This week MediaBids took advantage of the opportunity to attend the 13^th Annual New York Magazine Day, appropriate entitled “Industry in Motion”.  The theme of the day was certainly focused on the rapidly changing print advertising industry with special attention being paid to accountability, innovation, and digitization.  Key speakers included the president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, CEO of Time Inc., publisher of Seventeen Magazine, CEO of The Knot Inc., and many more industry professionals. 

We had the chance to hear from a variety of perspectives including the client, advertising agency, and publication.  Many of the themes carried throughout the various voices, though, and everyone seemed to be talking about change.  There were decidedly optimistic undertones to the day with Jayne Jamison, the publisher of Seventeen Magazine, emphasizing the “power of print”.  Funny, though, that her speech really focused the digital results her publication has produced.  She spoke about the power to poll an audience online, success with text messages, video blogging, and the personalization offered through the web.  Her final conclusion that the print magazine, web, and mobile mediums should all complement each other seemed like a bit of an afterthought, and she added little to substantiate this claim.

The topic of accountability was a hot one, but one truly left open.  Accountability is exactly what MediaBids offers; holding publications accountable for the response their print advertising space is capable of generating.  Per Inquiry advertising is all about accountability.  The speakers on this topic circled around the need for a solution and the idea that though it’s easy to hide behind “awareness” goals, the true metric is sales performance.  This is why so many advertisers are attracted to web options where they are easily able to track their results.  If print were capable of tracking the results in the same way (which it is), yet provided stronger, more qualified leaders and prospects, wouldn’t advertisers seek the more effective medium?  The fact is, magazines are the medium of action.

Finally, one particularly interesting thought brought up by a speaker was that with the rise in web blogging, editorial journalists no longer have the final say.  So true then is that of advertising.  The editorial, or the ad copy, is now only the beginning of the conversation with the advertiser standing on the sidelines with little or no input.  The question then becomes if this changes anything.  Now what is your role as an original content provider given that you know someone else will be completing your story?