Niche magazine titles challenged by agencies: Prove your worth
Durrant
Specialist and B2B publications need to start demonstrating that advertising with them works, a panel of media buyers has told the industry.
Speaking at an event for media sales professionals in Sydney organised by Publishers Australia, MindShare’s chief of knowledge Nick Durrant said: “Find a way of proving that you will deliver the results. There is no room on a client’s budget plan anymore for luxuries. I want to know how many Land Rovers (for example) it’s going to sell me. So what you have to do is show me the idea and then show me how that’s going to work, and if you cannot show me how that’s going to work then you are going to lose, every time. Because everyone else is showing me what this is going to deliver back.”
Durrant added: “The clever ideas within my schedule will be the things that stay on their longest. And the things that come off quickest are the things that aren’t delivering numbers, or the things that cannot prove they are as effective as other measures.”
Durrant recommended running pre and post campaign surveys to ask readers how likely they would be to buy the product before and after it was advertised in the publication.
Bass
Michael Bass, trading director at Initiative, said that niche titles simply trying to sell ads in the print product no longer cut it. He said: “You can sell your $5000 page its just going to be a harder thing to do in niche titles.”
“So if you have got a package or some kind of integrated solution and you can build a story around it, that’s actually quite a compelling proposition. It’s really the thought process that goes behind it.”
Integrated approaches that work across all media platforms are easiest to sell, Bass said.
Durrant also called for sales people to make sure that when they got time in front of a media agency they made the most of it – taloring presentations to the potential advertiser, rather than simply focusing on their own audience.
He said: “You can talk to us about how awesome your audience is until you’re blue in the face but if it has no relevance to the brief I’m working on it becomes a wasted conversation. Tell me why the audience you have got is awesome for the brief that I have got in front of me.
“We want to take good ideas forward to clients but to do that you need to understand what the brief is and what we are trying to achieve.
However, niche titles do have benefits that differentiate them from mass reach titles, said Clare Tsubono, Client Services Director at Maxus. She said: “Niche titles are in a really unique position, having an audience that are a lot more engaged,” Tsubono said.
“Use that, show us that, prove that to us, because it’s all about engagement and activation and if you are able to do that with a reader that pays money and looks forward to getting your magazine and reads it, that is a very unique and powerful position and I think that’s something that you need to start thinking of, rather than page rates and spots and dots.”
Nick Durrant, Michael Bass, Clare Tsubono and Camille Alarcon
media is seriously losing its sh*t … pre and post surveys in magazines? C’mon. Please tell me these comments are out of context. Please.
It’s also odd and naive to assume an ad in a magazine will “sell Land Rovers” … or any individual piece of media will “sell” a vehicle.
I seriously worry for the future of media when we hear comments like this – who on earth would want to wake up every day and cop this sort of advice and feedback. I pity the poor 28 year old magazine rep being asked to single handedly sell x amount of new Land Rovers whilst also proactively address briefs the media agency won’t show them, take them to lunch, offer large buying discounts, give their DSP free inventory and also hit their own targets..
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You’re saying ‘Effluent And Sewage Monthly’ is ineffective? Shit, in fact?
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Question to Nick Durrant – so how do you know how many more Landrovers are sold by advertising on (insert any tv show name here)?
What a rubbish statement. Print & Mags are just another form of “push” mass media.
No traditional mass media format is directly measurable to sales increases.. never has been, never will. Because you cant survey the entire population on a weekly basis. And this is before you factor in everything else that preoccupies a buyer’s mind before they buy say a car – the price, the dealership location, the reputation of the vehicle, the social cachet of owning the brand, etc etc.
To think your media buy spreadsheet directly influences the sales of the client you work for is staggeringly simplistic for the position you hold.
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@shamma. ‘Like’
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My first thought was I hope those comments were taken out of context. I’m not sure niche titles would ever consider themselves a “luxury”. They help businesses connect with an engaged audience. Pre and post campaign surveys, yep, they’ll work…………..
