Madison Avenue is hoping the nexus of the 2004-05 network upfront advertising marketplace will be a series of meetings in which a group of industry leaders will try to hammer out long vexing issues surrounding rules of conduct and business practices, but at least one top network sales executive isn't so sure they will ever happen. "This meeting may or may not come together," Jon Nesvig, president of sales at Fox, said Friday during a conference in New York on the upfront sponsored by MEDIA Magazine. He added, "I think there are some potential antitrust implications." Bill Morningstar, executive vice president-media sales for The WB, and another network sales executive who participated in the event, told MediaDailyNews that he has been invited to join the group, dubbed the Network Upfront Discussion Group (NUDG), but is still awaiting clearance from The WB's legal counsel before accepting. While an official reaction from the Association of National Advertisers, which organized the group, could not be gotten at presstime, some of NUDG's organizers said the ANA had full vetted the initiative with its lawyers and was confident there are no legal obstacles, though legal counsel is expected to participate in the meetings. In a previous interview with MDN (March 31), ANA President-CEO Bob Liodice said, "The legal fit seems to work," though he emphasized that the group could not "directly or indirectly" discuss anything that could impact upfront pricing. The ANA announced NUDG on April 8, after agreeing to take up a challenge made by Carat North America chief David Verklin during the ANA's March 10 Television Advertising Forum in New York. The group has slated April 29 for its first meeting, and several organizers said they expected it to go on as scheduled despite concerns from network executives. The ANA's Liodice seemed to anticipate such resistance in his April 8 entry on the ANA's blog: "My guess is that there is going to be a lot of nervousness and emotion about this discussion group," he wrote, adding, "There shouldn't be. The upfront has been around for decades and will likely exist for more to come. But that longevity doesn't mean that the process can't be improved." The first NUDG meeting will take place in Manhattan behind closed doors. It is expected to involve between five and seven ANA members, five to seven media buying heads who are members of the Association of American Advertising Agencies, and executives from broadcast and cable networks. Donna Speciale, president of U.S. broadcast at MediaVest, confirmed during MEDIA's Outfront event that she will participate in the group. Carat's Verklin previously indicated that he'd like a seat at the table, as well. Jo Ann Ross, head of ad sales for CBS, was traveling Friday afternoon and couldn't be reached for comment. But earlier this week, Ross said that she had received a letter of invitation, and was leaning toward participating in the committee.
Long a holdout in product placement on all but reality programming and daytime soap operas, CBS is considering opportunities in its scripted series. CBS chief Leslie Moonves confirmed that the network would follow the success of product placement of shows such as "Survivor" into as-yet-unidentified programs beginning in the fall season. "We're meeting with numerous advertisers right now about getting product placement within scripted programming," Moonves said during an interview at the Television Bureau of Advertising's annual meeting Thursday in New York City. Plenty of details remain to be worked out, including many of the ground rules surrounding the product placements. No shows have yet been targeted for the opportunity. "It's still early," Moonves said in an interview with MediaDailyNews. But he noted that broadcast networks like CBS have only one source of revenue--advertising--and that as TiVos and other digital video recorders help viewers skip commercials, CBS has to find ways to make sure the revenue stream continues. "Right now, the big change that's happened in the last two or three years was--the creative team is open to it--where if you work it into the story line, they realize that it's part of the game," Moonves said. "I think you're going to see more and more of that. We're going to have to be more creative about it, more clever about it." CBS hasn't been shy in offering placement with "Survivor," whose groundbreaking opportunities when it first started brought notoriety and buzz for the network and its advertisers. It continued the practice with short-run realityn series "Amazing Race" and "Big Brother," which will return to CBS in the summer after the 2003-0 season ends. Soap operas have also been fertile ground for product placement. CBS signed a deal earlier this year with New Rochelle, N.Y.-based iTVX, which has developed an ROI-based system of measurement of product placement, to measure the growing field. But even then, CBS executives were careful to point out that it wasn't changing its policy on product placement. Moonves said Thursday afternoon that product placement offers some real advantages. "Some of the integrated spots that we used on 'Survivor' may be far more effective than a 30-second spot" when there's a real person saying a beverage was "fabulous in the middle of the desert," Moonves said. "This is clearly something that we're exploring ... We're really making progress, and you'll see more and more of that as we enter into the new fall season," he said. CBS isn't the only broadcast network to offer product placement in scripted series. It's been a feature of many if not all the others, including The WB in "Smallville," Fox's deal with "24," and ABC's partnership with Verizon Wireless in "8 Simple Rules." At an executive roundtable sponsored by MEDIA Magazine in midtown Manhattan on Friday morning, WB ad sales chief Bill Morningstar said that product placement in scripted series offers just as many opportunities as it does in unscripted programming. "When it makes sense, I think that you'll see it," Morningstar said.
