Better Homes & Gardens offers media buyers biggest bargain while FHM is priciest, data analysis suggests
One of the most cost effective mainstream magazine media buys comes from Pacific Magazines’ Better Homes & Gardens, an analysis which combines ratecard prices with the latest audited circulations suggests.
The work was carried out by open data advocate Craig Thomler inspired by last week’s Mumbrella comment thread on the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations numbers.
Thomler created a spreadsheet linking rate card prices to ciculation to generate an estimated CPM for each title.
It should be noted that the process does allow for the fact that the quoted ad sizes are not necessarily the same size. And not all titles’ ratecards were readily available.
According to Thomler’s calculations, the cost per thousand of advertising in Better Homes and Gardens is just $23.68 for a quarter page.
This contrasts with ACP’s FHM which has a CPM for a quarter page of $121.03.
Full page prices contrast between a relatively bargain $24.50 in NewsLifeMedia’s Vogue to $193.88 for ACP’s Harpers Bazaar, according to Thomler’s data. (Edit: see comments below for potential error in calculation on Vogue)
In smaller titles, the biggest bargain to be had appears to be for niche title Earth Garden with a CPM for an eighth page mono of just $1.26.
At the opposite end of the scale, the most expensive titles all come from Yaffa Publishing with its digital titles Dance Australia, Capture and Digital Photography & Design all returning a CPM of over $350 per quarter page.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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The spreadsheet casual FPC rate for Vogue is $1,250 – the website lists it at $12,500. The presents you with a CPM of $245.04 not $24.50.
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This is on the assumption that anyone is actually paying rate card….
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Tim, this is an example where getting some feedback from an industry specialist would be to your benefit.
There’s not one media person I know who would do CPM analysis based on circulation, across categories and genres, not to mention multiple ad formats, and take it seriously.
To suggest that BH&G is ‘cheap’ vs a title like Capture makes no sense if your target audience are high end camera enthusiasts. Likewise, if my target audience are lads about town, BH&G quickly becomes expensive versus a title like FHM.
Its like saying buying spots in “Deal or no deal” on TV is ‘cheap’ against All People, so I’ll buy those to target young urban adults for my new energy drink.
Makes no sense.
This is Media 101 stuff.
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Hi Ricki,
This piece of work is of course relatively crude. Any agency that based its decisions on it should of course probably be fired.
But I did think it was interesting enough to be worth writing about.Certainly I hadn’t seen a data comparison presented like this before.
I wouldn’t make a direct comparison between the likes of Capture and a mainstream title.
However, it would seem odd not to mention at all which title has the most expensive CPM of all of those analysed – even if it is a highly specialised audience.
Cheers,
Tim
Craig Thomler, a noted magazine and media expert if there ever was one.
Next he will analyse stock prices based off a uniform P/E regardless of industry.
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I love it how people automatically assume “Tim” wrote this story.
Among other things, this exercise kind of proves how pointless it is to compare media CPMs (as many agencies do in their planning models) – cut your print ad size by three quarters and cut your CPM by three quarters! to say nothing for colour loading, positional loading, etc etc. likewise for TV and radio.
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I mean…1/3 pages vs half pages vs strips vs full pages = a comparable CPM?
Er…no it doesnt. It really doesn’t.
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You might want to check some of those numbers
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Hi Ricki,
In the story above, we compare quarter pages to quarter pages and full pages to full pages.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
You might be right about the article Tim but Craig’s spreadsheet doesn’t and is misleading. As per my earlier comment, there’s no value in comparing a circ based CPM from the homemaker category with one from a specialist targeted category.
Its not how we do it. Sorry, but it’s pseudo-analysis.
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Further… There are many variables that can contribute to an acceptable rate for a piece of magazine real estate that a circ based CPM does not reveal. Value of target audience to a brand, cost to publish/produce, value of newsstand vs subscriptions, paid sales ratio to ad revenue, readership profiles, competition, supply and demand, added value, the way the wind blows etc.
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Hi Ricki,
I agree with every word. (But I still find Craig’s spreadsheet interesting too.)
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Craig’s work does show proportional rates, which is handy. A lot of work went into it and whilst one would not use it as gospel, any information like this is good.
Please note one title “Caravan World” has data, but their name is left blank.
Cheers
Kevin
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What is this thing called “Rate Card”? I think i saw a sasquatch reading one in area 51 last year.
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This just proves something that was explained to me when I first started in media. Generally speaking statistics prove that every human in Australia has approximately one nut.
Interesting but why isn’t everything being presented like for like? FP v FP, HP v HP etc… This would give a better indication. Saying that don’t we build strategies based on a target audience? Correct me if I’m wrong but circulation cannot deliver this information.
As mention this is interesting however I think Craig Thomler should find a new hobby. I hear scrapbooking is still big and I’m sure BHG covers this in the latest edition.
This is another example of someone trying to prove to the industry that they are really, realy smart! Fail!
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Hmmm, frankly a CPM analysis is the starting point any planner will use when planning a magazine campaign – generally speaking. Obviously there may other factors to take into consideration but a CPM table is always a good starting point.
On this basis someone producing a CPM table is hardly groundbreaking – most of us media folk have been doing em since we were assistants!
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Rick – totally agree with all your comments, completely irrelevant data.
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How about a cpm analysis on set demos based on estimated average yields or trading position at time of analysis, now there’s an idea for Craig!
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Ricki your logic is twisted. I dont think anyone is suggesting that you can ignore a title’s relevance to the target audience just because of the CPM number
What it’s producing is a baseline for comparison of titles within a vertical. Planners and clients can then make their own qualitative assessments to overlay on this
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I agree with the claim of crude by Mumbrella and totally support Ricki’s comment that it is 101 stuff.
I pulled it together in a few hours with the goal of answering one question – how does the CPM of print magazines compare to online CPM in a general sense, based on the lowest published page rates (given many magazines use different sized ad measures – as do many web sites)
For all the nay sayers, think of this as an example of what can be done with a little effort to understand what is happening under the numbers.
I challenge people to use their specialized expertise to do better. Complaining and kibitzing is easy, prove you can do better 🙂
Perhaps the ad industry needs to borrow from the mash-up camp/competition model used in government and create some collective value for clients. Surely you’d not want to have to admit that the ad industry is less numerically literate or creative than large bureaucracies!
And to those making personal attacks, I draw your attention to the argument pyramid. Don’t know it? Try Google 🙂
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