Commentary

Fast Forward: Face-To-Face Media

Over the past couple of years, we've refocused one of our print publications, Media magazine, on the assumption that we are in an epic period in which the role of media is being redefined, and the function of media practitioners is evolving along with it. One of the ironies is that we have been telling this story via a medium that has been undergoing change even as we've been telling it.

Yes, Media is a printed magazine. And yes, I'll even admit that it is a "trade" magazine - whatever that means. During the past year, that meaning actually changed in a way that even I did not anticipate.

For the first time ever, trade publishers like MediaPost derived more revenue from the events, conferences and trade shows they produce, than from the pages they sell to advertisers. According to stats from American Business Media, events accounted for 26 percent of trade publishing revenues during 2006, while ad pages accounted for only 25 percent, meaning that the term "trade press" no longer applies. The rest of the business-to-business media market comes from things like online advertising, sponsorship and marketing. In this new, more broadly defined world of media, "publications" can exist in print, in digits and even in person.

It's something I've implicitly understood ever since I first saw Carat chief David Verklin speaking at an event, at which he turned puckishly to the audience, and with one of his telltale arched eyebrows, declared, "Right now, my speaking to you is media. I'm using this event as a medium to deliver my message." The event happened to be a MediaPost conference, and when I heard it, it made me think of an earlier conversation I had with Verklin just after he joined Carat and began honing version 1.0 of his new-media shtick. During that meeting, Verklin described media as a conveyance business, much like the trucking industry. In fact, he said media agencies were essentially in the transportation business and that it was their job to deliver parcels - i,e., advertisers' messages - from one place to another as effectively and efficiently as possible. In other words, Carat is the ups of the advertising world. Starcom is its Fed Ex, OMD is its DHL, and I dare not say who is its U.S. Postal Service, but you can guess that one for yourself.

Cover Story: Because the subjects we deal with in this magazine frequently are so conceptual, we occasionally have a difficult time coming up with designs to illustrate them. When we began envisioning this month's cover story on "Let Go Media," we were doubly challenged because there still are precious few tangible media examples to use. In the end, we settled on symbols that most people would get right away: Diet Coke and Mentos. But not before we shot a version playing with a treatment of another big marketer's foray into the great unknown. In the end, we felt the depiction of consumers wrestling control of Procter & Gamble's Tide brand was more about marketing than media, and we simply had to, well, let go of the concept.

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