• by Sara Guaglione , August 10, 2018

Recent reports of print advertising spend dipping in the first half of 2018 have come from organizations like MediaRadar and MP A.

But MNI Targeted Media, the performance-marketing agency now part of Meredith Corp., says it has not experienced this trend.

Instead, MNI, which sells media planning-buying services and digital solutions, claims revenue from its print campaigns has grown 30% year-over-year, General Manager Mark Glatzhofer told Publishers Daily.

Glatzhofer believes the trend reported by MediaRadar may have something to do with MNI’s recent growth: “Less media dollars… means advertisers want to be more effective with their buy. MNI helps [clients] find their targeted audience,” he said.

MNI works with seven publishing companies and 40 different magazine titles, from O, The Oprah Magazine to People. (Some 25% of advertisers that work with MNI on print campaigns also buy integrated campaigns.)

Glatzhofer’s develops relationships with those publishers “to drive incremental revenue for them and MNI Targeted Media.”

MNI sells three main ads: regional inserts in national publications, cover wraps and digital advertising. For example, if a travel client is interested in advertising only in port cities, for example, MNI can help them advertise in markets where cruise ships dock. Or a banking client can test a new deal in a particular market, but via national magazines. 

MNI’s print advertising only goes to magazine subscribers, not on newsstands.

“Agencies are figuring out where they want to spend their money and how they can do it efficiently,” Glatzhofer said.

CPG (consumer packaged goods), retail, banks and finance, travel and utilities are categories that have done particularly well using MNI’s services this year, he noted.

Out of the 40 magazines MNI works with, around 13 of them sell “lifestyle packages,” Glatzhofer said. Women-focused magazines have seen the most growth this year, too.

MNI could not immediately confirm the number of print campaigns it has completed this year, for a year-over-year comparison.

MNI operates as an independent company under Meredith and calls itself “magazine agnostic” — meaning it advertises across publishers, from Hearst to Bloomberg. The parent company “does not have direct impact on our business,” Glatzhofer said, but the hope is to add titles, in and outside Meredith.