "This suggests that art is irrepressible, as it emerges and pokes its way through the smallest of cracks in the media firmament."

God bless you for saying that, Bob Stein -- and for having the generosity of spirit to even think it.

But, as always, it all comes down to the question of who gets to define "art."

BoSacks Speaks Out; How Quebecor can Thrive

BoSacks Speaks Out; How Quebecor can Thrive
Here is an interesting story. To me it is so clearly an issue of disconnected perspective that I am almost stunned by the reporter's "take" on the issues.
Well, not really stunned because it is a Wall Street perspective. You know what I mean , bottom line profit, outstanding shares, that sort of thing. This was clearly not written by a reporter who knows anything about the printing world nor the presses that this story might have been printed on. Nope. To this reporter presses don't matter and Quebecor World and it's staff is just a small cog in a shareholder's diversified portfolio.

"Emotions get in the way but they don't pay me to start crying at the loss of 269 lives. They pay me to put some perspective on the situation."
Ted Koppel


Quebecor's media interests can thrive with sale of Quebecor World: analysts
The Canadian Press, 2008 - Canadian Press
http://www.piworld.com/story/sstory.bsp?SMContentIndex=5&SMContentSet=0

MONTREAL - A complete sale of Quebecor World would allow its parent company Quebecor Inc. to thrive as it focuses on expanding its presence as a Canadian media conglomerate, industry observers said Thursday.

Quebecor Inc.'s prospects are led by its strong cable operations at Montreal-based Videotron and a portfolio of newspapers, including the Sun Media group and recently acquired Osprey newspapers.

The media business, which also includes television and Internet, hopes to enter the cellphone business in Quebec through a spectrum auction.

"The media side has a very positive outlook, it's doing quite well and Quebecor World wasn't that big of a deal to Quebecor Inc. anymore," said one analyst who didn't want to be identified.

The parent company's share value has dropped 25 per cent since November, in large part because investors feared it will sink money into the struggling printer.

Late Wednesday, Quebecor World received an American court order providing protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. That enables the company to borrow up to $750 million immediately from Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley to help fund operations while Quebecor World restructures.

"Once I know they are not going to put money in, my comfort level grows," said a second analyst, who added that cutting ties would allow Quebecor Inc. to focus on its core business without distraction.

"The best outcome could be strong indication from (Quebecor Inc. CEO) Pierre Karl Peladeau that Quebecor Inc. is no longer going to be involved in supporting Quebecor World."

The printing business was founded by Peladeau's father.
Quebecor Inc. had attempted a last-ditched rescue for Quebecor World by teaming with Tricap Partners to provide a US$400 million lifeline to the printer.
Its banking syndicate refused to sign off and the parent company was unwilling to increase its financial position. It also said this week it wants the printing business to be renamed so as not to confuse investors about the state of Quebecor as a whole.
Analyst Jeffrey Fan of UBS called Quebecor Inc.'s decision to walk away from the proposed rescue plan the right one.

"We believe these actions reflect Quebecor Inc.'s decision to surrender control of Quebecor World," Fan wrote in a report earlier this week.

He said Quebecor Inc.'s share price should increase post Quebecor World and upgraded his rating on the stock to "buy" from "hold."
"We believe there is attractive potential upside for Quebecor Inc. shares and in a volatile market, we expect the shares to outperform."
Investors who own Quebecor Inc. stock like its media assets and aren't looking to own a vehicle that indirectly invests in another questionable business, said one analyst.

Quebecor officials couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. But earlier this week, company spokesman Luc Lavoie insisted Quebecor World is a good company, that has faced financial pressures.

"The perception should not be that the company is in bad shape, it's actually in a good shape now that the situation in terms of credit will be frozen," he said in an interview.
Quebecor World's financial numbers are expected to remain meshed in its parent company until it is completely sold.

Removing these contributions would dramatically reduce the company's size and geographic reach.

In 2006, Quebecor Inc. lost $93.9 million on $9.8 billion of revenues. It employs 43,000 employees, including some 28,000 by the printer.

Since 2002, Quebecor Media's operating income has increased annually while Quebecor World's contribution has steadily declined.
Quebecor Inc.'s share price had climbed in the days following the bankruptcy protection filing. However, it lost 88 cents or 2.8 per cent to $30.34 Thursday on the TSX.

Quebecor World's shares, which have been hovering near all-time lows in recent weeks, more than doubled in value on Thursday.

It gained 25 cents to 36.5 cents with 48.2 million shares traded - making it the most actively traded issue on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Is Trade Publishing a Canary in a Coal Mine?

Is Trade Publishing a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Posted by Jeremy Greenfield
I had lunch on Monday with the Steve Cohn (EIC of min), and the editor, publisher, and president of a very big, very well-known, and very old gentleman's magazine at a restaurant in the McGraw-Hill building. Of course, we talked about their magazine, the Giants game, and consumer-side gossip. But one topic of conversation that kept on coming up was the state of trade publishing in 2008. We talked first about BusinessWeek and the plight of the weekly in general. Then we talked about M&A in the B2B space, and then, finally, the topic of whether trade advertising would be strong in 2008.

Alan Greenspan famously said while chairman of the Federal Reserve that he need only look at the price of scrap metal to determine where the economy was headed. The scrap metal business is a commodity based on several commodities: essentially, the profit that scrap outfits make is dependent on the price of various metals around the world as well as the price of oil, electricity, and various other commodities. Therefore, price of scrap can be a good indicator for the economy as a whole-scrap goes up, economy doing well, scrap goes down, who knows. (I got this from The New Yorker . . . see John Seabrook's article "American Scrap" (abstract) in the 1/14 issue for more. You should also read Ken Auletta's "The Search Party" (complete article) in the same issue-it's about Google's lobbying efforts in Washington.)

Like scrap, trade publishing can be a good indicator of how the economy as a whole is doing. When I look at our exclusive min's b2b Boxscores and see that the building and construction category is down as a whole about 10%, well, that indicates something to me. Just for fun, I'll give you a quick run down of how all of our categories are doing (change is in ad pages year-to-date through November 2007, Source: IMS/The Auditor, except Business/Horizontal, which is provided by min):

Advertising & Marketing: +1.66% (A strong year in advertising has bolstered some of the big books in this category)

Automotive: -2.32% (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Banking & Finance: -.60% (Something tells me that some books in this category will be hit hard in 2008)

For the roundup of the rest of our categories, click below . . .

