• by May 29, 2001

Places To Be Seen

With advertising budgets on a short leash, marketers have become increasingly choosy about the media outlets they use to deliver their messages. This year's BtoB Power Media 50 provides a comprehensive look at the top advertising venues as ranked by media buyers, industry analysts, and BtoB editors and reporters. The Report includes newspapers, business publications, Web sites, outdoor, trade publications, IT magazines and TV/radio programs. And, the editorial staff has put together an overall top 10—those most commonly named as top buys during both good times and bad.

The Top Ten

- 1. The Wall Street Journal & WSJ.com
- 2. Business Week
- 3. "Moneyline News Hour," CNN
- 4. CNET.com - 5. Captivate Network
- 6. "Business Day," CNBC
- 7. The Economist
- 8. InformationWeek
- 9. TechTarget.com
- 10. Nation's Restaurant News

It’s important to note that media buyers stressed that in a creaky economy it's more essential for b-to-b companies to market their products and services in Business Week, which has more of a b-to-b focus than Forbes and Fortune. And, lost advertising pages caused two of last year’s top ten to fall out. In the first quarter, ad pages for Business 2.0 were down 38% from the same period last year, while ad pages for The Standard plunged 65%.

Recent figures from CMR shows that the highest percentage increase in ad sales was network radio, up 105% to $952.89 million from $463.48 million the previous year, Internet advertising had the second-highest percentage increase, up 53%, to $2.89 billion from $1.89 billion in 1999. And, according to a survey of 125 tech companies by BRG Research, Provo, Utah, tech companies' ad budgets are projected to increase about 10% this year.

Vicki Szombathy, VP-media director for StarLink Worldwide, a Chicago-based ad agency says “the key to b-to-b advertising today is finding the vehicle that matches the personality of the brand regardless of the platform.”

The Power Media 50 list contains detailed information on the top properties across seven major media categories

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