The first project to grow out of MindShare's program development agreement with ABC is "The Days," a dramatic series that is already being backed by Unilever and another large, unnamed client of the media agency. As part of the deal, the two MindShare clients have already made commitments to advertise in the show, a scripted series that is aimed at a broad family audience. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but MindShare North America CEO Marc Goldstein said the agency has an ownership stake in the series, and that Unilever participates in it directly, as well. Other MindShare clients who sign on to support it will have limited advertising exclusivity in certain categories. "We're putting an investment into this," Goldstein told MediaDailyNews, though he declined to elaborate other than to say, "I think everybody benefits from it. That's the beauty of this." Aside from the financial arrangements, Goldstein said the early involvement of the agency and its clients in the development process enhance the possibility for integrating brands and products into the scripted series, though he emphasized there still are no guarantees that will come to fruition. "We've said all along that if something makes senses we won't not do it, this is not about Unilever or specific Unilever products. This is about developing a show that appeals to the type of viewers Unilever wants to reach an in an environment they want to reach them in," said Goldstein. "At this point in time there is no specific plan to take a product and integrate it into a show. We will determine whether there is an opportunity, but we're not trying to go out of our way to do something that doesn't make sense. We're not going to alienate the viewer." "The Days" centers on the lives of a two-career couple with three kids, as seen through the eyes of their cynical fourteen-year-old son. Casting will begin shortly and the series is slated for a mid-summer premiere. The pilot was written by John Scott Shepherd ("Life or Something Like It") and was developed by Tollin/Robbins Productions, which will executive produce the series with MindShare. The series order stems from a unique programming partnership between MindShare and ABC that was announced in December.
National Wildlife publisher Tom McGuire doesn't mince words when talking about his title's recent overhaul, which became public knowledge with last week's arrival of the April/May issue. "People have asked me 'why now?' about the changes," he says. "Well, because we had to. The message we were getting from everyone was 'you guys need to get up to date.' That's the kind of message you ignore at your own peril." Given that most publishers would sooner turn over full editorial control to Courtney Love than acknowledge the slightest crack in their title's veneer, McGuire's honesty is commendable; he seems keenly aware of the task in front of him. Although the mag's numbers have held up relatively well through the turbulence of the last few years--he can probably thank National Wildlife Federation members for that--its base of non-travel advertisers is almost nonexistent. Similarly, while NW has been well-regarded editorially for most of its 41-plus years, until the recent changes it lagged considerably behind most comparable publications in terms of design--clearly not the ideal scenario for any title whose mission celebrates conservation and natural beauty. "Over the years, the world's changed dramatically in our sector," McGuire notes. "Look at the arrivals of the Animal Planets and other specialty channels, plus everything with National Geographic. We weren't paying attention to that as much as we needed to." Hence the redesign, which includes a new logo and cover, more expansive use of color, and the multiple entry points that readers seem to enjoy so much. Columns like "Green Consumer" and "Your Health" have been added to help readers lead a "greener" lifestyle, and the title's trademark photography has been reemphasized. In short, it feels like a new magazine. "Up until the redesign, we were pretty much words and pictures," McGuire acknowledges. National Wildlife has also changed its policies to be more accommodating to would-be advertisers. While the mag's edit pages obviously aren't for sale, McGuire believes that a certain amount of cooperation with marketers is necessary in this day and age. "We've revised our editorial policies to embrace the idea of service journalism," he notes. "We want to help our readers make good purchasing decisions, and I think they want that information." By way of example, McGuire notes an upcoming story about a location in New Jersey where conservationists can see literally thousands of salamanders crossing a certain road. He hopes to coordinate that coverage and similar features with advertisers, perhaps travel companies. Predictably, National Wildlife's editorial staff didn't cheer the shifts in mindset and design. McGuire, however, doesn't apologize or attempt to make excuses for anything that's been done, pointing again to the reality that the mag had become stale. "There was a cultural change that had to happen. Over the past five, six years, we'd sort of been resting on our laurels," he says. "The editors and staff didn't necessarily see the need to change. Getting through that wasn't easy." Now that the magazine has worked through such internal and editorial issues--and it has, McGuire stresses repeatedly--National Wildlife plans to turn its focus to the marketing community. Having worked on the buying side of the business, McGuire says he hopes to offer marketers more value for their ad dollars: better joint promotions, more play for mag advertisers on the NWF Web site, etc. Is this anything other titles haven't been doing for years? No, but it's encouraging that McGuire and his crew realize that they're playing catch-up. Describing the mag's ad sales as "modest at best"--again with the honesty--McGuire says he hopes to triple the magazine's regular advertisers from the current 10. Financial services companies and ones that manufacture lifestyle products ("like Brita Water Filters--that's a lifestyle choice") rank high atop his advertiser wish list. He cites Toyota and Honda as top targets for the year ahead, and hopes these companies and others will view recent additions like Home Depot and L.L. Bean as a sign that the mag is heading in the right direction. McGuire isn't under the illusion that the hunt for new advertisers will be as simple as dropping the redesigned magazine on buyers' and planners' desks, then extending his hand to accept their checks. As opposed to his peers, he's not so certain that the economic rebound is proceeding as briskly as many pundits would lead us to believe. "People are just incredibly distracted--war, elections, so much else. It's hard to reconcile what I'm seeing in the business press with the larger picture." Effective with the redesigned May/June issue, National Wildlife bumped up its circulation to 600,000 from 525,000. Over the new few months, McGuire hopes to increase the mag's page count from its usual 76-80 to 100-104.