Broadcast Video: -19.5% (This category has been hit hard by cable network carrier saturation. More in this week's min's b2b)

Building & Construction: -9.46% (This one's obvious . . . and is being bolstered by commercial construction)

Business/Horizontal (Jan-Dec, Source: min): -9.13% (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Computing: -22.96% (But, in related news, most of the books here are just killing online . . . so I hear)

Developers Technical: -3.77% (Some books in this category are seeing a resurgence in print)

Electronic: -8.54% (Internet)

Engineering & Manufacturing:-6.88% (This year's decline is part of a long-term trend in this industry-not as much in the way it markets: the big boys are still holding their own)

Fashion & Design: -7.22%(While the graphics/design books are doing well, the fashion trades aren't as much)

Food: Retail:-2.22%(While life has been tough on the supermarket industry this year, the convenience store/petroleum industry has benefited from high gas prices and innovations in basic business practices and store services)

Food: Service/Restaurants: +.82 (A few books that have had several bad years in a row are coming back)

Food: Processing: +3.66 (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Government: -10.54% (Gov IT books are computing books this year)

Healthcare: -3.32 (Pharm)

Pharmaceutical: -5.16% (Pharm)

Telecommunications: -12.40% (Wireless books are hard hit in 2007)

Transportation: -9.76% (Oil prices and Pacific port overcrowding have squeezed Pacific and air marketing budgets-Gulf is up)

Travel/Lodging/Hospitality: -3.29% (Travel agent books are bringing an otherwise healthy category down)

OVERALL: The min's b2b index of 300+ trades is down 8.17% in ad pages through November 2007. I smell gas.

In men's magazines, a question of size

BoSacks Speaks Out;

I'm not the first nor the last to say it, but as we all know, it's not the size, but the magic it performs that counts. This is as true for magazines as anything else. The discussion below of alternate, smaller-sized magazines is neither new nor all that adventurous. The magazines will work very well for some readers and not so well for others. At best they are a stop-gap performance. The sizes that are now being discussed for these travel-sized magazines are pretty much the same size as the Sony e-reader and the Amazon Kindle. So, is the magazine industry laying the ground work for size acceptance with this new introduction or is it just my imagination? OK, I guess it's just my imagination.

An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be"
- Unknown

In men's magazines, a question of size
Britain's FHM will introduce a travel-size edition
By Heidi Dawley
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/

In men's magazines, the eternal question is whether size does in fact matter, and in Britain, where competition among men's titles has been especially fierce, it's a question that's being asked more and more.

FHM thinks it may have the answer.

This spring, the monthly title is set to launch a smaller version that it hopes will help attract readers on the go.

This idea of what's called a travel-size edition is not new. It's been a popular tactic in the women's market for some years now. FHM will be one of the few major men's titles to give it a go.

Media buyers think it might well attract new readers. "The travel format has certainly seemed to work in the women's sector. A number of magazines have brought it out," says Steve Goodman, managing director, print trading at GroupM. "So for FHM to try it is a very sensible move."

For FHM, as well as its brethren, the last few years have not been stellar. The magazine sold an average of 311,590 copies a month in the first six months of 2007, according to ABC figures. That was down 25.9 percent on the same six months in 2006 and way down from the 750,000 copies it sold monthly not so many years ago.
Among the problems facing FHM and the other monthlies was the flush of men's weeklies launched in recent years, mostly downmarket publications. That led the monthlies to chase downmarket in an effort to hold onto their readers, and not with success. "They were tarnished with that," says Mark Gallagher, press director at Manning Gottlieb OMD.

But the monthlies have also been hurt by the internet, which comes as no surprise.
So in 2007, FHM brought in a new editor Anthony Noguera, who had been head of Emap's men's magazine portfolio, to help bolster FHM's fortunes. Noguera oversaw a redesign that came out in August.

"FHM is very different from how it was a few months ago. It is less in that downmarket sphere that it was pulled into to compete with the others," says Gallagher.

The decision to bring out a travel edition, which will be published in select markets alongside the larger edition, is likely to be another part of that effort to help create distance from the others in the market, believes Gallagher.

FHM has not yet said how big the travel edition will be. The regular edition is 12 inches by about 8 ¾ inches.

The travel edition is likely to be similar in size to other travel editions in the glossy monthly market. For instance, Glamour, the magazine credited with bringing this size to the market, is 8 ¾" tall and just over 6 ½" wide.

FHM has said that the travel edition will be a scaled-down version of the regular edition, having the same content and page layouts. It will retail for the same price as the full-size edition -- $7.60 an issue.

The travel size first really took off in Britain in 2000 when Glamour launched into the market. The magazine chose what it called the "handbag size" when it launched.

Glamour flew off the newsstands, overtaking Cosmopolitan to become the No. 1 women's glossy just about 18 months after launch.
Not surprisingly, others followed suit, launching travel editions alongside their regular-sized editions in commuter markets.

A number of publications continue to publish at least part of their circulation in this format, including Marie Claire and Elle, which implies that the publishers believe it to be successful, although it hasn't resulted in huge upward spikes in circulation.

How it does for men's titles is an open question. One title that tried it was James Brown's Jack magazine. It launched in that size, but later abandoned it and has since folded.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Magazines_22/In_men_s_magazines_a_question_of_size.asp

Nowhere To Run: Trickle-Down Theory Impacts Advertising

Nowhere To Run: Trickle-Down Theory Impacts Advertising
by Diane Mermigas
Amid the chaos and panic created by Wall Street and the Federal Reserve, ad-dependent companies are scrambling to determine just how impaired their financial lifeline will be in a troubled economy. Three words: trickle-down effect.
The broad-scale tumult is filtering down into the crevices of all media and advertising companies. They are making adjustments in spending as their costs, revenues and credit tighten. They are watching their stocks get hammered, and their ability to leverage assets or do deals is drying up-for now.

The normal retrenchment that comes during an economic downturn is being complicated by several unusual factors that could extend into 2009. Major advertiser categories, such as autos, financial and housing, are undergoing an unprecedented squeeze and will not provide the spending levels that ad-supported media needs. Retailers and packaged-goods marketers are also under pressure. Media itself is undergoing transformative change, moving from passive to interactive; the learning curve will last for years. Unlike recessions past, advertisers continue to shift some of their cautious strategic spending to new interactive platforms, where they can permanently realize more immediate returns.

These economic pressures will spill over into 2009, when there will be no $3 billion artificial boost of cyclical election-year dollars. Advertiser spending on traditional and new interactive marketing will continue to fragment, as will consumer attention. "It is going to be pretty ugly for a while-well into next year," says Lauren Rich Fine, formerly advertising guru at Merrill Lynch and now researcher in residence at Kent State University.

The stop gaps media companies in particular are hoping to fall back on-ramping digital revenues and international sales-will not increase rapidly enough to offset declines in diffused traditional advertiser spending. Most media companies remain vulnerable. Newspapers, outdoor, Internet display and radio have above-average exposure to the most risky advertising categories-including financial, real estate, retail and construction, which collectively account for nearly 10% of total U.S. advertising, according to Bernstein. Media companies are among the largest advertising categories, previously believed to be recession-proof.