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Couldn’t have said it better myself Shamma. Also make sure those “clever ideas” fit easily into a few lines of an excel spreadsheet and only require a DoubleClick tag to assess its overall effectiveness.
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If your ‘Agency’ Ad doesn’t work in a niche magazine, maybe you should be looking at your production and not doubt the publication.
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I used to work for a niche publisher. They were even called Niche! The problem with niche publishers is that while the non-niche titles had to evolve, for some time, the niche titles were still making money because they serviced a passionate audience. This audience has single handedly destroyed the niche titles by giving the publishers the false impression that everything was okay. Well it isn’t, and now even the passionate audience are leaving in droves and there is no hope in hell that niche publishers will be able to catch up…then again, who really cares? It is what it is.
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I might be focusing too much on a single quote here, but to simply bundle print media into some sort of ‘integrated solution’ is only ever going to work when and where said integration is meaningful. It’s not that I disagree with this point, quite the opposite, but for every 1 interesting proposal I’ve seen that features an integrated approach, there are 100 that simply use online or mobile as a bolt on, typically directing to some sort of online competition or repurposing print assets into digital spaces. It’s lazy and from my experience at least, rarely works.
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well said Shamma …hmmm no place anymore on a plan for “luxuries” yet for luxury brands this is exactly what those clients are selling- a dream, an aspiration. Quality magazines deliver that time and time again, taking readers on a journey telling them a story with great imagery. What it delivers is a connection, a bond- a relationship and key part of the sale process
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These people need to get off their pedestals and come down to earth. I have rarely met an agency person who truly understands B2B. Most trade titles seem insignificant to them as they don’t represent a very high value (commission) for them. All media can only offer and guarantee an audience, it’s the agency’s job to come up with enticing creative to sell the products.
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Shamma is on the money.
If I was asked to guarantee sales from my niche magazine, I’d want a say in the ads themselves and the overall schedule.
And surely even the most moronic media flunky realises a title can only reasonably be accountable for leads, not conversion?
This article smacks of media laziness at best.
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Spot on Shamma. Dealing with agents is tough enough without absolute drivel like this being suggested.
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Hopefully this has been taken out of context. What about the fragmenting media getting the right media mix that we all hear about.
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@Shamma – Well said!
I would hate to have my brand in the hands of Nick. Would be very interested if Nick could tell us if he has ever placed a magazine ad or a TVC for that matter and the media have told him how many Land Rovers they will sell from this. If you think someone is going to spend $100k on a car by seeing an ad in a magazine….. dont use them they wont. But if it is part of overall campaign to increase awareness, branding etc then eventually they might but probably after seeing the ad in a range of media placements. Looks like online DR is the only way forward Nick.
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Would there be any point advertising Land Rover’s in a magazine called: ‘Land Rover Magazine’? RE: the audience would evidently know everything about Land Rovers already, probably already own a Land Rover (might own several), so why bother advertising to this highly targeted audience? It would be like advertising Foie gras to a chef – whats the point?
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@Shamma’s point couldn’t be more wrong.
It’s entirely reasonable for a prospective media buyer to expect that their marketing expenditure results in an increase in the purchase of their products.
Isn’t that exactly the point of buying ads?
This kind of entitled thinking is why the media industry is rapidly disappearing up its own butt.
The only thing more terrifying than Shamma’s original post is the army of media lemmings leaping to agree with him/her.
I sympathise with the difficulties of running a profitable media company in 2013. The client/advertiser has more tools, more options and more power than ever before.
I’m facing the same battle, but if you are taking money from advertisers in order for them to sell more products and you can’t show them that you are in fact doing what they paid you for then you are for a rough ride.
You can bleat about it in a comments section all you like but media outlets that do this well will prosper and those that don’t will continue their inexorable slide into oblivion.
