• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, October 19, 2016

Jon Werther, president of Meredith's National Media Group, answers queries about guaranteed ad effectiveness programs, the future of print, and more.

Meredith was a pioneer in offering guaranteed results to advertisers who committed to spend a certain amount.  How is that program going? 

Our Sales Guarantee program has been extremely successful.  Since launching a few years ago, we have executed 65 programs with our marketing partners across print and digital channels -- and each and every campaign has met or exceeded their expectations.  We continue to expand the program to new categories and channels, with both existing and new partners.

The rest of the magazine industry eventually followed suit with similar ad effectiveness guarantees. Did that remove Meredith’s competitive advantage with the guarantees?

Absolutely not.  From program inception, we have welcomed the participation of our publisher peers.  If anything, industrywide participation has reinforced the ability of our collective brands to drive outstanding return on advertising spend for marketers across categories and channels.

Last year Meredith bought Qponix, which helps food marketers and retailers reach shoppers via mobile.  Can you update us a little on what’s been happening with that?

Qponix has been a terrific addition to our portfolio of products and is aligned with our continued strategy to bring solution-based products to our consumers.  The acquisition has enabled Meredith not only to drive significant increases in return on advertising spend for our CPG brand partners, but also to materially increase overall basket size for our retailer partners. We are currently expanding our shopper marketing offerings to include beacon technology, as a vehicle to further connect our marketing partners, retailer partners and consumers at the point of purchase.

Meredith recently shuttered the women's magazine More, but has also launched a couple new print publications, like Beekman 1802 Almanac and a new title with Joanna and Chip Gaines of HGTV fame. Can you explain where you see print going overall?

Print media continues to be relevant to all audiences, including Millennial women. Both our own internal and industry research indicate that Millennials are strong consumers of magazines.  We continue to test new magazine concepts regardless of where they originate, whether based on a television show or mobile app, or, as in the case of Allrecipes magazine, a food-focused social network.

What are some of the interesting emerging trends in Millennial women’s media habits (and general consumer habits) that you’re keeping an eye on?

As busy Millennial women continue to look for solutions and inspiration on connected devices, we are focusing on delivering content innovation in video, smart home technology, and mobile platforms such as messenger bots.