Advertising contributes as much as 97% to the revenues of a media company such as Clear Channel Communications, 71% of CBS Corp. revenues, and as little as 22% to Walt Disney Co. Advertising also is a growing revenue component for Internet giants Google and Yahoo. Consumer spending, which may not be bolstered much by the government's proposed $150 billion stimulus package, contributes 55% to Disney's overall revenues and 72% to Time Warner. On the flip side, digital revenues contribute less than 10% of most media company revenues, and only News Corp. and GE (owner of NBC) rely on international markets for half of their income. The level of international growth that media companies seek will not come while foreign markets are being dragged down into U.S. economic jitters.

So, as advertisers go (in every conceivable industry), so go media companies. The economic uncertainty is creating mixed views for 2008, according to speakers at Bear Stearns' recent annual advertising summit. The outlook depends on who and where you are in the medium spectrum, according to Bear Stearns and industry trade groups. The most volatile-newspapers-could decline as little as 1.2%, or more than 7% in the case of a recession. Broadcast TV should top 9%, fed by the Olympics and elections. Cable could be up more than 5.5%, benefiting from audience and ad-dollar shifts from the writers' strike damage at the broadcast networks. Outdoor will be up 6%, and the Internet 22%.

However, all bets are off in 2009, when the economy and advertiser spending could still be under pressure. That prospect is impetus for all media and entertainment concerns to move more of their ad-supported branded content and services online. That is where double-digit growth will continue for years-as marketers move past search and text advertising into new forms of connecting and transacting with key consumers. The science of pitching, selling and buying is in the throes of a sea change that will alter ad spending among media platforms and devices.

There also is incentive for traditional media to alter the way it conducts its revenue-generating business. For instance, backing away from the costly upfront selling ritual and leaning toward a 52-week continuous selling cycle, based on the development and availability of new content, is a move that NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker is initiating. With advertisers looking to solidly justify every dollar they commit, there is incentive for media and measurement companies to further sharpen and qualify their audience metrics.

In a bullish report titled "The Cowboys Dance On and On. . . ," Yankee Group analyst Daniel Taylor recommends that advertisers use these uncertain times to incorporate interactive into mainstream media spending schedules, invest in building and maintaining data interchange, grow online expenditures more than 100% annually, and explore sponsored content and "advertainment."

Media companies should create new marketing segments, take the lead in online privacy, invest in online content, focus on cross-media opportunities and develop social networks. The reason: even as the number of Internet users levels off, Internet advertising will continue to grow at a 24% compounded annual rate to more than $50 billion in 2011, surpassing all forms of broadcast television, cable and radio spending. That's why the Internet cowboys are the only ones dancing.

Let's Hear It for Print! Well, Glossy Print Anyway

Let's Hear It for Print! Well, Glossy Print Anyway
Maybe, Just Maybe, a Magazine Resurgence Has Arrived. Here Are Four Innovators Who Keep Things Interesting
By Simon Dumenco
http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=123191

"I just got finished with New York magazine's new issue. After I put it down, I leafed back through all of the insightful, well-thought-out stories, beautiful glossy photographs, useful charts, and I thought to myself, 'Wow. F -- k blogs.'" -- Ricky Van Veen at rickyvanveen.com

When I read that recent, random observation on the personal blog of Ricky Van Veen, I thought, Hells yeah. It's worth noting that Van Veen is no grizzled, old-media hack swathed in gauzy nostalgia; he's the 27-year-old editor in chief of CollegeHumor.

The blog backlash has been a long time coming (actually, I guess, it's been ongoing and concurrent with the blog boom, but lately everyone I know seems down on blogs). And, arguably, a moment of glossy resurgence has arrived -- well, OK, if not a resurgence, at least a glimmer of hopefulness. Like Van Veen, I've been feeling deeply appreciative -- and even a little optimistic -- about magazines. To wit:
Speaking of New York magazine, Editor in Chief (and National Magazine Award hog) Adam Moss hardly needs any more praise from the likes of me; instead, I'll heap praise on his New York Look, a twice-yearly fashion-centric spinoff that launched last fall. I'm hardly a fashionable guy, and yet I can't wait for the spring issue. The launch issue was, simply, exhilarating -- gorgeously designed, with stunning photography, perfect pacing and elegant packaging that delivered the essential top line on the contemporary fashion moment. (Full disclosure: I used to be on staff at New York and very occasionally still write for it. I had absolutely nothing to do with the launch of New York Look.)

Fifteen months ago I tentatively praised the newly re-energized Fast Company, a once seemingly doomed Web 1.0-era business magazine that got a new lease on life when Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto bought it. Since then, new-ish Editor in Chief Robert Safian has been putting out an increasingly smart, compelling, often contrarian take on progressive businesses (not just web companies but all sorts of operations that care deeply about design as marketing). Oh, and beyond print: Snagging celebrity tech blogger Robert Scoble to spearhead the launch of FastCompany.TV in March? Really smart.

One thing you can't take away from magazines: their, well, thingness. In a world of fleeting media delivered as ephemeral electrons, thingness -- tangibility -- matters more than ever. Case in point: New Beauty magazine's clever $25 BeautyBox (rolling out to all Borders stores in 2008), an editor-curated selection of five beauty-product samples packaged with the latest issue of the magazine. I personally couldn't care less about beauty crap, but I love it when a scrappy upstart such as New Beauty actually thinks strategically about what it can do with real-world distribution networks.

Speaking of thingness, one of my all-time favorite magazines, Vice, is free (you can find it in, for lack of a better term, "hip" shops worldwide), but it rewards its paying subscribers with an always-excellent polybagged CD sample of new music (Vice is an all-over-the-map general-interest magazine with an affinity for youth/street culture, to give you an idea of the sort of music it champions). A few years back, when I was editing Colors magazine -- the frequently rude, crude theme-centric magazine created by the late, great Tibor Kalman in 1991, which arguably helped inspire the frequently rude, crude theme-centric Vice (e.g., "the Iraq issue," "the clothes issue") -- I thought I'd never be able to put out a publication as smart/funny/provocative as Vice. I was right. Anyway, some hipster-snobs might argue that Vice is a bit long in the tooth -- it's 12 years old now -- but its just-out second-annual fiction issue (its biggest, most ad-packed issue ever) made me fall in love with it all over again

Quebecor World Didn't Keep With Times

Quebecor World didn't keep with times, experts say
BY Roberto Rocha, Canwest News Service
MONTREAL - For Gaetano DiTrapani, co-president of printer Phipps Dickson and a 30-year printing veteran, the headaches began with the Internet and the environmental movement.
As more people chose the screen over the printed sheet, he said, it also became trendy to reduce paper use. Less demand for paper led to printer overcapacity.

"And the more capacity you have, the more competition you have," DiTrapani said.

And that's when the printing industry went from a fairly predictable business to one requiring constant rethinking and adjustment of operations.

Ask around the printing landscape and the answer is pretty uniform: Quebecor World just wasn't quick enough on its feet to see the changes creeping and respond appropriately.

