• by John Gaffney , May 8, 2003

Prevailing wisdom would say last year was a bad time to go after advertising in the B-to-B category. But someone forgot to tell The New York Times.

On the B-to-B magazine Media Power 50 list, The Times placed number two after The Wall Street Journal. It was an effort aimed at taking market share in the category that resulted in the placement, according to Jyll Holzman, senior VP advertising at The Times.

"Aside from the sales strategies that aimed us at targeting this category, I believe that the competitive edge of our continuing investment in business journalism is what paid off," said Holzman. "Even though the business climate was tough we did not cut back pages in the Business Day section."

Holzman also pointed out that the NYT circulation figures that show 93 percent of all copies are paid individually continue to bolster the Times sales proposition in the category. The Times also invested in senior level sales people to aggressively build share in the New York, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco markets. The key categories in the growth for the paper were finance, technology, media and pharmaceuticals. Technology was particularly strong.

Holzman considers all media competitors in the B-to-B space, not just other newspapers like the Journal and USA Today.

"It's hard to predict the future," she said, "but I see sustained growth in this area for us. This has been an underdeveloped market for the paper."

According to B-to-B The Times is gaining on the Journal. "Watch out Wall Street Journal; your good neighbor, The New York Times, is right behind you in the minds of b-to-b media strategists, landing the paper in the top 10 of our Media Power 50 report for the first time," its Power 50 profile read. "Strong reporting on military operations in the Middle East and on the global SARS scare-in addition to its ever-improving business coverage-make the Times the morning's first read for many business leaders in New York and throughout the U.S."