Win an experience of a lifetime. This is the come-on to lure media buyers into entering the MPA's Magazine Experience Sweepstakes. You have to simply send in your particulars on a postcard OR go to the MPA Web site and answer: How Many Reader Experiences Were Uncovered by Northwestern University's study? In case you dropped out of school in, say, the second grade (in which case it must have been a difficult career climb to become a media buyer), the lead-in to the questionnaire provides this hint: "...a landmark Northwestern University study uncovered 39 experiences that drive magazine usage." The MPA's idea of an experience of a lifetime (which is buried deeply in the fine print of their ad to promote the sweepstakes) is a 7-day Caribbean cruise for two. Oddly, it does not disclose where the ship leaves from, but does disclose that you have to pay your own airfare to get there. Taking a wild guess that it departs from Miami, and assuming you live in New York, your experience of a lifetime would cost about $400 in airfare, plus a taxi to and from LaGuardia--which, rounding off, would add another $100 and transfers on the Miami end--call it $75. I have never been on a Crystal Cruise. I am sure they have fine ships, scrubbed scrupulously and often to ensure against the stomach virus that plagues cruise ships. But just in case, the fine print on the cruise line's Web site offers these caveats: "The cruise fare does not include medical treatment" and moreover, "Crystal Cruises shall not be liable for any aspect of medical treatment provided to the guest, including, but not limited to, the consequences of any examination, advice, diagnosis, medication, treatment, prognosis or other professional services which such doctors or nurses may furnish the guest." Well. Bon Voyage! The stated aim of this little promotion (with a $10,500 Grand Prize) is to get media buyers to read the results of the MPA-underwritten study on how readers "experience" magazines. Since the data has been available for a long while, one can only assume that it is either so boring, so predictable, or has so little credibility that not many media folks bother to thumb through it. So, to throw good money after bad, the MPA figures to bribe the media community into paying attention to the study--but remember, you need not actually read the study to win that floating experience of a lifetime. Where is the fine line between an incentive and a reward, between a promotion and payola? Lots of media organizations hand out Broadway, movie, and sports tickets to help win new or renewed business from media buyers. Since they earn about $5.50 an hour, many media buyers consider this institutionalized graft to be part of their compensation. Free meals, free trips to spas or major sporting events like the Olympics or the World Series, and free clothes or handbags festooned with media logos have become so routine that no one thinks that it is in any way shameful for a trade association to attempt to bribe people into reading their research. Before the angry emails begin: Just because everyone else does it doesn't make it right. How can you say with a straight face that "our audience has a special, deeply personal relationship with our product that makes it the most effective medium for advertising" and then offer up kickbacks in the form of trips, electronics, green fees, air trips, etc.? If you really deliver that kind of value proposition for advertisers, doesn't rebating the cost with gifts diminish the pronounced value? I know it is meant to say: "Thanks for your business" or: "Do business with us and we'll make your life a little sweeter," but doesn't it also say: "What we offer is not strong enough to stand up on its own?" Doesn't it also say: "If you are having that hard a time picking us over another media choice or competitor, here is a bribe to tip you our way?" And finally, doesn't it also say: "You need not pick me on merit; I will buy your business?" Maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch.