FOLIO: Section Blogs by FPS 2008

Overheard at FPS | Day Two

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:34:52 -0500

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following quotes are from various sessions during Day Two of the 2008 FOLIO: Publishing Summit. We’ll add to this list throughout the day.]

"We have a society columnist who looks at the computer and says, 'Over my dead body.' And that may indeed be the situation."
—A city and regional publisher on the struggle to change the editorial culture at his magazine.

“They not only save you money, they bring young, fresh ideas into an organization. They’re not cynical. They don't know it can't be done.”
—Michael T. Carr, president, Greenspun Media, on hiring interns.

“I have 85 people in open revolt at any given time.”
—Carr on getting his 1,200 employees to buy into a new business idea.

“We spend $4,000-$5,000 per issue. But we have to do it to create an environment for these high end advertisers.”
—Lynne Groth, publisher, Gulfshore Life, on producing fashion pages for her magazine.

"We threw a $200,000 over-the-top party, and it cost us $10,000."
—Dana Spain-Smith, COO, DLG Media Holdings, on selling event sponsorships.

"You need to put fire in the belly of your writers."
— Don Tenant, vice president and editorial director, Infoworld and Coputerworld, on getting reporters to write daily breaking news.

"We look for the money shot. It may be only five seconds, but its something that just can't be told in a textual form."
— Evan Hansen, editor-in-chief, Wired News

"Tremendous spikes [in Web traffic] can come through and then be gone. What does that mean?"
—Hank Boye, publisher, Harvard Business Review.

"People are reading in completely different ways. I have a lot of designers who get it, a lot of sales people who really want to get it, and then I have a whole bunch of editors who are in total denial."
—Craig Waller, chief marketing director, Pace Communications.

Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Overheard at FPS

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:25:47 -0500

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following quotes are from various sessions during Day One of the 2008 FOLIO: Publishing Summit. We’ll add to this list throughout the day.]
“No one’s reading the magazine on the Web.”
—Dana Spain-Smith, COO, DLG Media Holdings, on the tired practice of replicating articles online.
“I’m trying to eradicate the word ‘hope.’”
—Michael T. Carr, president, Niche Media, on motivating his sales team to succeed.
“The company was founded on the social construct of Dad at work, Mom at home, Chevy in the driveway—clearly, we needed to change.”
—Jack Griffin, president, Meredith
"I'd tell people it was for hot young women and the men who can afford them. That was the mission statement."
—Carr on the launch of Vegas magazine.

"Every single company we've bought [had] underperformed badly."
—Frank Anton, CEO, Hanley Wood, on the state of the companies acquired by Hanley Wood before being acquired.
"To grow a business, you have to take risks, and you have to fail."
—Anton on his business philosophy.
"Since 2000, the business-to-business media has not grown at all. Not at all."
—Anton, setting up an inspiring luncheon keynote.
"This sounds like heresy, but I don't think there's going to be many magazines left. It's not going to happen in my business career time, but I think it will happen."
—Gloria Adams, senior VP audience, development, Pennwell, on her opinion of print-magazine life expectancy.
"It's not about your Web site, it's about things going on around your Web site—people linking to it, talking about you badly ..."
—Chrisitine Oldenbrook, director of marketing and emedia, Bobit Business Media
"I think at some point there will be people who don't make the cut. It's hard to make those cultural changes."
—Oldenbrook on salespeople's ability to sell e-media.

"If you have a Web 1.0 site, you probably need to redesign it."
—Janet Ludwig, president, Allured Publishing
"We talk to women the way they speak to themselves."
—Tina Johnson, editor-in-chief, Women's Health, on the voice of the magazine.

"Oh, no. Not the p-word again."
—Chris Peacock, editor and vice president of CNNMoney.com, on the overuse
of the word 'platform.'

"YouTube has lowered the standard for everyone."
—Kaitlin Quistgaard, editor-in-chief, Yoga Journal, on the obstacles of
producing high-quality video content for the Web.
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Meredith's Media-Neutral Selling

Bill Mickey — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:20:28 -0500

MIAMI—During his morning keynote, Meredith Publishing Group president Jack Griffin explained the company's approach to selling via its M360º group. "It's a group set up to be media neutral. We're not selling a particular asset, but creating solutions for our advertising customers."
It's an approach that focuses entirely on selling integrated packages, no longer simply selling customers on a single media—print display advertising, for example. It's also one that other publishers are adopting. CMP has realigned its marketing services team to be customer-facing by region, creating customized packages that rarely come straight off a menu. "We have teams focused in the customer client regions, in the sales regions if you will, working with different customers to do that integration across different platforms—print, online, events, or deeper into a specific platform," says Scott Vaughan, vice president of marketing and research.
"Customers don't necessarily say to you ‘I want to advertise,'" added Elliot Kass, managing director, client content services. "They just say, ‘This is what I'm faced with and if you can help me figure out a way to solve this problem then I'm very interested.'"
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Capitol File Sales Executives Barred from Attending Parties

