Nina Link: 2004 AMC

October 25, 2004

Nina Link
President and CEO
Magazine Publishers of America

American Magazine Conference
Boca Raton, FL
October 25, 2004

Good morning.  Thanks Tom.

It’s so good to see everyone so bright and early. Fortunately, the hotel has withstood the force of the two hurricanes that hit this area.  It’s been a brutal season here…a season that could only bring joy to the anchors on The Weather Channel.

The magazine industry has weathered some storms as well since we last gathered in Palm Springs.  A prolonged ad slump.  Thorny circulation issues.  Stubborn postal reform.  But guess what?  We’re a resilient bunch.  And now is the time to move past just surviving.  Now is the time to start thriving.

All of you are invited to join the Magazine Marketing Coalition’s three-year campaign to promote the power and effectiveness of magazines.  Our gloves are off.  Together, we’ll be an unstoppable army. The goal:  to capture our rightful share of the media pie.  

We have led other industries in showing that our medium engages consumers.  The Northwestern reader research proves that magazines connect with readers.  The research also shows that readers enjoy the ads as well as the editorial.  What other medium can say that?  In an age of interruption, when consumers are rejecting commercial messages with the click of a mouse or the push of a button, magazines are a medium of engagement.  When magazine readers come across a great ad, they may actually tear it out.  When another pop-up ad hijacks their web experience, they want to tear their hair out. 

Magazines also place a premium on accountability.  We’ve commissioned unparalleled accountability research studies over the past five years.  We will announce shortly the results of three more studies in the areas of financial services, OTC and personal care.  Time and again, research shows that when advertisers increase the percent of magazines in the media mix, ROI increases. 

We’ve been relentless in evangelizing our messages about engagement and accountability.  This year alone, MPA has made almost 100 presentations in front of 3,000 professionals.  Twenty-two-thousand PDFs about research that we’ve commissioned have been downloaded from our website.  I bet a lot of songs on I-Tunes don’t get those numbers. The information we’ve disseminated has become part of the intellectual DNA of the advertising industry.  It’s helping to change perceptions and shape positive attitudes about magazines. 

Keep in mind …. if we increase our market share just one percent, more than one billion dollars will fall into our bucket.

Another major focus for us in the coming year will be postal concerns. Although election year politics appear to have blunted our efforts for postal reform in 2004, we’ve gone further in this area than ever before.  Of course, we’re disappointed.  But we’re not done.  We will push for postal reform next year, including reduction of the Postal Service’s expensive Civil Service Retirement System obligations.  While our work on reform continues, we will ask Congress to at least grant another temporary delay in the Postal Service’s responsibility to set aside excess pension payments – a $3-billion-a-year burden that will make the next postal rate increase even more painful.

Whatever the outcome of our legislative efforts, a jump in rates by spring of 2006 is a virtual certainty. We have to prepare for it.  By 2006, it will have been four years since our last postal increase.  The Postal Service is probably going to be asking for its largest increase in at least a decade.  Our goal, quite simply, is to get the 2006 increase reduced to the lowest level possible.  I’m not going to kid you.  This will be a tough, uphill fight. We’ll pursue our goal aggressively -- through litigation, legislation, and with every means at our disposal.

Postmaster General Jack Potter will be speaking tomorrow afternoon and we’ll all be eager to hear what he has to say. 

Looking ahead to 2005, we will continue to address retail and subscription issues.  This year, we shifted our focus from the supply chain problems to retail growth.  It’s a huge opportunity for us.  We are spotlighting the strengths of magazines in the retail environment by emphasizing…

- How they bring excitement and differentiation
- How they increase sales.
- How they lift traffic. 

Magazine CEOs are meeting with top retail executives to promote the value of magazines and change their way of thinking about this important retail category.    They need to know that a product made with ink and paper, can be a bread and butter category. 

MPA has established several groups to move this initiative forward including subcommittees on display innovation, waste reduction and sales benchmarks that compare magazines against other retail categories. 

On the subscription front, we will continue to issue best practice white papers so that you and your consumer marketing departments fully understand the issues when it comes to techniques like advance consent marketing and free trial promotions.  The challenge of acquiring subscribers is enormous.  It’s a lifeblood for us.  But even if just a few publishers are not aware of best practices, the reputation of the entire industry could suffer.  And I don’t need to remind you that the industry’s reputation is one of its greatest assets. 

That reputation comes in part from being one of the world’s premier content providers.  We have great brands that have stood the test of time.  And we have new brands that excite consumers and revitalize our industry.  Our magazines have never been better…and they’ve never been needed more…especially in a world that cries out for thoughtful reporting, analysis and context. 

Our mission is to protect our brands and grow our industry.  To accomplish these goals…MPA NEEDS YOU.  All of you.  No magazine left behind.

I’m Nina Link and I approve this message.