AD SALES : Increase Your Share of Inserts and Other Special Orders

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct, 2001

Inserts can entice advertisers into splurging even in this ad climate. And while these units can cause production quirks, publishers who don't pursue this business stand to loose more than a few premium-priced ad pages. By David Hessekiel

Put a pop-up cup of coffee, a scratch-and-sniff version of a car's leather upholstery, or a chip that plays Jingle Bells inside a magazine, and you'll get my attention as a marketer and as a consumer. In a world where media messages surround and bombard us, ad inserts still have a way of surprising and entertaining.

Take for instance, a food sample in found in several magazines this spring. To introduce its new Cold Brew Iced Tea, Lipton inserted foil-wrapped tea bags in five magazines: a saddle-stitch unit for People and Entertainment Weekly; a perfect-bound version for Fitness; and a pair of outserts that were polybagged with Cosmopolitan and Shape.

Although I've seen hundreds of scent strips and cosmetic samples in magazines over the years, and even a few free Hallmark cards, a food product was new. Here was an ad that did indeed break through the clutter. Imagining a potential new windfall for the magazine industry, I called Lipton's agency, J. Walter Thompson in New York.

But account director Heidi Boncher didn't exactly share my enthusiasm. Taking this campaign from request-for-proposal to reality took five months of aggravating work, she said. "Believe it or not, the main obstacle was the publications. You'd think they'd bend over backwards."

The $3 million project might have been shelved if it hadn't been for Lipton's determination to make it happen, she explained. Hearing that magazines had not been easy to deal with wasn't really unexpected. When I worked as a magazine sales person trying to get price quotes for special units, objections were the norm. Complex requests were often greeted with a groan by the people who had to do all the legwork. "Why bother?" was the attitude, because so few such inquiries ever turned into insertion orders. Thinly staffed production departments usually needed more time than an advertiser's deadline allowed. Production often had detailed questions about the insert's design but the ad agency rarely had quick answers. Bindery issues, postal regulations, mechanical requirements and a host of other complexities caused frustrating delays.

And that is why inserts are so under-used, says Jim Richwine, president of Intervisual Communications, the leading producer of what he calls dimensional print. "It is a proven medium that guarantees nearly 100 percent awareness," says Richwine. But Intervisual's paper engineers get to produce only five to 10 dimensional print campaigns for magazines each year, because many marketers are put off by the costs and implementation challenges, he says.

Allowing production snafus to stand in the way of an aggressive campaign to sell more inserts is shortsighted--especially in this advertising climate. It's not only business you wouldn't have had otherwise, it's business that is sold at a premium with very attractive margins. Harder to quantify--but also important--publishers who go the extra mile to accommodate date an unusual insert earn points from appreciative clients that pay off in subsequent ad sales business.

To make your publishing operations more accomodating to these special orders, consider the following:

Develop a system. Don't let special requests faze you. Anticipate these situations by pulling together a team of ad sales, production and printing plant representatives to develop a system for handling unusual requests. Their goal: figuring out ways to maximize customer satisfaction by speeding up turnaround time.

Appoint an inserts czar. Multi-title publishers should put someone on the corporate level in charge of inserts. Get a point person in place who is unshaken most the most eccentric requests, understands the complexities and can turn things around quickly.

Improve communication. The sooner a publisher's production people are speaking directly to the advertiser's production people, the better.

Educate advertisers upfront. The Lipton Cold Brew project could have run smoother if the company and its agencies had received more advice from magazine production experts at the outset. The original pre-production sample sent to publishers for testing carried a tea bag far different from the actual sample--a definite no-no. Hungry as they are for business, publishers mustn't be afraid to push back when an advertiser provides insufficient information--just be sure to do it in a spirit of partnership.

Position yourself as a resource. Develop a reputation as someone advertisers can turn to when they are brainstorming for ideas on special units. People advertising director John J. Gallagher, for example, has a special unit presentation that he takes to agencies. "When they see what they like, I suggest a vendor who can provide it," he says.

Advanced planning for unusual inserts can lessen the stress on your staff and your clients, and it pays off in other ways-- including increased reader satisfaction and new business opportunities. "Whenever we run one of these units, the phone rings off the hook from other advertisers who want to know how we did it," says Entertainment Weekly associate publisher Tom Morrissy.