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:39:52 -0500

MIAMI—Jason Binn loves a good party—and chances are you’ve been to one. The company’s magazines throw some 300 a year, says Michael T. Carr, Binn's boss and president of Niche partner Greenspun Media. But that doesn’t mean his sales teams are invited.
Carr told a working group at the FOLIO: Publishing Summit today that Capitol File, Niche Media’s luxury D.C. glossy, recently thre a party hosted by Forest Whitaker. The magazine’s sales team, though, was not allowed in. “They don’t attend the party,” Carr says. “They stand in the lobby—and stay in the lobby.” The sales staffers are required to greet every attendee on their way inside, and thank them on the way out—a quasi-host role, he says.
The reason? Their job is to schmooze, not—as it often happens—booze. “They can give a five minute sales pitch in the lobby,” he says.
Reasonable, but I’d wonder about what a policy like that does for morale. File that under “no fun.”
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Product Placement in Magazines: No Longer an Ethical Issue?

Vanessa Voltolina — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:34:48 -0500

It used to be that talk of product placement in magazines would elicit a scary backlash from church-state fundamentalists. Not so much anymore.
In a working group devoted to marketing and brand development today at the FOLIO: Publishing Summit, many seemed to think the issue has gotten beyond whether or not it’s a church-state violation—it’s not longer a question of do or don’t but more like when and how.
“I think it will come. It will have to,” said Kevin Hyson, executive vice president, CMO, of American Media.
“There may be a place for product placement,” said Hank Boye, publisher of Harvard Business Review and co-moderator of the working group, but only after careful examination so that the brand and editorial reputation are not compromised.
Jeff Pedone, director of e-mail marketing at ALM Media, asked the group if the church-state issue with product placement is an internal one. “Are you holding onto something that your audience isn’t holding onto anymore?”
Janet Ludwig, president of Allured Publishing and working group co-moderator, said a lot depends, of course, on the audience. “In b-to-b, you really have to protect your credibility. It’s our lifeline.” When a product appears in the midst of content, she said, “a reader needs to know if that’s been paid for."
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Meredith Prez—On Crutches—Explains Why Their 'Whitebread' Titles Had to Change

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:43:10 -0500

Meredith president Jack Griffin is tough. He showed up at the FOLIO: Publishing Summit in Miami to deliver his keynote this morning on crutches following emergency surgery on a broken leg he suffered a year ago, having lost his cellphone somewhere between LaGuardia and the Doral. And, like a seasoned prize fighter, he landed some key jabs on the state of the magazine business, through the lens of a Des Moines, Iowa publisher Griffin said was “founded on the social construct of Dad at work, Mom at home, Chevy in the driveway.”

The company was “founded on the social construct of Dad at work, Mom at home, Chevy in the driveway.” Which looks nothing like America in 2008, particularly in its ethnic makeup. For a company that publishes “white-bread” magazines, he said, “the change has been quite provocative.”

How provocative? Since 2002, they've spent roughly $600 million on launches (print and Web) and acquisitions, cobbled together an nice interactive marketing business. And despite some big successes (Griffin said Better Homes and Gardens had its best year ever in 2007), it's not all grits and gravy. In November, Meredith’s stock price was at $63 per share. Yesterday's closing price? "Forty-six dollars" he said.
SEE RELATED VIDEO Q+A: Griffin at the 2008 FOLIO: Publishing Summit

Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Print No Longer ‘Heart and Soul’ of Magazine Brands

Jason Fell — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:40:30 -0500

Here's an idea that has been kicked around ad nauseum (see: "Magabrands," Dave Zinczenko et al) but perhaps never expressed so bluntly. According to Computerworld and Infoworld editorial director Don Tenant, the print magazine no longer should be the “heart and soul” of a brand. Instead, as his team did at IDG, publishers should think of their brand as an online media company with ancillary print and event products.

“Advertising is shifting from print to online in droves. So, what do you do?” Tenant said this morning during a session at the FOLIO: Publishing Summit. “Content should be going online first. Our strategy is to think of print as being a compilation of the content online.”

Like a growing number of companies, Tenant’s group merged its print and online editorial teams four months ago. On the surface, at least, this seems to be an easy, efficient content management strategy.

“I can’t tell you how much this was a morale boost for everyone,” he said. “We should have had a plan in place all along to unite the two teams.”
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.

Liveblogging From Miami

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:34:35 -0500

Programming note: FOLIO:'s editorial staff will be liveblogging this week from the 2008 FOLIO: Publishing Summit, which kicked off this afternoon at the Doral Golf Resort in Miami, Florida.
Check our special FPS page throughout the conference for updates, posts, videos and news reports, or by clicking on our FPS tag here.
Folio RSS: Feed sponsored exclusively by NXTbook Media - offering RSS feeds for Digital Editions Call 866-268-1219 for more information.