MPA Speeches - Nina Link, AMC 2007

October 29, 2007

Nina Link
President and Chief Executive Officer
Magazine Publishers of America

President’s Outlook
American Magazine Conference
October 29, 2007
Boca Raton, FL

It is AMC tradition to recognize the outgoing MPA chairman before handing the baton to our new leader, John Griffin.  This year, we continue that tradition by honoring Jack Kliger. 

As anyone who’s worked with Jack knows, he’s a world-class leader – smart, visionary and courageous. Jack is generous of spirit and has a great sense of humor. We’ll hear a lot more about Jack’s accomplishments at the Lifetime Achievement Awards lunch Jan. 30. 

But here’s one thing that can’t wait three months to be said.  He’s been a driving force in pulling this industry together.  We should call him The Great Unifier.  Jack has helped to promote the power of magazines and fight for our rightful seat at the media table.  His rallying cry has reverberated throughout the magazine industry.

Jack, in your honor, MPA has made a donation to the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Thanks to Jack and the group of magazine leaders he’s worked with, we are in sync about the strengths of magazines.  And frankly, our unity couldn’t come at a better time.

In a world where media is now divided into "traditional" or "new," magazines are being positioned as "traditional media" in a way that makes it sound like we’ve got one foot in the past and another in the grave.

That perception is DEAD wrong and we must challenge it. Our tradition is one of our greatest strengths.  A tradition of edited content and of journalistic and design excellence.  A tradition of community building and connection.  A tradition of reader engagement with advertising because it is a vital part of the magazine experience.

There’s not a media mogul on this planet that wouldn’t kill to have these traditions.

This past year MPA and its members have been involved in a number of initiatives to promote and protect our traditions.  Here are just a few.

Starting with Government Affairs.

The passage of comprehensive Postal Reform legislation last December capped over a decade of work and was a stunning achievement with enormous bottom line implications.  Magazine publishers will save billions of dollars in postal costs and enjoy predictability in postal expenses. 

MPA has been a leader in the effort to protect the First Amendment—both in content and in advertising.  We worked to pass federal legislation protecting reporters’ confidential sources.  The House passage of this legislation earlier this month was an historic achievement—the first time a house of Congress passed a bill to create federal reporter’s privilege. 

It’s important to note that we’ve led efforts to protect direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising from unconstitutional restrictions proposed in Congress.  Through the work of MPA and others, DTC advertising was protected in legislation passed this fall.  This victory helped preserve the largest single sub-category of magazine advertising.

Finally, MPA Government Affairs has helped protect your content by taking a leading role in the Copyright Alliance, a coalition of content providers dedicated to promoting strong copyright protection. 

On the advertising front, the Magazine Marketing Coalition worked hard in successfully promoting the strengths of magazines as an advertising vehicle.  Since the Coalition was launched in the beginning of 2005, share of magazine advertising is up nearly 2%.  That’s right, I said 2%. And so far this year we are up 1% over 2006.

That’s what we call moving the needle. 

And we’re not stopping.  I’m pleased to announce that MPA will be extending the Magazine Marketing Coalition another three years. We’re committed to continuing to make the best case ever for magazines. 

For instance, as part of our efforts to increase magazines’ accountability to results, MPA just released a new creative diagnostic tool that allows advertisers to assess consumer engagement with magazine advertising creative. 

We also published a new guide to media accountability, which was distributed to hundreds of your best customers at the recent ANA conference. You’ll hear more about this later this morning. 

And we are committed to strengthening magazine measurement beyond circulation.   McKinsey has been hired to facilitate the process of examining measurement options, working with MPA and the advertising community.  And there’s good news on this front:  magazine measurement is already evolving.  We’ll cover those developments tomorrow.

Engaging in greener business practices has been on MPA’s radar screen for over a decade.  This past year, we introduced the Please Recycle Campaign featuring logos and PSAs reminding magazine readers to recycle.  So far, more than a hundred magazines are carrying this message in their pages. I hope you will too.

We also launched many other new projects and programs on the digital front.

Last May, we took the revolutionary step of turning the 25-year-old Kelly Awards into a dynamic online experience.  If you recall, it was formerly held as a lunch or dinner.  The micro-site we created featured video and a virtual guide through the gallery of creative work.  The entire effort reflected the flair and creativity of great magazine advertising.  It also signaled the increased attention our industry is paying to digital platforms.

Speaking of digital activity, MPA’s database of magazine digital brand extensions continues to explode. In the first three quarters of the year, member companies have announced the launch of 170 digital initiatives—double what we found during the same period last year. The initiatives include an interactive dating show on the Web and other original video programming, mobile websites and tools, a number of digital company acquisitions, social networking capabilities, online buying guides and retailing, wiki applications, and so much more. It clearly demonstrates the thunder of our digital footprint.

If you’ve attended our three "Magazines 24/7" digital conferences, you know how well our brands play in the digital space. At last February’s conference, we featured MPA’s first-ever Digital Awards, which will now be an annual awards ceremony.  Please mark you calendars for February 27 in New York for our next conference and digital awards.

These are just some of the ways we’re working to keep the industry strong and moving forward.  Some are traditional.  Some are not. It really doesn’t matter.  What’s important is that no matter how our readers get their information, they trust and believe in our brands above all else.  At the end of the day, that is our most enduring tradition.