"They haven't had the focus that, say, Transcontinental Inc. has had," said Sandy Donald, publisher of Graphic Monthly, "Transcontinental built itself up in very specific areas. Quebecor World took over everything in sight.

"They spread themselves too thin."

If there is a mantra in the printing business today, it's "find a niche and be the best at it," an axiom that can be applied to any highly mature industry. Volumes are shrinking along with margins. Many printing customers are expanding through mergers and want to simplify their supplier base, often demanding multiple services from a single printer. This forces printers to provide complete solutions for highly specialized needs.

This was the strategy for Transcontinental, Canada's second largest printer, which is always happy to show off its upward-bound top line.

"You need to offer services today," said Benoit Huard, the printer's chief financial officer. "Clients want one supplier that will service all their needs."

No one can blame Quebecor World for not trying. For the past few years, the company has sold off numerous plants to focus on magazine, catalogue and directory printing. Their sin was being a late mover and a poor allocator of managing talent, Donald said.

While the rest of the industry was busy upgrading presses to modern, versatile digital equipment, Quebecor World became an afterthought as parent company Quebecor Inc. focused on its acquisition of cable maverick Videotron.

"They started replacing their equipment later than their competitors," Donald said. "And Videotron took key management from Quebecor World, which hurt them quite a bit."

Much of the printer's pains came from Europe, where its operations were the weakest. An attempt to sell off that continent's operations to RSDB NV fell apart late last year, denying the company some much-needed capital.

Donald said Quebecor World was partly blind to the market differences between the Old World and New World printing markets.

"The really should have gotten out of Europe two, four years ago," he said. "They didn't think like Europeans do. They sent sent North American people to run European operations. But it's a different world, different culture."

BoSacks Speaks Out; Quebecor World seeks bankruptcy protection

BoSacks Speaks Out: Friends, as upsetting as this news may at first appear, it is not a reason to panic. The presses are running, the paper is rolling and ink is being placed within tolerances of 1/1000th of an inch, as per usual with a rhythm and a predictable schedule.

They have received 1 Billion dollars to create and sustain moderate stability. And all they need for now is the stability to forecast the next few quarters of business cycles. After that I don't know what will happen and neither do you, but I suggest that for today and tomorrow it is business as usual. If your titles were to ship this week, I would expect them to do so. If your titles were scheduled to ship next week, the same holds true. It is a time of transition and change, but not of wholesale upheaval. It's my experience that, under conditions like this, all titles will get out and all publishers will continue to publish. The details of this and the plains of action, lay with the accountants of the world.

As I heard Coach Bill Belichick say last night, "Be smart, stay allert and do your job, and we will get through this just fine . . . "

Now you begin to see, don't you, that distance ain't the thing to judge by, at all; it's the time it takes to go the distance in that counts....It's a matter of proportion, that's what it is; and when you come to gauge a thing's speed by its size, where's your bird and your man and your railroad alongside of a flea?....A flea is just a comet, b'iled down small.
- Tom Sawyer Abroad


January 21, 2008
Dear Quebecor World Customer,
Quebecor World has applied today for court protection in Canada and the United States to conduct restructuring for the long-term interests of the company, its customers, suppliers and employees. As part of this process, Quebecor World has secured
US $1 billion of new financing to continue to provide you and all our customers with reliable, quality services on a business-as-usual basis. Our operations in Europe and Latin American are not included in these filings.

The approval of $1 billion in new financing through Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley was included in the court applications under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In addition, Quebecor World is seeking the appointment of Ernst & Young Inc. to monitor the company activities in the Canadian proceedings.

Despite the difficult economic conditions in general and in the credit market in particular, Quebecor World continues to have a positive cash flow, expert teams of experienced employees, valuable, performing assets and an impressive roster of customers such as you. In the months ahead we will be reviewing the company's performance and developing ways to make further improvements in all our operations.

The prudent action we have undertaken today and the vote of confidence represented by the $1 billion of new financing means that we will continue to operate on a normal basis as we restructure for the future.

We look forward to maintaining our business relationship with you.

Quebecor World's commitment is to keep customers, suppliers and employees and other stakeholders informed of all significant developments, either directly or through our webpages on the Internet. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require further information. We will make every effort to respond in a timely fashion.

Thank you in advance for your patience and support as we work to achieve an outcome that serves the best interests of our customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Sincerely,
Jacques Mallette
-------------------------------------------------------

Quebecor World seeks bankruptcy protection
Updated Mon. Jan. 21 2008 9:56 AM ET

The Canadian Press
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0350781.htm
MONTREAL -- Commercial printer Quebecor World Inc. is seeking court protection from bankruptcy in Canada and the United States.

The 28,000-employee Montreal-based company said Monday it is filing under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada and Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.

The company also said it has arranged commitments from Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley for US$1 billion, subject to court approval, to cover current operating expenses including wages and benefits.

"These steps allow the company to continue operating as a going concern for the benefit of all those affected including our many loyal employees, customers and suppliers,'' stated Quebecor World CEO Jacques Mallette.

"The company has a strong business and valuable assets located throughout the world.''

Mallette blamed its troubles on "industry pressures, particularly in Europe, combined with the inability of the company to raise new capital in the current market environment and the inability to complete the sale of its European operations.''

The court filings follows the failure of a proposed C$400-million rescue financing agreement with Quebecor Inc. and Tricap Partners Ltd., which lapsed Sunday after failing to win consent from Quebecor World's bankers. The banks balked at having their debt placed behind the new financing in the event of a future bankruptcy.

Companies under court bankruptcy protection from creditors typically restructure their operations and financings, with the equity value for existing shareholders generally wiped out.

Quebecor World shares slumped by 20.5 cents to 13 cents in early TSX trading after the announcement, down from a 52-week high of $17.25.

Quebecor Inc. issued a statement stressing that it and its other subsidiaries "are not affected in any way'' by Quebecor World's decision.

It added that it told Quebecor World on Sunday that it must remove "Quebecor'' from its corporate name, "to eliminate any confusion in the public.''

Pierre Karl Peladeau, CEO of Quebecor Inc., stated that "Quebecor and Quebecor Media are both in excellent financial health and the outlooks for the future of the businesses are excellent.''

Quebecor Inc. shares were down $1.50 to $30.70 on a severely negative morning overall on the TSX.

------------------------------------

Quebecor World to File for Creditor Protection
- US$1 Billion Financing Secured to Meet all Current Operating Needs

Quebecor World Inc. (TSX: IQW)(NYSE: IQW) today announced that the Board of Directors of the Company has authorized it to file for creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in Canada. A number of Quebecor World's U.S. subsidiaries are also covered by the CCAA filing in Canada as well as in the United States under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Application under the CCAA will be heard by the Quebec Superior Court on January 21, 2008 and the filing under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code will be made in the Southern Judicial District of New York.

