• by Larry Dobrow , August 18, 2003

As far back as anybody can remember, media planners and buyers have rarely given association publications serious consideration for the ad dollars they parcel out. It didn't matter that many of these publications boasted affluent, highly educated readers whose careers had taken them high up the corporate food chain; the magazines published by the professional organizations to which they belonged were generally seen as having little more than niche appeal.

Surprisingly, associations seemed to buy into this reasoning. As a result, they accepted whatever few consumer scraps were doled out and filled their pages with smaller business-to-business advertisers who hoped to sell readers on, say, the particular benefits of their brand of legal index tabs. "It was the way things always were done," says Jim Elliot, a media veteran who heads the eponymously named James G. Elliot Company. "There was somewhat of a 'why rock the boat?' attitude."

If Elliot has his way, however, association publications will become coveted destinations for the most desirable mainstream advertisers. Hoping to create a one-stop shop for big-ticket advertisers trying to reach a range of elite professionals, Elliot has assembled the ProFive network. Billing itself as "the professionals' media network," ProFive has taken five top-flight associations - the American Bar Association, the American Dental Association, the American Medical Association, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the National Association of Realtors - and united their media operations under a single roof.

ProFive is largely Elliot's brainchild. His firm had represented many association magazines over the years, but repeatedly ran into roadblocks whenever its sales reps attempted to persuade agencies to buy publications like the ABA Journal. "It has a circulation of 400,000, but agencies were hesitant to buy a single vertical category," he says. "In their minds, that would have opened the door to a bunch of other legal magazines, and they didn't want to do that." As a result, the marketing dollars went elsewhere, to publications that Elliot believes are demographically inferior to ProFive's six titles (the ADA has two).

Collectively, the network's magazines boast a circulation of slightly under 1.8 million, a figure which dwarves the rate bases of Forbes, Fortune, Business Week and just about every other business publication not named Money. Given the disparate interests of each of the five organizations, readership of the six ProFive magazines is largely unduplicated. This fact has been seized upon by the group's marketing minions, who note that 35% of Business Week's audience also reads Forbes and Fortune, while 57% of Forbes' audience and 61% of Fortune's audience read the other two publications in the biz-mag triangle.

And then there's the demographic data. A full 100% of ABA Journal, Journal of the American Dental Association and American Medical News readers possess advanced degrees. IEEE Spectrum and Realtor readers aren't far behind, with 97% of the former and 83% of the latter having completed college. By comparison, more than 25% of Money and Smart Money readers have never attended college.

ProFive claims its publications also compare favorably in terms of average individual earned income (IEI). For its six titles, IEI ranges from $80,300 (for Realtor) to $194,200 (for American Medical News). By comparison, MRI's spring 2002 data has the average IEI for mass-market business publications topping out at Inc.'s $68,845.

While ProFive doesn't seem to want to pick a fight with the holy trinity of business titles, much of the group's media kit is devoted to highlighting the supposed demographic superiority of its six magazines over Forbes, Fortune and Business Week. "They're great magazines, but they're not read by attorneys or doctors or dentists or engineers or real-estate agents," Elliot claims, pointing to research that a mere 7% of ABA Journal subscribers read Business Week, Forbes or Fortune. "Think about it. Attorneys are only licensed to practice in a handful of states. Realtors are licensed on a county-by-county basis. National business magazines don't have that much application to what they're doing."

If that is the case - and given the vast number of doctor's offices that seem to be importing Fortune in bulk, it's hard to believe that it is - then the question becomes why it took so long for a network like ProFive to come together. To hear Elliot tell it, the process took several years due to a host of administrative hurdles as well as resistance from both the buying/planning side and the associations themselves. Elliot wasn't surprised that agencies weren't quick to warm to the idea. "I had to spell it out to them," he recalls. "It was a new concept, and new things always make people uncomfortable. That's just human nature."

The initial resistance from professional organizations, however, took Elliot slightly aback. Over the years, it had been assumed that it was the agency buyers who frowned upon the idea of advertising in association pubs. As it turns out, the associations weren't especially keen on the concept themselves. "For lack of a better way to put it, it wasn't cool for them to take advertising," Elliot explains. "Only in the last 12 to 24 months have they really started looking for commercial ventures that don't negatively impact the relationships they have with their members."

Indeed, Elliot believes most everybody has underestimated the strength of those relationships. He notes that the lowest renewal rate for any ProFive magazine is 83%, and points to the ABA as an example of the typical member/organization bond. The group's member attorneys spend a fair amount of money each year for membership - $350 for lawyers who have been practicing ten years or more - and its annual meeting generally draws 50,000 attendees. "There's a relationship and a loyalty there that you don't see in too many other places," Elliot says. "Hey, the ABA is a lot bigger than Gruner + Jahr."

If ProFive faces a challenge going forward, it is maintaining its current level of exclusivity. "A lot of other organizations want to come in, but we don't just want to be a trade association network," he says. "We want to keep this pure." When pressed, he can only think of two professions that might make sense for ProFive: accountants and architects. "But the architects don't have a publication, so that rules them out. I'm hopeful that the accountants will eventually come in."

ProFive's task should get easier at the end of the month, when its Monroe Mendelsohn data arrives. Until now, the network has largely relied on a hodge-podge of individually collected research - some from MRI, some from other sources - which caused agencies and competitors to view ProFive with more than a little bit of skepticism.

"When we get our syndicated numbers, we're going to be able to prove our value," Elliot chirps. "That's pretty much the only thing that's holding us back."

ProFive Readership Income Vs. Big 5 Business Titles

Pro Five     Reader Income*     Business Titles     Reader Income* 
ABA Journal
$161,800      Forbes                    $51,900 
JADA              $172,940      Fortune                   $51,440 
AM News           $194,200      Business Week             $51,977 
IEEE
Spectrum      $94,200      Inc.                      $53,589 
Realtor            $80,300      Money                     $50,850 
Average           $140,688      Average                   $51,951

Source: ProFive network: individual magazines subscriber studies, all others 2002 Spring MRI (Mediamark Research Inc.). *Individual earned income.