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So Nick, I am sure then you can tell us how many Canon Cameras you sold with the placement of the Canon ads in Better Photography magazine? Or how about the billboard on Parramatta Rd at Petersham – how many Canon 5DMark III’s did that sell? Or how about the bus I saw going down George St with Canon on the side…….. or then again the ad on CNET.com how many sales directly did that ad get? All pushing the Canon “No one sees it like you” line……I’m sure there is NO waste or branding in that campaign just a complete ROI strategy. Wow genius. Maybe your client Canon are correct Nick – “No one sees it like you”!
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People thinking of spending $100,000+ on a car totally love filling in questionnaires asking about brand awareness.
That’s how they got rich in the first place!
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B2B are better off going direct and avoiding media buying houses that like to hang their hats on glamour titles, and let’s not forget that $5K won’t buy you a qtr page in mainstream media! Cheapest and targeted cpm around
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I’m so bored with media buyers wanting to integrate 15 channels or demanding metrics up the wazoo before they’ll entertain a new thought.
Effective communication is about connecting an idea, with a person. That is it. A compelling idea + great creative + effective placement. It ain’t rocket surgery.
Buyers get their knickers twisted negotiating all this extra ‘stuff’ that has no genuine value to advertisers and their objectives, and get hung up on data that represents a mostly indifferent audience volume but not meaningful stuff like engagement and involvement.
Also terminally bored with media buyers who want media sales people to do all the thinking for them. Used to be strategists had original ideas and the intellectual property was kept in house and not farmed out to media owners in hastily written, incomplete briefs.
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I was in the audience yesterday for this panel. There were some great points raised by the ‘buyers’ including issues surrounding the ever increasing amount of media options now available to them, proving magazine’s relevance through unique audience insights and demonstrating some form of measureable value. Sounds reasonable to me.
Questions from the audience of ‘niche sellers’ ranged from agency buyers not returning emails or phone calls (extremely common) – to an agencies reaction when going direct. BTW – the answer was “fine to go direct to client just don’t talk money – that’s the agencies role”.
There were certainly some comments by the buyers which were contrary to the real ‘coal face’ experiences I hear through regular contact with sellers particularly regarding the lack of information often available regarding the campaign, creative not matching objectives, time to effectively respond to briefs, post proposal or campaign feedback etc.
While insights into how agencies work and the pressures they are under are always appreciated and can be taken on board by niche media owners when developing their forward sales strategies, this again shows the ongoing and entrenched challenges facing stakeholders involved in the media trading process.
Many of the points raised during this panel also came out in the recent media industry survey undertaken by TrinityP3 and MediaScope. (Results will be presented at Mumbrella360 next month).
Anyway – according to some opinion pieces appearing in the trades today, soon enough all media is going to be traded programmatically. Maybe this is the only way to solve many of these challenges?
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@ A Sham
“It’s entirely reasonable for a prospective media buyer to expect that their marketing expenditure results in an increase in the purchase of their products.”
I agree with you to a point … but the idea of understanding sales from a single point on a media plan is naive to the extreme. Media alone does not solely influence sales, there are so many other factors. For a media agency person to imply it does show how far gone the media agency world is.
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Still with Shamma.
The number one question is “what are you trying to achieve?” Most seem to be replying in a print-DR mindset. Which is very 1990s.
“Sell x more widgets” is the moron answer. Or a very distant one at best.
You’re getting them into, or adjusting their position in, the customers consideration set. Hopefully through a wider plan than solely a print ad. Failing to see that will be the death of lesser media agencies.
The media mob should be recognising the array of media available and lining them appropriately for the job they can do, to meet your customers interest points on the sales journey.
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Surely all a niche title (or any media) needs to prove is that it will deliver the opportunity to have a meaningful conversation with someone who is interested in your proposition, which could lead to more? Mr Durrant seems to want a guaranteed shag straight after the first date, with no need for that tiresome “getting to know you” stage. I suspect what he actually wanted to say at this event was “Find a way to stop bothering me. I don’t care”.