Quebecor World's Board of Directors, in a unanimous decision, authorized the Company to take this action as the best alternative for the long-term interests of the Company, its employees, customers, creditors and other stakeholders. Operations outside of North America are not included in these filings.

The Company has also announced that it has entered into financing commitments with Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley for new financing in the amount of US$1 billion. This financing, which is subject to approval of Courts in both Canada and the United States, will allow the Company to meet all current operating needs, including wages, benefits and other operating expenses.

Jacques Mallette, Quebecor World's President and CEO said: "These steps allow the Company to continue operating as a going concern for the benefit of all those affected including our many loyal employees, customers and suppliers. The Company has a strong business and valuable assets located throughout the world. We believe that the steps we are taking today and the strong vote of confidence given to us by our new finance lenders will ensure that we will be able to protect the value of the business for our stakeholders."

Mr. Mallette added: "Today's filing is the result of industry pressures, particularly in Europe, combined with the inability of the Company to raise new capital in the current market environment and the inability to complete the sale of its European operations. The steps we initiate today will allow the Company to make changes which are necessary to ensure the long-term viability of the Company within a process that ensures fair and equitable treatment for all stakeholders."

The deadline of 9:00 a.m. January 20, 2008, for satisfaction of the conditions precedent to the previously announced CDN$400 million rescue financing agreement with Quebecor Inc. and Tricap Partners Ltd. having passed without such conditions being satisfied results in the agreement relating to the rescue financing being terminated and without effect. The Company recognizes and appreciates the time and effort of Quebecor Inc. and Tricap Partners in connection with the rescue financing.

Forward looking statements

This press release may include "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release, including statements regarding the prospects of the industry and prospects, plans, financial position and business strategy of Quebecor World Inc. (the "Company"), may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Canadian securities legislation and regulations. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "plan," "foresee," "believe" or "continue" or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements do not take into account the effect that transactions or non-recurring or other special items announced or occurring after the statements are made have on the Company's business. For example, they do not include the effect of dispositions, acquisitions, other business transactions, asset writedowns or other charges announced or occurring after forward-looking statements are made.

Investors and others are cautioned that undue reliance should not be placed on any forward-looking statements. For more information on the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause the Company's actual results to differ from current expectations, please refer to the Company's public filings available at www.sedar.com, www.sec.gov and www.quebecorworld.com. In particular, further details and descriptions of these and other factors are disclosed in the "Risks and Uncertainties related to the Company's business" section of the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2006, and the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2006.

The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the Company's expectations as of January 21, 2008 and are subject to change after this date. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or intention to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by the applicable securities laws.

Why Wal-Mart Cut 1,000 Magazines

BoSacks Speaks Out; Anyone who is surprised by this move needs to stand up and leave the room. Wal-Mart is totally about efficiency and moving product(s). We, on the other hand with our much touted sell through ratios of 30% or less, are anything but efficient. You do the math. The biggest single magazine retailer is lopping off heads. This is just the begining of a new era of refined distribution. Are you ready?
"When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it."
- Bernard Bailey

Why Wal-Mart Cut 1,000 Magazines
Company's green initiative, lagging sales among factors.
Kristina Joukhadar and Dylan Stableford

After months of speculation by wholesalers and publishers, Wal-Mart is moving ahead with cutting close to 1,000 magazines from its shelves, and it appears the company's recent commitment to being "green" is a factor.

Representatives from the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment. But according to industry sources with knowledge of Wal-Mart's plans, the company's Sustainability Committee-and its commitment to reducing waste-played a key role in its decision.

According to one Sustainability Committee member, the formula Wal-Mart used to determine the cut list was based on a ranking of magazine titles by sales. Any title that was not in the top half of sales in any Wal-Mart store was cut from the list.

Another source says that of the 1,000 magazines, the number of active titles cut was closer to 800-representing three percent of copies sold by the retailer. Wal-Mart accounts for more than 15 percent of total U.S. magazine retail sales.

According to the New York Post [1], the cuts affected virtually all of the major consumer magazine publishers. Meredith Publishing, which as recently as December had denied rumors that it was being cut out of Wal-Mart, was hit particularly hard, with Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal being shown the door.

Other axed titles include Town & Country, Home and Metropolitan Home (Hachette), Cookie, The New Yorker and W (Conde Nast), the Robb Report (CurtCo Media), The Economist, BusinessWeek (McGraw-Hill), Forbes and Fortune (Time Inc.), as well as a number of niche titles such as Boar Hunter Magazine, Spirituality & Health, Cabin Life and Log Home Living, according to the paper.

Long-Time Coming
The cuts should come as no surprise. As far back as in October of 2006, Anderson News, the largest distributor to Wal-Mart, began telling publishers it intended to cut the draw on some of the magazines it distributes by up to 25 to 30 percent.

At that time, Anderson said it had "analyzed sales performances by title for every individual retail store and calculated the appropriate allocation for each store to support sales and minimize returns." The stated goal was to cut its financial losses by reducing the number of magazines with low unit sales, low efficiencies and/or low cover prices.

According to one industry expert, out of the 4,000 titles on the newsstand today (including annuals and one-shots), wholesalers say they lose money on at least half of those titles.

--------------------------------

CLEANING THE RACKS
Keith Kelly
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01182008/business/cleaning_the_racks_368974.htm

January 18, 2008 -- RETAIL behemoth Wal-Mart is tossing more than 1,000 magazines from the racks in its stores, sending yet another shock wave through the battered publishing industry.
Most of the magazines are small, and more than a few of the victims are titles that have long since stopped publishing, including Child, Celebrity Living, Elle Girl, Teen People, Suede, Shop Etc., Weekend and FHM. However, virtually no major publisher was spared.

Wal-Mart, which released its official purge list on Jan. 15, is believed to be responsible for generating more than 20 percent of all retail magazine sales in the US.

Wal-Mart had not returned calls by presstime.

The move is likely to hurt new magazines, which take time to nurture and develop a following.

But one magazine executive said it might actually help magazines that made the cut, because it will remove some of the clutter and give the survivors more visibility on the racks inside Wal-Mart's 4,000 stores.

One of the biggest corporate losers appears to be Meredith Publishing.

Its flagship Better Homes & Gardens is out, as is its sister service magazine Ladies Home Journal. Family Circle stays, however.

Fitness, which Meredith picked up from the defunct Gruner + Jahr, is out, though rivals Shape and Self are still in.

Time Inc.'s In Style will remain, though its spin-off title In Style Home is out. The main Sports Illustrated will remain on shelves, but Sports Illustrated for Kids is getting the heave-ho.

Hearst's Town & Country is out, as is Hachette's Home and Metropolitan Home.

Condé Nast lost space on Wal-Mart's racks for upscale parenting magazine Cookie, the urbane and sophisticated The New Yorker and the glitzy oversized W. Self magazine made the cut, but some slower-selling special interest spin-offs got the ax.

