Lessons Learned

For the last few months I have been conducting regional meetings across the country.  I have met with members in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boulder, Minneapolis, and Chicago. Nina Link held sessions in Dallas and Boston. Some observations:

• The economy. Early in this outreach I asked the twenty assembled publishers in San Francisco, what was the business climate like compared to a year ago? One comment that stayed with me: “We no longer feel terrified.”  This seemed honest and instructive. I don’t know any publisher who did not experience a dark night of the soul the last 18 months. But the mood is much different now. In Chicago a couple of days ago I  sensed a collective sigh of relief. Advertising is picking up. Here as in other cities I’ve visited, what once might have been a challenge now is business-as-usual. Digital is part of the schema. Ad Networks are not much of a factor but the lack of online inventory is. Cross-platform selling is the norm rather than the exception.  I have been moved by the resiliency in our “long tail” of magazine publishing.

• iPad.  Everywhere I went, iPads were on display. There’s no lack of experimentation with this screen. As with other technologies, publishers outside of New York have often chosen to wait until breakthrough devices and technologies are better understood. That is only half the story. A number of publishers I visited had purchased quantities of iPads for their employees to play with.  That process continues.  Few I spoke to saw an immediate business application for this tablet (in the strictest ROI sense), underscoring the fact they see no particular reason to be first movers. Looked at another way, this device and storefront is considered just another channel and will be embraced when it makes business sense.

• Tech Companies. There is no lack of technology companies beating a path to the doors of publishers, whether in Boulder or Chicago or Boston. Not surprisingly, few mid-size publishers have time to vet them all. Moreover, with the current app frenzy, a number of companies are offering one-off solutions to publishers and this can be over time an expensive undertaking--and confusing.  As I mentioned at these regional meetings, MPA keeps a close eye on technology companies and regularly takes this kind of question. We don’t endorse anyone, of course, but we have opinions.

• Content.  For some time now we’ve been hearing executives from a cross-section of media companies talk about generating more revenue from the content side of the business. This is a profoundly important strategic shift and emphasis. In the IMAG community this focus on monetizing content has been a business imperative for some time. Everyone has been hurt in the downturn but these publishers report that their content and subscription businesses have remained reasonably sound.  IMAG publishers eagerly talk about slicing-and-dicing, mashing-up, and delivering article-level content as if they are just another line on the budget—which they are. From this perspective a smart-phone strategy might be more important than the tablet.

• Online. We hear so much these days about “losing the browser experience.”  Well, in talking to the publishers in question, not all of them are giving up on online activities just yet. Perhaps it took all of us a decade to fully understand the shadow side of the Internet; that is, it’s a margin killing business. If there is one large ray of hope for publishers of late, it is their ability to sell subscriptions to print magazines via their branded web sites. This is good news indeed.  I was really quite surprised to learn, especially during my stop in Boulder, about how sophisticated publishers are becoming in online audience development, email marketing practices and the development of strategies that will make them less dependent on the US Post Office.  Bob Kaslik, audience development executive at Aspire, provided a fascinating “tutorial” on the subject within full view of the mountains. Attendees were so interested they let the beer get warm.

My thanks to all the members and organizers in the host cities who made us welcome.

Chuck McCullagh