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My agency has sold a $250,000 car with more than $100K in profit in the car off an EDM that cost $5K (on the day the EDM was sent!)
So it is possible, but to be honest that doesn’t happen every day.
I reckon niche publications are very effective.
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The title of this article could equally be: Agencies challenged by niche magazine titles: Prove your worth. The content, the platform, the engaged readers all provided by the title; and now it’s regular that the niche magazine is required to provide the ideas and the creative for the agency’s ‘client’. Err, it’s pretty clear who’s losing relevance in this model.
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Used to be you needed a long spoon to sup with the devil. Now we’re spoon-feeding them.
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@Blake
There are definitely two sides to the story.
Niche titles that claim to have engaged users, however their readership figures are inflated. (Some magazines might be paraded as ‘paid for’ by a targeted decision maker and thus made to appear valuable, when they are really free sub’s in the hope that the decision maker will read the mag.) Thus, there is no proof of engagement.
Agencies knocking on the door saying that they need a price for a full page ad, the day before they are proposing their placements to the client, is equally shoddy (without asking any questions about engagement, proof of roi etc).
Both of these occurrences, I am sure, many folk are familiar with. There are opposites to both examples above too though.
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That panel of Agency representatives fully confirmed the reasons why an advertising rep would rather go direct! The female rep mentioned that she saw the value in print media but because she was to far up the corporate ladder no longer had control over what her younger buyers selected as media choices – she said they believe in digital over print……. OMG – surely as the manager of the team you are responsible for training your junior staff to take a holistic approach as apposed to just selecting the media that they are comfortable with!
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The topic of ‘niche titles vs the majors’ is always guaranteed to spark plenty of comments from both sides of the fence. So firstly, kudos to Mumbrella for creating some good link bait (I actually came across this article again on the Publisher’s Australia newsletter, which proves just how bait-worthy it was).
I believe the unfortunate situation for niche publishers, is the expectation that they need to provide immense amounts of data in order to compete with the majors.
Niche publishers are generally small operations. Some are so small, that the guy that writes the articles might also sell the advertising in his spare time and his girlfriend might edit the photos and typeset the articles before they are published. Do you really think it’s fair to ask these time-poor people to compromise the content they pain-stakingly sweat over at 2am, by adding even more to their workload and asking them to conjure up consumer insights which are generally only available through expensive systems/procedures they can’t afford the time or money to implement? All of this just to appease a media planner, so that their publisher comparison spreadsheet doesn’t contain any blank cells? I ask this in all seriousness, as perhaps the current business model for niche publishers needs to change in order for them to stay viable if this is now a necessity in order to secure non-endemic advertisers?
My personal view, is that analysis paralysis is running rife in media planning, to the detriment of niche publishers. The publishers are obviously good at one thing and that is connecting with their niche audience – why not just let them continue to do that? If they don’t connect, they won’t exist for much longer, which will cause much bigger issues for advertising.
Forget the detailed analytics – and instead remember the basic economic pricing model of supply and demand. Strong (media) brands that are relevant to a specific lifestyle are rare and therefore attract premium rates, I think we all just need to accept that. The people who buy Land Rovers do.
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As someone who battles with agencies every day to pick up the phone, answer an email or (god forbid) give me 5 minutes of face-time, I am continually frustrated with the general lack of opportunity given to niche titles.
I have worked on trusted brands too, and in my many (many) years of media sales I would MUCH rather work on a niche title that UNDERSTANDS their audience intimately, delivers a relevant product and builds opportunities for clients with a much better bang for their buck, generally a lower CPM and low duplication.
AGENCIES – don’t be lazy, don’t book the same-old same-old, give niche titles a chance…
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Excellent day1 at Mumbrella360, but NOT ONCE did a client demand of a media agency, or a media agency of a media seller, that an ad demonstrate a direct sales response. And yet the panel at the Publishers Australia event insist niche mags should do so?!
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