Several titles owned by Swedish publishing giant Bonnier, which less than a year ago paid $220 million for 16 Time Inc. titles, are being left behind. Among them: Parenting, Ski, Skiing, Yachting and Salt Water Sportsman.

Wal-Mart also tossed out some of longstanding titles, including foodie mag Saveur and Caribbean Travel & Life. And a number of business titles, including The Economist, BusinessWeek, Forbes and Fortune, are also getting the boot.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, a title aimed at the very wealthy - Robb Report - is losing shelf space.

The retailing giant prides itself on meticulously tracking inventory, but the purge list suggests there were a few glitches.

Several of the magazines on Wal-Mart's hit list were shuttered titles that the chain hadn't sold in months, but none of the wizards at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters appear to have deleted the names from their system - a surprising oversight given several titles haven't been around for as long as two years.

Even magazines that one might think fit with Wal- Mart's conservative and working- class image were left out in the cold. Among them: Boar Hunter Magazine, Spirituality & Health, Cabin Life and Log Home Living. Even the Saturday Evening Post is being spurned.

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Passion of Steve Jobs

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Passion of Steve Jobs
I am sending out this article specifically because of the following statement by Steve Jobs:
"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. "Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

That is such a damning statement, and it goes beyond the fact that people don't read. Here is an industry titan who has the skill set to develop a "reader" that could/would/should be successful but won't because "people don't read". Fact or fiction this industry giant won't spend the energy and resources to attack and improve the technology because it doesn't make business sense. He may be right and he may be wrong, but I find it a statement of supreme consequence.

"Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?"
- Steve Jobs


The Passion of Steve Jobs
By John Markoff

Even more than when he's performing on stage, Steven P. Jobs's passion for personal computing comes through when he talks about the years he spent cajoling his designers to build what he presented today as the world's "thinnest" computer.

Along with David Pogue, the Times technology columnist, I spent a half-hour with Mr. Jobs after he introduced the MacBook Air this morning at the Macworld Expo. And as is frequently the case with Apple products, he pronounced the three-pound aluminum-clad portable to be one of the best things his company has ever designed.

"I'm going to be the first one in line to buy one of these," he said. "I've been lusting after this."

The company's design team went through roughly 100 design prototypes to find the right form, he said. Both he and his lead designer, Jonathan Ive, were not certain that they would be able to fit the computer into the package that they came up with.

Earlier, during his keynote presentation, Mr. Jobs went to great lengths to extol the engineering effort that had gone into reducing the size of the basic computer to fit inside the computer, which tapers in thickness from .76 inch down to .16 inch. The circuit board is about the length of a pencil, he said, and he brought Intel's chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, on stage to congratulate him for his company's work in significantly shrinking the packaging of the Core 2 Duo microprocessor that the MacBook Air is based on.

Still, the machine is a reversal of field for Mr. Jobs, who in the past has insisted that less-than-full-featured laptops are undesirable. Today Mr. Jobs was unwilling to compare the MacBook Air to the original Dynabook vision, a portable prototype idea first conceived of by the computer scientist Alan Kay. He would go no further than asserting that this is the most elegant computer the company has created, right down to the four rubber footpads that support it.

Some of the competitors' machines are so flimsy, he said, they require a fifth or even sixth pad to keep from sagging.

Mr. Jobs can be like that when he assesses the competition.

Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. "Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."

He was equally skeptical about Google's decision to develop smartphone software. Google bought a small start-up called Android several years ago, and a team of developers is now putting the finishing touches on an open-source smartphone operating system designed to rival both the iPhone and Microsoft's Windows Mobile software.

"Having created a phone, it's a lot harder than it looks," he said. "We'll see how good their software is and we'll see how consumers like it and how quickly it is adopted." In seeking not to get locked out of the mobile phone world, "I actually think Google has achieved their goal without Android, and I now think Android hurts them more than it helps them. It's just going to divide them and people who want to be their partners."

One of the remarkable qualities that Mr. Jobs has is his ability to continue looking forward and not focus on the past. For its Apple TV set-top box, "Take Two" is a great example of the computer impresario's ability to recast an anemic first effort with great fanfare. Apple not only cut the price of the box from $299 to $229, it entirely revamped the user interface to a simple text display that is stark even by Mr. Jobs's Spartan aesthetic.

The message now is that when it comes to television, the solution is "all about movies." That can be seen in the movie icons that now fill the screen of the Apple TV display, allowing viewers to choose and rent titles to download.

The model will not extend to cable television, he insisted. "We're not going to go there with the cable cards," he said, referring to the relatively open cable industry connectors that are gradually allowing companies like TiVo to replace the standard set-top box. "That whole industry, their go-to-market strategy is pretty loopy, and it's fractured," he said. "Our model is like DVD."

Mr. Jobs saved his greatest compliment today for his former archrival Bill Gates, who has now largely retired will retire from Microsoft this summer.

"Bill's retiring from Microsoft is a big deal," he said. "It's a significant event, and I think he should be honored for the contributions he's made."

Keeping Print Afloat

Keeping Print Afloat
By Marie Griffin
B-to-b publishers have gotten used to the idea of advertising dollars migrating to the Web, but none wants to see vast sums of money moving out of print. As the economy becomes less certain, though, b-to-b publishers are aware that advertisers could make sudden shifts in strategy and budgets.

"Online will take care of itself," said Alan Robinson, group publisher of Reed Business Information's EDN. "We can hardly keep up with the demand. When you're talking about print, though, you have to ask yourself how it's going to survive."
There's no foolproof way to prevent a rush of revenue out of print, but some publishers are being more proactive than others, making sure their sales and marketing teams are consistently reinforcing print's value within the advertising mix.

Robinson and his team are using two strategies to keep Reed Business' electronics flagship, EDN, viable in print. First, they invest in content that lends itself well to the print medium. Second, they provide advertisers with research to prove it matters.

"Our approach really calls for print execution," he said. "EDN is written by electronics engineers. The editorial is in-depth and solutions-oriented, and it delves into the complex issues engineers must design around today. This type of information is hard to absorb on the Web."

EDN's research backs up the common wisdom that businesspeople use print early in the buying cycle. "Our team is going around with the readership study to explain to buyers that key decisions are being made early in the design process. That's when engineers turn to peers and trade journals," Robinson said.

At e.Republic, Exec VP Don Pearson and his team don't try to protect their print advertising. Instead, they build print components into integrated, multimedia programs.

"In this day and age, there really is a glut of information on the Web," Pearson said. "If you want to drive traffic to your online assets, either on your own site or on our site, you still need to grab people's attention. An e-newsletter is one tactic, but print is another element."

For e.Republic's 3-year-old Digital Communities quarterly publication, Web site and events, Pearson created a set of tiered, multimedia sponsorship packages at three different spending levels. All include print, online, live events and custom publishing. "The print ads are not closing the program, but advertisers are going for the comprehensive value proposition that is designed to produce results," he said.

