All the better to eat you with

I'm all for editorial integrity and protecting readers because lose them and we've killed the goose with the golden eggs. But, to switch fables, there's been a run on Little Red Riding Hood editors whining about protecting their virginal magazine integrity from the big bad advertising wolves. One editor with real conviction, even if possibly misguided and myopic, actually walked away from a losing battle with her publisher (does anybody really know what terribly whorish concession Kim Pittaway was asked to do before she decided her editorial chastity was preferable to her job at Chatelaine?).

The latest example of editorial's obsession with advertising encroachment is the November issue of Masthead with four separate references in the first five pages (including Bill Shields Editor's Note) plus another somewhat surprising mention in the Q&A with Rob Young of the media buying giant PHD Canada (not HYPN as reported on the cover).

The main Masthead piece on the subject of integrity was inked by (and he probably still composes in ink) Don Obe and it focuses on Maclean's running a Peter C. Newman series on the New-Canadian Establishment that was sponsored by Cadillac.

Don writes well but he's out of touch and I doubt he fully appreciates:

a. where the money comes from (hint: it's not the reader)?

and

b. why ad sales people earn so much more than editors (big hint: it's a difficult and sometimes humiliating job that few intelligent people will or can do)?

It was a very different world the last time Don actually edited a real magazine. Back then advertisers would politely call to book space at the rate card rate and ask for a right-hand page if at all possible. And there were maybe 50 magazines in the whole world. Now there are like 75 thousand in western Canada alone. This competition is making it tough for everybody and advertisers are well aware of our desperation to fill pages.

Perhaps we can keep the wolf at bay by:

a. having readers pay $50-100 for a subscription to a monthly (as if!)

b. giving up on print and move to an electronic-only model like salon.com

c. preventing the publication of new pissant magazines that feel entitled to a share of the advertising market. Make magazine publishing a closed business society like taxi cabs, street vendors and major league baseball – by license or regulated expansion only. That will prevent the next loser magazine like Zi from thinking publishing is fun and an easy way to make money while messing it up for the rest of us.

Until then, when an advertiser is willing to pony up for sponsored editorial like Cadillac did, ask yourself if the reader relationship is really being damaged. Ken Whyte did and came to the right conclusion. For years we have listened to the "brought to you by…" line on radio and television. Newspapers have ads on every editorial page including page one. So what is so precious that we are protecting in the magazine medium? Toronto Life and Canadian Geographic sell front cover sponsorships to their guides. Is the Toronto Life Restaurant Guide to be treated differently than the April Toronto Life restaurant issue? Why not cut them out of the magazine awards (oh, just noticed that three of ten NMAF board members are Toronto Life employees. How did that happen?)

P.S. According to Masthead contributor D. B. Scott (Nov 2005, page 6, column 3) – a P.S. always gets read so if you are here and didn't read the actual blog, please scroll up the page and try again. Otherwise, I think Stan Sutter (editor of Marketing magazine) got it right in his column in the November 28 issue – "Inching up to the line" which also makes reference to the Cadillac-Maclean's conspiracy. Read it here.

Anatomy 101

Anybody read that article in Marketing (November 28) – "Anatomy of the sales call"? It was written by Karl Moore, Ph.D. in the Faculty of Management, McGill University. And apparently Marketing will give anybody with a post-graduate degree a platform from which to preach to the ignorant. Mr. Ph.D. should get out of his ivory tower and spend a few days with me. The only thing he got right is that the vast majority of students have a negative view of sales-people. In fact they have lots of company. Starting with media buyers.

In case you missed it, Mr. Ph.D. presents "the essential steps of a typical professional sales call." In a nutshell he suggests:

1. Build rapport for several minutes, first by asking for a coffee or water in order to make room for chit-chat as a way to build the start of the relationship of trust and liking. When the customer has had enough of this and signals by clearing his throat or shuffling papers go to step 2.


2. Tell them why you are there and ask if that is of interest. If it isn't, find out why. Maybe it's a misunderstanding. But if it is because they are the wrong person, thank them for their time (and presumably the coffee) and head off to find the right person.

We'll have to wait another week to find out the thrilling conclusion.

