• by Michael Shields , November 18, 2004

During presentations from media sales vendors, or high level client meetings, or informal lunchtime gatherings, media planners at Media Planning Group's New York office have been staring at walls covered with giant-sized, back-lit covers of American Profile magazine, laid out in sequence with headings mimicking a monopoly board.

In addition, employees visiting this particular space on the 14th floor at 195 Broadway in New York City, have been utilizing "tables" designed to look like three-foot high dice.

This décor is leftover from the recent "Micropoly" party thrown by American Profile at MPG as part of the agency's "Media Gallery" event series, started by John Gaffney, CEO of the Boston office back in August. MPG has invited media vendors to be as creative as they want to be in decorating the 14th floor space for one-month periods, culminating in a once-a-month Thursday afternoon party, complete with a DJ and plenty of cocktails (all on the vendor's dime).

During the October 28 event, hosted by American Profile, each of the 75 to 100 or so attendees received an envelope which matched a particular monopoly square. Everyone received some sort of prize, and three lucky winners took home an iPod, a DVD player, and a guitar, respectfully.

Besides being a golden opportunity for publishers to gain face time with the majority of an agency's media department in one visit, the events have been a helpful bonding experience for MPG employees, who had until recently been scattered across various offices prior to several mergers.

"In the beginning, no one really knew anyone here," said Susan Camhi, who is executive vice president and Managing Director Steve Lanzano's assistant and unofficial president of the Media Gallery events. "These parties get everyone interacting."

The parties have also gotten more and more extravagant. Golf magazine installed a temporary miniature golf course, and Bloomberg media wired the floor with several plasma screen TVs.

"Golf brought in carpenters and contractors," said Camhi. "That was a little over the top."

One Stop Luxury Shopping

Michael Kong, CEO of luxury lifestyle publisher Modern Luxury Inc., believes he can offer media planners a means to reach his upscale readership while avoiding the headaches typical when buying in local magazines.

Modern Luxury, which publishes local magazines catering to the well-heeled crowd in Chicago, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Dallas, has just received a $50 million cash infusion from a Shamrock Capital Growth Fund.

Given that investment, as well as the company's strategy, Kong believes they are positioned to grow national advertising dollars.

"I think we can be an interesting player in national advertising," he said. "It's kind of rare in city regionals."

As Modern Luxury's title list has grown, Kong has insisted on maintaining standardized editorial calendars, paper quality, dimensions, etc. across magazines while allowing each city's magazine to develop a unique editorial persona. The result is an easy setup for a national advertiser that wishes to heavy up in a particular market or markets.

"With most regionals, every single magazine is privately owned," he said. "They have different publishers, different specs, different sales reps. For planners, every single one has to be individually analyzed."

That is not the case with Modern Luxury, where buyers can purchase a network of pages with one phone call. "It's very turnkey," he said. "You want the DNA of each magazine to be very consistent."

Kong said that despite the inherent wealth of his readers, and their luxury advertisers, the recent advertising recession hurt his titles like everybody else.

"The myth is that the rich are always rich," he said. "But their psychology is very sensitive." So the capital investment was welcomed. Going forward, Kong says that the plan is to continue to add new titles in two to three markets per year, though he won't give away where the next launch will be.

CMOs Turning into VIPs

Back in 1989, Act III Communications, owned by Norman Lear (producer of "All in the Family," "Good Times"), launched a spin-off to its media industry trade magazine Media Decision. While Media Decision is still around, it morphed into Mediaweek; The Marketer, targeted to chief marketing officers, lasted only a year and a half.

In the last few months, two new titles have launched attempting to succeed in the space that The Marketer did not. International Data Group's CXO Media Inc. division started CMO back in August, and Advertising Age released the debut issue of Point just this month. Of course, the Association of National Advertisers has long published The Advertiser.

Perhaps The Marketer was ahead of its time. "It was quite a good editorial product," said former staffer Rebecca Fannin, who is now the publisher of Digital Magazine News. "It was starting to gain traction, but Norman Lear didn't want to be in publishing."

At that time, the country was also facing the start of a tough recession. "A lot of magazines were folding at that time," said Fannin. "It's been a while since we've seen any launches."

So why are CMOs hot now? According to Rob O'Regan, editor-in-chief of CMO, the role of these executives is far more vital to businesses, and their challenges are more daunting.

"What has happened is that companies have emerged from the cost cutting earlier in the decade; they need to go into growth mode," he said.

That is where marketers play a key role. "Businesses realize that marketing is not just a communications channel," he said. "That is where the CMO comes in. On the flip side, marketers need to be held accountable. CEOs want to see tangible results."

Given the increased influence of these executives, advertisers have been searching for a forum to reach these individuals, including media companies, researchers, data base specialists, and consultants.

O'Regan says that targeting this audience requires more attention to aesthetics than typical business-to-business publications. Thus, CMO is printed on high quality, oversized paper with a bright cover and logo. Similarly, Point, though more sparse in size (just 14 pages), is printed on glossy paper.

Curiously, however, a story in Point's first issue is titled "Why CMOs Still Aren't Relevant."

Family Fun Keeps Growing

Disney's FamilyFun magazine will raise its rate base from 1.85 million to 1.9 million in February 2005. The magazine has grown its rate base every year since its inception in 1990.

Ad revenue for the November 2004 issue is the largest in the magazine's history.