From MiN

Ad Pages Get Crushed, Down 25.6% in 2009
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Steve Smith

Bottom line? It really was as bad as it felt, but things may be bottoming. According to Publisher Information Bureau year-end counts, ad pages for the magazine industry were off 25.6% compared to 2008. That reflected a revenue drop of 18.1% as measured by rate cards. There were some signs of relief in the last quarter of the year when the ad page drop eased to a still-painful 21.6%.

It wasn’t all gloomy. As we have been reporting all year, not only were there titles that weathered the storm well, especially in the service content sector, but the food and food products ad segment actually spent 21.9% more in Q4 than in the same period in 2008 and on 9.8% more pages. Food was the only one of a dozen categories to show positive growth throughout the year. Nevertheless, in the fourth quarter of the year, some other segments showed a slowdown in the rate of decline. Household cleaners, pet foods and supplies, drugs, toiletries and fitness products all registered shallower drops from previous quarters this year, PIB reports. Of course, the comps are favorable for Q4 because by the end of 2008 many marketers had already started cutting budgets radically.

Among the magazines that did increase their ad pages substantially in 2009, People Style Watch was up 24.4%, OK Weekly +20.7%, Saveur +12.6%, Family Circle +11.5% and Scholastic Parent and Child +9.6%.

This from Media Industry Newsletter and Marketing Charts:

Consumer magazines saw ad pages dip another 20.1% in October, for a total decline of 22% through the first 10 months of the 2009, according to the Media Industry Newsletter (MIN). For October, Architectural Digest took the biggest hit, while Interview saw the largest increase in ad pages.

Ad pages were down in every category and at nearly every major title, writes MediaBuyerPlanner:

• 131 of the 155 monthlies tracked by MIN saw ad pages slip in October.
• 111 of them saw ad pages fall more than 10%.
• 76 saw ad pages fall more than 20%.
• 42 saw ad pages slide more than 30%.
• 22 saw ad pages plunge more than 40%.

The titles that took biggest hits:

• Architectural Digest (down 49.4%)
• Veranda (-47.4%)
• W (-45.5%)
• Town & Country (-45.2%)
• Conde Nast Traveler (-45.1%)
• Dwell (-45%), Wired (-43.2%)
• Gourmet (-42.7%)
• Ebony (-40.1%)
• National Geographic Traveler (-45.2%)

The magazines seeing the most improvement:

• Interview (up 49.3%)
• People StyleWatch (+23.7%)
• Texas Monthly (+21.9%)
• All You (+20.5%)
• Southern Living (+12.4%)
• Family Circle (+13.9%)
• Fitness (+11.7%)
• Flex (+8.8%)
• Saveur (+8.3%)
• Muscle & Fitness (+6.9%)

October pulled the year-to-date average up slightly, from 23.6% year-to-date through September to 22% year-to-date through October.

Full Story from Marketing Charts here

"For the second quarter of 2009, total newspaper ad sales fell 29% to $6.8 billion, down from $9.6 billion last year, according to Q2 figures released by the Newspaper Association of America. 

As  evidence of the continued toll the recession is taking on the industry, online ad sales were significantly affected again this quarter, slipping 16% to $653 million. Online newspaper advertising declined 1.8% in all of 2008, but tumbled more than 13% in Q109.

Print Takes Hardest Hit

Total print advertising totaled $6.2 billion, a decline of 30% over the same period last year. Within the print category, national ads fell nearly 30%, while retail ads fell nearly 25%.

Classifieds ads took the biggest hit within the print category, falling a total of 40%. Job recruitment classifed ads declined 66%, the worst slide of any classified category. Automotive classifieds fell 43%, while real estate classifieds fell 46% for the quarter, the NAA said.

Newspaper ad losses have grown worse in each of the last 12 quarters, experiencing the worst declines in newspaper history, reports Media Buyer Planner.

For the first half, ad revenue fell 29%, to $13.4 billion. Ad revenue fell 28% in the first quarter.

The numbers, give perspective to what John Sturm, chief executive of the association, calls “a terrible stretch of bad road,” writes Mediaweek."

Pepsi and CBS have created a new print advertising format (video!) to be showcased in Entertainment Weekly. Click here for the full story: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=138546  

Interesting idea. The article on mediabuyerplanner.com does not elaborate on how successful the ad selling effort has been in conjunction with the publication experiment.

A company called Printcasting is experimenting with a way to attract more advertisers and readers to print magazines while using an innovative model that allows nearly anyone to be a magazine publisher.

Printcasting (“People-powered Magazines”) lets would-be publishers choose articles and blog posts, along with a template, and then print and distribute their magazines themselves, The New York Times reports. Advertisers create ads on the site, then choose which magazines they will appear in; ads start at $10 an issue, but publishers can choose to charge more. Printcasting keeps 10% of ad revenue, gives 30% to the writers, and 60% to the publishers.

The company says about 250 magazines have been created since the company launched in March. For example, a runner in Bakersfield, Caifornia, blogs about high school track teams in the area; another publisher, in Wasco, California, collects articles from local bloggers and publishes a town newsletter. Both are distributed for free. Small organizations like schools, homeowners’ associations and wine clubs can make use of the service and, if the company sees a magazine that “really has potential,” Printcasting will print it, place additional ads, and distribute it, says Dan Pacheco, senior manager of digital products at The Bakersfield Californian newspaper and founder of the company. Pacheco says magazines can be saved by reducing production costs.

This story in the Wall Street Journal on the pressure being placed on large ad agencies by their clients to reduce fees is really worth reading, if for nothing else, because it gives some insight into the attitude many large agencies have concerning their self-importance and the value of their services. This quote in the story, sort of sums up their general attitude: "The reality is that clients want more for less," says Maurice Levy, chief executive of Paris-based Publicis. "It's something that is unfortunately becoming quite common."

What is surprising is that it took Maurice (who allegedly is an advertising professional with a pulse on what consumers in general want) this long to figure this out. Isn't more for less one of the driving forces of our economy? Wal Mart, Target and Sam's Club have done pretty well operating under this premise. Why does Maurice think that his customers want more for less when it comes to the toilet paper they buy or the clothes they wear but not when it comes to the services of Publicis? It appears that he really thinks companies should pay Publicis more just because they are Publicis. At no point in this article does anyone from any agency say that clients should pay the same or more because they are doing a better job, or driving more sales for their clients. They just believe they should make outrageous commissions because that is the way it has always been. Good luck fighting against the tide, Maurice. Maybe Maurice's dreams will come true and once the economy recovers advertisers will come to their senses and get back to the good old days where they were willing to pay more to the people with the coolest clothes, regardless of the services they provide, but I wouldn't bet my Target jeans on it.

Here is part of the Wall Street Journal story:

While ad companies have historically lagged behind in economic recoveries, this time their rebound may come even later, and be less convincing. Not only have marketers slashed what they spend on ad time and space, but many companies have also significantly reduced what they pay their agencies for ad services, such as creating TV commercials.

Ad executives say marketers have slashed the fees they pay by 5% to 30%. Some companies have even asked that fees be reduced retroactive to Jan. 1, meaning firms are paid less for work they have already completed, say two ad executives.