Tennis Magazine's U.S. Open preview a grand slam

Tennis Magazine's U.S. Open preview, an advertising supplement to The New York Times on Sunday, Aug. 26, was chock full of top line advertising. The 62-page book was approximately half advertising with full page ads and spreads from a wealth of major advertisers.

The book, lavish to the casual observer, is run of the mill to Tennis Magazine, owned by the Miller Publishing Group. "We've done it every year for the past eight to ten years," says publisher Jeff Williams. "It stays the same every year. It's not a huge growth tool, but it's very strong and steady."

You can say that again. With ads from Lincoln, Canon, Jaguar, American Express, Advil and many more, strong and steady is putting it mildly. It looks like the quintessential advertising vehicle, although maybe not more so than a typical issue of a major consumer publication.

But this of course isn't a typical issue, but a supplement, which Tennis pays The Times to distribute while retaining all the advertising revenue for itself.

The company sells advertising for the issue two different ways: regular magazine advertisers buy it as part of their packages and individual smaller advertisers make one time buys. They are mostly local auto dealer groups who buy it to reach the New York market, while their parents are major advertisers who buy packages.

Autos is the biggest category in the magazine by far, although all kinds of categories are represented from pharmaceutical to travel to financial. Lincoln bought a two page spread inside the front cover. Pharmacia bought three pages to advertise Activella, a menopause drug.

Lots of advertising could be sold because it's "great visibility," Williams says. It's the biggest tennis tournament of the year in the nation's biggest market, the perfect opportunity for advertisers to reach an upscale audience.

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