Good grief man. You make it sound like we can just wander in to an office and ask for coffee and then bounce around until we make a sale. I certainly find it hard enough just getting the face time. When I do have a meeting, I damn well know that I'm seeing the right person before I get there. And while chit chat is always nice, I'd rather respect the promised 20 minutes for a meeting than have the prospect fetch me coffee and talk about "hockey or what have you" as you suggest. Face time is extremely valuable – I have sold few very ads to people that I never met. My goal is to get it and use it wisely. Good sales people are also in the education business and we want our students to be left with a memorable impression of our product and of us.

For a good laugh read Mr. Ph.D.'s full article by clicking here.

P.S. Most of his students seem to like him although he is seen as a scatter-brain. Here is a juicy sample:

"Mile wide, inch deep". I've never encountered someone who was as full of himself whilst at the same time as third rate as a professor at this school gets. He's a used-car salesman in disguise, folks.

To see what more of his students think of him click here.

There's No Party When Snow Party

I don't like going to business parties but once I'm there, I often find that I have a great time. Meet old friends and shmooze a bit with some media planners. And sometimes they are even good for business. The last one I went to was an awards show and I was given a great lead that turned into a valuable sale. So I optimistically bought a ticket to the 2006 Toronto Ad Club Holiday Party. If nothing else, I thought I'd have something fun to report for the blog. And to be sure that I didn't change my mind at the last minute, I even paid for an extra drink ticket when I booked my spot online. Big mistake tempting Murphy's Law like that. Sure enough, we get a snowstorm in Toronto and I'm uptown and the party is downtown and the roads are really bad. And I chicken out and miss the party. But since most reps are downtown, I suspect they found a way to the bar. So if anybody who was there wants to let me know what happened, post a comment. Then again, this blog has no audience and I wonder to myself -- who is it I'm writing to. And why?

Give at the Office

I get a lot of requests for charitable donations. Don't we all. But the phone calls pretty much stopped. Years ago, I requested that my name be removed from the phone lists. Maybe that helped. But just as likely is my stated policy to politely inform every telemarketer that I will never give by phone, no matter how much I want to. You see, I used to give every charity caller $20, no matter what. Word spread that I was an easy mark (didn't have to spread far seeing as all the calls came from the same telemarketing firm - I discovered this when the receipts arrived). "Call Reptile - he's always good for an easy $20". It was like feeding a cute little seagull only to be swarmed by the whole freaking flock a moment later.

What I now do is collect all the envelopes that come in and at the end of the year, allocate my charity budget to those causes I wish to support. A bit like media planning. Which brings me to my suggestion du jour...

All year long, media planners should be meeting with reps whose products they really don't know much about. This can be done at a specific time of the week -- say two appointments every Thursday morning. That's one hour a week set aside to learn something new. Ninety or so rep calls per year. After each meeting the planner can decide whether the kit goes into the maybe file or the garbage. When it comes time to plan a campaign, a quick review of all the keepers might result in a few interesting add-ons to the tried and true plan from last year. The one with all the usual suspects that is.

But here is the kicker -- to get back the 45-hour investment in meetings, the planner must have the rep must pledge to not call for a whole year (aside from any requested follow-up from the meeting or returning a call). That's right - no closing date reminders. No updates. No special issues. Nada. (Well maybe an email or two). Break the rule and your kit goes in the garbage. After one year, assuming the average rep calls ten times a year, the planner will have reduced his phone calls and voicemails by 900. Sounds like a fair trade.

Too Many Reps

The business of selling advertising has changed an awful lot since I began my career buying the stuff back in 1980's, when buyers liked hearing from our magazine reps. Of course they rarely called. And there weren't nearly so many of them. And the demands of the job were somewhat less onerous. And we wanted to get invited to lunch, golf tournaments, fishing trips and all sorts of parties (this was the real benefit of the job - not the $12,000 salary).

Well today, it's a bit sad and we can empathize with those dreaded telemarketers. We make phone calls that are screened with call display. We leave short messages that don't get returned. So we leave longer detailed messages that don't get listened to. When we do speak to a real person, they are polite but rarely will agree to meet with you, even if they don't really have an understanding of your magazine.

A former publisher met recently with a respected media director and this is what she heard:

The other day I had lunch with D and he said he didn't have enough time in the day to see all the magazine reps that want to see him, even though they don't spend that much in magazines to start with! He said there were millions of magazine reps and they all want to meet "all the time". I guess that would reflect the attitude of most media buyers..

Ouch!