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Ad Pages Up for Fashion Magazines' Important March Issues

Vogue's March Issue Includes 443 Ad Pages

Most fashion magazines increased ad pages in their important March issues again this year, showing some strength in an uncertain economy.

Vogue's March issue includes 443 ad pages, nearly 4% above the year-ago level, the magazine said today. That's on top of a gain of 50 pages, or 13%, last March, according to Susan Plagemann, Vogue's VP-publisher since January 2010. "That's significant for us," Ms. Plagemann said. "We also beat our five-year average by 4.5%."

The ad-page count of the Conde Nast title will most likely beat any of its competitors, as Vogue has been selling the issue since last fall. "It's like every March for us," Ms. Plagemann said. "It's intense. We go at it early."

Vogue sibling W sold 204 ad pages into the issue -- 25% more than for last March -- including 20 from Saks Fifth Avenue to start its program around W's 40th anniversary later this year. The magazine is continuing to benefit from a 2010 redesign under Editor-in-Chief Stefano Tonchi, according to Nina Lawrence, VP-publisher at W. "Stefano Tonchi's W is a very big success," she said. "Our growth rate is accelerating."

Because marketers use them to introduce new looks, fashion magazines' March and September issues have long commanded extra attention from advertisers and readers. Media observers sometimes weigh September issues to get across just how many pages they carry. March is the next-most important issue.

"Fashion has become a much quicker industry, and most designers create at least four collections a year," Ms. Lawrence said. "But their major introductions tied to the runway shows are spring and fall, tied to March and September issues. If fashion depended on people waiting to buy the next round because their clothes wore out, it wouldn't be an industry. Spring is the introduction of the new season that ignites the engine for consumers to spend."

Advertisers sometimes respond to a soft economy by moving planned ad pages into March from surrounding issues, but that's not the case at W, according to Ms. Lawrence. "March is up, but February was up and April will be up, so it's not like we sucked the pages out of other issues," she said. "Our March is not the exception. It's what we're doing right now."

Glamour, another Conde title, said its March issue will have 181 ad pages, over 5% more than last year. Expanding on the Social SnapTag program Glamour offered marketers in last September's issue, the magazine got 27 advertisers to include SnapTags with e-commerce capabilities.

Allure will have 143 ad pages in March, up 5% from its 20th anniversary issue a year earlier.

Elle magazine -- publishing its first March issue as a Hearst Magazines title -- is running 319 ad pages, 2% more than last March. Elsewhere at Hearst, Marie Claire said its March issue will carry 181 ad pages, up 31%. Cosmopolitan's 121 ad pages mark a 20% gain from a year ago, the magazine said.

Harper's Bazaar, whose redesign will be introduced in March, said ad pages in the issue are up 15.5% from last year, to 271.

Continued economic weakness has made business tougher for marketers and magazines stuck between economy and luxury, according to Carol Smith, VP-publisher and chief revenue officer at Harper's Bazaar since May.

"We needed to choose a direction, and the only one for a magazine and brand like Bazaar is to become a more luxurious experience," Ms. Smith said. "That isn't to say precious and unattainable but is to say that Vogue, Elle and InStyle can do battle in the mass arena. We will never win [there]. I love mass brands, so it's not that Bazaar isn't a wonderful home for Maybelline, but it's a wonderful home for Mercedes, too."

Time Inc.'s InStyle said it has sold 347 ad pages into its March issue, 13% more than last March, when it posted a 20% jump. "In this economic climate, advertisers remain confident in InStyle's ability to deliver," said Publisher Connie Anne Phillips.

People StyleWatch, another Time Inc. title, saw ad pages decline 7%, to 135, ending a 31-issue streak of year-over-year ad-page increases.

Full story from AdAge here.

This effort makes sense. It is just hard to have a lot of confidence in newspapers when they team up for new ventures- their track record is horrible. However, let's hope this works- clearly there is a need. By the way - does this mean that newspapers are for SOPA? Just a few days ago editorial organizations all came out against it.

New York Times, Washington Post Expand Policing of Article Pilfering Online

Newspapers Form NewsRight, a For-Profit Company Tracking Sites That Scrape Content

The New York Times Co., The Washington Post Co., The Associated Press and 26 other news companies began a joint venture today to police websites that use their articles without consent and demand fees for legitimate use.

The NewsRight venture is a for-profit entity spun out of an Associated Press program started two years ago to explore ways to stem content pilfering on the web -- a practice known as "scraping" -- and to capitalize on a news-reading audience that is migrating online. Large news organizations have been suffering financial losses as a result of scraping, according to David Westin, 59, the former head of Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News who became NewsRight's chief executive officer in April.

Starch, a company that measures reader response, recently named the best performing print ads of the summer of 2009. See them all on AdAge here. 

 

If you are involved in the print industry, representing a newspaper or magazine, you have read these types of articles before - the digital age is upon us. Ink is doomed. Whether or not you believe it, there is no denying the trend towards the digital. Josh Bernoff, synopsizes the digital-is-our-future argument well, in his story in this week's AdAge. He might disagree but what I think he is really saying has less to do with how the advertising is presented and in what medium and more to do with the fact that advertisers want results- measurable, verifiable, results. Digital advertising is ready made to measure response. But it can be done in print. At Mediabids, we measure the results of thousands of ads and when measured, newspapers and magazines generate very respectable results, oftentimes outperforming digital from an ROI perspective. So, Bernoff may be wrong about the speed of the gravitational pull toward digital, but he is right about why digital is so appealing to so many advertisers right now.

Here is a portion of Bernoff's story:

In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement "we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing." Only 7% said "we have no plans to increase our marketing budget."

Unlike the last recession, digital marketing is no longer experimental. Now it looks more like advertising is inefficient, relative to digital. More than half of the marketers we surveyed said that effectiveness of direct mail, TV, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio would stay the same or decrease within three years. In contrast, well over 70% expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase.

The result is that digital, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years. Along the way overall advertising budgets won't grow much.

AdAge just recently published an article that showcased the summer's Most Engaging Print Ads - the ads chosen were "thoroughly read by over half of those who initially noticed the ad." Included in the ad slide show is a brief explanation of why each one was selected - these explanations include some helpful observations to keep in mind for your next print campaign. Click here for full article.