Gary Rubin, chief publishing and e-media officer at the Society for Human Resource Management, uses words like luxurious and pleasurable to describe the experience he wants readers to get from HR Magazine, and he insists this direction makes good business sense.

Although some advertisers are pulling away from print to buy more online advertising, "I still have a $10 million-plus magazine, and it's a good, profitable business," Rubin said.

"I'm creating this luxurious reading environment-with thought-provoking stories, pull-out quotes, great photographs and illustrations-so that the magazine has a larger, more engaged audience," he explained. "And advertisers follow readers."

Like Robinson, Rubin makes sure to back up his beliefs with hard evidence. "We commission a third-party readership study every two years," he said. "By almost a four-to-one ratio, people prefer reading our magazine as compared to the next largest competitor."

----------------

Co-manufacturing Takes Shape
By Mark J. Miller
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080111/MEDIABUSINESS/162119816/1106/FREE
Production executives are in a constant search for ways to save money. In recent years, the sharing of different parts of the production and distribution chain with other publishers and other titles has helped ease the financial burden. First, there was co-palletization and co-mailing. Then there was co-binding, and now co-manufacturing has entered the publishing world's lexicon.

The term has been bandied about for nearly a year by printing and magazine manufacturing executives, and the concept can take a variety of forms. One saved Reed Business Information $15,000 in three months during a test the company ran on 24 of its titles.

Reed moved some of its monthlies to Fry Communications where it already had several of its titles printed. The idea was to build a large enough mass to make creating an internal mailing pool of just Reed publications cost-effective.

Reed standardized the paper and trim size for all 24 titles. Then, to be as efficient as possible, it loaded all the titles into a single print line to run basically one right on top of another.

"We wanted to take a look at what would happen if we printed our monthlies there at the same time and created co-print pools essentially," said Paula Gordon, Reed's director of manufacturing. The company's test ran from September to the end of December.

Each week, Reed created different test pools. Tuesdays and Thursdays are big print days for its monthlies, so production executives would constantly be looking at how many titles it could close on those days in order to be part of that week's mailing group.

Gordon said Reed locked out publications that failed to close on schedule. "We would just automatically knock some out that didn't adhere to the schedule," she said. "We're keeping close track of what we're actually saving with the books we pool and what we could have saved if those other titles had closed on time."

Noting Reed's savings in the first three months of the test, Gordon said, "In 2008, more magazines will be included, and we're thinking of co-binding some of those titles and then co-mailing. So we're taking it to the next `co-level.' "

Gordon added that it would have been easier to start with weeklies, but the titles were too spread out in terms of geography.

"As postage goes up and paper goes up, more and more money-saving partnerships will occur between publishers and printers," she said. "Big, little-it doesn't matter; we all want to save money."

Alan D. Snyder, prepress operations manager at Fry, said most experiments like this come directly out of specific money-saving conversations with clients and trying to find ways to maximize their spending with the printer. "Publishers used to have a lot of say in what they printed on, and that power is tightening up, I'm sure," he said. "They can't be liberal about their sizes, and texture and that sort of thing [anymore]."

Among the services that Fry offers is selective co-binding, in which titles run simultaneously on the press and the printer selectively binds different titles in different ways. This saves a publisher money in make-ready costs.

BoSacks Readers Speak Out: Quebecor, Publishing Success, and Car Parts

BoSacks Readers Speak Out: Quebecor, Publishing Success, and Car Parts
www.bosacks.com

Re: BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On Quebecor, Magazines, and Steve Florio
Boman, I've been in this industry for 35 years. Like you I have seen a lot of ink poured onto billions of pages. The continued consolidation of the industry from all sides and all suppliers bodes ill for our continued success. There are so many aspects of our ability to make a profit that are under attack that I despair of ever breathing correctly again.

It's the paper problem. Paper makers have a right to make a profit too don't they? It's the printer problem. Shouldn't printers be able to make a fair profit? It's the advertisers. Shouldn't they be able to maximize their dollar investment and get accountability for money spent? It's the generational reading trends. Still an unknown but sizable problem for the printed page.

The Quebecor situation is just one item of hundreds that is putting continued pressure on a fragile industry at a unique moment in time. How do we continue under such diverse unfriendly conditions? For my part I don't blame anyone or any part of the industry. It seems to just be what they call a perfect storm.
Submitted by a Senior Multi-Title Publisher)

Re: BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On Quebecor, Magazines, and Steve Florio
Bo: As someone who has worked for both printing and publishing companies over the last 34 years, I feel obligated to chime in on the current hype about Quebecor World. Quebecor World has provided publishers and catalogers with a valuable service for a long time, they have kept the cost of printing competitive. IF RRD, Quad and other large printers had their way, our costs would be significantly higher. To rationalize where Quebecor World is today, we have to take history into account. First lets realize that the US plants started as WA Krueger, then became Ringier America and then World Color before becoming Quebecor World. Lets talk about the fact that the previous owners were interested in making money by any means and did not keep up with technology or invest in their infrastructure. Lets face it, by the time Quebecor purchased World Color, the plants and equipment were becoming obsolete and were in desperate need capital expenditures and improvements. Lets think about the determination and faith that it took to consolidate plants and purchase a huge amount of equipment to bring them up to today's quality and efficiency levels. They accomplished this in a remarkably short period of time and while there were specific problems along the road they have reached the pinnacle only to have the financial bridge for the cost of modernization collapse. Lets also ask if the current financial situation might be different if not for the tremendous problems caused by the sub-prime mortgage segment. As one who prints with Quebecor World, RRD, Quad and several other printers, I do not look forward to the demise of Quebecor World and especially if another major printer becomes the owner. I hope that the financial turmoil can be overcome for all of our sake. Lets hope that printing doesn't follow what's happening in the paper industry with mega-mergers and consolidations.
(Submitted by an Industry Supplier)

Re: BoSacks Speaks Out - 3 Concepts for Every Publisher's Success
I'd suggest three other points:

1. Content isn't important; creating something that interests an audience is. When you drain the blood out of the activity and leave it as a set of numbers, it's going to fail.

