FOLIO: Personalities -- The Blog People Page

Do the names Hanley and Wood mean anything to you? They should. Mike Hanley and Michael Wood are the founders of one of the biggest b-to-b media companies in the U.S. And the two were reunited recently in a deal through Mr. Wood's investment firm, Redwood Investments.

The firm bought CSP Information Group last week, a b-to-b media company that targets the convenience store and restaurant markets. The portfolio includes four magazines and associated newsletters, websites and events. The deal was brokered by Berkery Noyes, which represented Redwood.
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Many media reps who sell both print and on-line media lead their client conversations talking about print. Since it can take as much time to sell a $7,000 print ad as a $1,000 banner ad, this can look like the fastest way to meet quota...or is it?

I have found the opposite is true. Starting with print can lead to lower print sales. Sound crazy? Here are three reasons why:

1. Advertisers would rather talk about digital options than talk about print. Digital media is new and more interesting for them. Honestly, what is there to say that is new and exciting about print advertising that can compare?

2. When calling on smaller and mid-sized accounts there is a very real opportunity to be a More...

Speculation on a potential sale of digital magazine and newsstand provider Zinio has been swirling for some time now, and Fortune reported Monday that the company had indeed put itself on the block:

"The San Francisco-based company has hired investment bank Montgomery & Co. to manage the process, with one source saying that the company is seeking between $50 million and $100 million. No idea yet if there is buy-side interest at that price."

Since that report, we put in a request for comment and Zinio has released a statement, telling Folio:, "Com More...

This post originally appeared on Josh Gordon's Ad Sales Blog. 

If you follow the traditional publishing business model in an ever more digital world, it is inevitable. The traditional magazine business model is based on creating content to attract eyeballs, and then to sell exposure (advertising) to them. This basic plan has kept magazine publishers profitable for over a hundred years. But this model faces harsh challenges in today's digital media world. The problem is a far more efficient way to deliver eyeballs online, called "search." Every marketer knows that they can get far more eyeballs and clicks per More...

The Economist Group this week released its annual financials, ending March 31, and the numbers looked good, with revenue and profits up (4 percent and 6 percent), as well as circulation.

But while the overall circ of The Economist is at 1.6 million, says the company, only 123,000 subscribe digitally. But according to Oscar Grut, managing director, Economist Digital, that could change dramatically in the next year.

In a recent b More...

Did you see the new Apple Newsstand magazine called Huffington.? Arianna (I don’t know her but that is how she signed the introductory editor’s letter so I guess we are on a first name basis) tells us that “Huffington’s content will emphasize the rich—and richly rewarding—interactions that come from uninterrupted time spent in the company of creative minds.” Oh, dear. That grand statement comes after a 2-page ad for Prius V that, because as in true print magazine format, Huffington. must be read vertically (no turning of yo More...

Granted, there’s not many things more certain than death and taxes but I found one more: any time I started off a declaration with the phrases “Back in my day…” or “When I was YOUR age…” with one of my classes of Introduction to Writing & Reporting at the University of South Alabama, I could pretty much guarantee a room full of collective eye rolling. “Is that when you drove your Model T to school?” one of the class clowns would invariably smirk.

In this particular instance I was explaining to the room of Gen Y-ers that in my first job as a newspaper reporter I went to what is known as a public library and did research…in BOOKS! Well, they were largely unimpressed, and why shouldn’t they be? For the unin More...

Hearst can’t catch a break. Shortly after the dust settled (more or less) around the Seventeen/Photoshop controversy, a new crusade against another female-centric title (Cosmopolitan) began. According to a press statement released this week, Victoria Hearst (granddaughter of Hearst Corp. founder William Randolph Hearst) partnered with Projectinspired.com founder Nicole Weider in an “Anti-Cosmo Mission.”

The Mission requests Cosmo not change its content, but “take responsibility for it,” according to Weider. More...

Publishers have always known the foundational role content plays in engaging an audience. However, with content now playing a starring role for all digital strategies, as well as demand generation campaigns, clients and agencies are beginning to ask a lot more questions about content.

Marketing executives are looking to build their own content libraries and are turning to their publishing partners for guidance and support creating the right content, and distributing it successfully to support both their branding and revenue initiatives.

To better understand how emerging technologies and media options influence audience behavior, our DemandGen Report publication recently conducted a More...

Remember Quark? Not so long ago, when InDesign was just a rumor, it would have been unthinkable for a publisher to design and create a print magazine without QuarkXPress. Those who clung to PageMaker were scorned as being hopelessly behind the times. Even some at Adobe were privately worried that Quark’s hegemony could not be challenged.

Fast forward to the print/web/mobile/tablet/whatever era. InDesign rules in many publishers’ minds and budgets. Quark—both the company and its products—are disregarded, even disdained. “That’s just the way it is; some things will never change,” as the song goes.

Nothing is permanent, least of all in publishing technology. On More...

It’s sad but true, Virginia—less than half of IT decision makers consider the marketing content they receive from the vendor community to be of any use. How do we know this? We polled them of course! Surveys never lie, but there’s reason to believe that this one was particularly accurate. For one thing, the sample was quite sizeable—over 860 corporate IT buyers. For another, its conclusion is supported by droves of anecdotal evidence: Literally dozens of formal interviews, casual conversations and email exchanges that we’ve conducted with corporate IT managers during the past year echo this view. (A survey and whitepaper, “Tech Marketing Best Practices: The Complex Purchasing Process” can be downloaded More...

In my May article, Creative Suite 6 and the Bottom Line, I described Adobe's new Creative Cloud (CC) approach-licensing its applications under a subscription model as an alternative to a traditional shrink-wrap license. Benefits include convenience, early access to incremental releases of Creative Suite (CS) applications, as well as access to newer applications not part of CS. What was discussed but not fully defined was the concept of "team licensing."

In a nutshell, CC team members have the same access to Adobe applications as individual CC subscribers, plus additional benefits, including more online storage, increased access to the Typekit Web font li More...