2. Having targets isn't important; you want an audience that really wants to hear what you have to say.

3. Long term profitability and innovation may not go out of style, but they are meaningless when they aren't an organic part of pleasing the customer. Profitability is a byproduct of pleasing customers and running a business smartly.
(Submitted by an Industry Writer)


Re: BoSacks Speaks Out - 3 Concepts for Every Publisher's Success
Bo, Simpler words couldn't tell the story! A sound business model and a template for success applies no matter what we're talking about. You can only "push" so much information - it's the end-users' desired "pull" that sustains that publishing entity. You've got to have them engaged, once you do and you continue to fuel that engine, then it's perpetual . . .
Submitted by an Industry Supplier)

Re: Print is Dead: Long Live Print
It's the first time I have read something we can all agree on, right Bo? Just give it a little time and what is old will be new again. And that goes for print and pretty glossy pictures.
Submitted by a paper Supplier)


Re: For magazines, New Year of Challenges
Bo, Don't you love challenges?
Sounds like a motivational seminar from the 60"s.
Submitted by a senior paper person)

Re: For magazines, New Year of Challenges
Here is a shortened view of the top three challenges for 2008
1. Paper
2. Advertising
3. Postal
Pretty much in that order in my opinion.
(Submitted by a Senior Paper Person)


RE: MPA Magazine 'Readers' Are Now Called 'Users' - Gen Y Loves Luxury Paper
Why not just call them the audience? It works for all the types of media,
and calling them users creates the wrong emphasis on the specific
technology, and not the unifying concept of communications.
Submitted by a Writer)


RE; you see this in FOLIO?
I was idling around the newsstand at lunch and was surprised to see the December issue of Hemmings Motor News sitting there, weighing in at 696 pages. Hemmings is basically an antique car and car parts directory. Looking for an antenna for that 1964 Corvair? Find it in Hemmings.

The curious thing is why the print publication is still thick as a phone book. If ever there was a publication to become disintermediated by the Internet, this is it. Hemmings is a place where you go to find things you are looking for, not for random discovery. And, in fact, it has a robust Web site, claiming to be the "world's most comprehensive and informative web site of its kind, featuring over 30,000 searchable cars-for-sale ads, 10,000 Car Club listings," etc.

Maybe it's because car collectors are old and don't use the internet. Nope, we know that all age groups are active users of the Web. Maybe the Hemmings brand is so strong that they can REQUIRE classified advertisers to use print if they want to advertise online. Not so-you can advertise online exclusively. I just don't get it. Why is their print edition so robust? Any ideas?
Submitted by a Senior Publishing Executive)

Memo Pad: Portfolio Numbers, Please...

Memo Pad: Numbers, Please...
By Stephanie D. Smith
NUMBERS, PLEASE: Portfolio has published six issues since its debut in April, but so far, the jury remains out on whether consumers are reading the Condé Nast business title. Sources close to the magazine and with access to circulation figures say the title has collected around 300,000 subscriptions and, on average, sold 85,000 newsstand copies an issue. They also estimate Portfolio's single-copy sell-through percentage is between 15 and 18 percent (a Portfolio spokeswoman declined to comment on the numbers). The magazine has attempted to pop at newsstand by using more abstract cover images, but in recent issues has moved toward a single image - the January cover was the first to feature a close-up of a human.

A new magazine's sell through percentage is naturally lower than that of an established title, since most publishers tend to blanket newsstands with issues for maximum visibility while assessing where the magazine sells best. John Harrington, editor of magazine industry newsletter The New Single Copy, believed Condé Nast would be satisfied if Portfolio's sell-through were in the mid-20 percent range. As a new title matures, a successful one should increase that number to around the 30 percent range or higher. "Fifteen percent certainly wouldn't make them happy," said Harrington.

Portfolio's circulation, as with most business magazines, is based largely on subscriptions, so its newsstand performance is not the only judge of the magazine's circulation strength. "It's somewhere in between a business and a men's or lifestyle magazine, in terms of how they're positioning it. So it's a little harder to judge than normal," added Harrington. "Because it's a unique editorial package, I would think the company would be prepared to give it more time and would not apply normal expectations to it."

It may be too early to tell if Portfolio will meets its circulation targets - or what those targets could be for the future - but publisher David Carey already has his advertising goals in place for 2008. After posting 655 ad pages for all of 2007, the goal is to snag 900 pages this year, when Portfolio will publish 12 issues. Of course, Carey has more on his mind now than Portfolio - on Monday he was given responsibility of Wired Media and The Golf Digest Publications, which previously reported to outgoing group president Mitchell Fox

Observations from a Curious Mind

Observations from a Curious Mind
Posted by Courtney Smith
As the Governor of the American Advertising Federation's District 14, I attend numerous events each year. This past June in Louisville, KY, the hours spent sitting at banquet rounds filled with half eaten salads listening to the illuminating thoughts of industry experts, needless to say, caused my mind to wander away from meeting agendas and how Roberts Rules of Order works like I was supposed to be doing as a District leader. I found myself unable to stop searching for connections between the nuggets of cutting-edge research, opinions from self-proclaimed industry thought leaders and intimate after-hours conversations inspired by open bars and the brief escape from "real life" back home. I filled many a quad pad page pondering the collective idea pool that was brewing amongst the creative constituency in attendance; it's these thoughts, observations and questions that I share with you here. For today, my first thought on the list.

1) As long as a product provides value, it will be rewarded with loyalty.One of the keynote speakers said this in his speech. It seemed like a no-brainer to me, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that sometimes clients don't get this. What it says to me is that marketing is not a rainmaker and can't make a bad product better - period. Consumers are smarter than you think, and will not be loyal to anything that doesn't give them something unexpected in return. I think it's true of services too; isn't it always about value? Value-add, value-driven, values-based - we need to be careful how we use this word, because it's a damn good one that will lose its meaning if the industry adopts it deeper into its buzz word virtual dictionary. In other words, don't devalue value.

Thought number two on my list of things to ponder I am sure will cause much debate. After all, it pits the creative world against the measured world of interactive and summons the core of what clients in my experience want to know about their marketing efforts - how do I know this is going to work?

2.) The moment the metrics become more important than the message, it spoils the gift to the user and becomes counterproductive. I heard this in a keynote given by David Verklin, founder of CaratUSA and wanted to put him on TIVO pause as soon as these words left his mouth. Finally, an industry professional that wasn't trying to crack the metrics nut and put a barcode on creative! As I thought about the meaning of his words, it made me reflect on my own habits as a consumer and put them into the context of how we build and market brands for our clients. After all, the thing I usually remember when I see an incredible piece of creative for the first time isn't the product or service's name or website address. . . it's the way it made me feel when I was tickled, saddened, outwitted or touched in some way by the magic of how a simple phrase, imagery and copy worked together in harmony to tell its story. This feeling has never been something that could be measured with unique urls or click-thru ratios, but it is what I want to experience when I come across this brand again. So how do clients know if what we're doing for them will really work, if brands live in our heads and names and url's are hard to remember? We have a saying in the office that for every great gift you've ever received in your life, you will never, ever forget who gave it to you. Think about it. If what you receive is something that personifies you, celebrates you, is unexpected and makes you take notice, the giver will live in infamy in your head forever. The same is true of great band marketing. When your approach is thoughtful, your audience is understood intimately and the delivery is just right. . . the same magic can be gifted to an audience. At the end of the day, if clients just had faith in what we as marketers with integrity are spending our precious brain cells strategically creating in this space, then the answer to their question will be paid back with long-term customer loyalty and increased profits. This takes time and considerable patience however - but I guarantee that the results will last a lifetime.