Sizing Up Ad Sales

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 1, 2002

Byline: REPORTED BY THE FOLIO: STAFF

THE TRAVELING SALESMAN

In his posh Upper East Side apartment, Vogue publisher Tom Florio has sequestered a dozen of his top lieutenants to kick around war plans for 2003. On this blistering afternoon, at the height of the fall selling season, he's fled the Conde Nast executive suite in favor of a more intimate setting to tear apart a fresh set of statistics. "We're not only in a different economic environment," says Florio. "Socially, there's been a big shift." He replays the numbers: "The 16- to 24-year-olds will spend as much money on apparel as their parents. That's $52 billion on apparel by 50 million people. Boomers only spend $50 billion on apparel and there's 80 million of them." Given the kind of moola each Eco Boomer is laying out for Diesel jeans and DKNY belly shirts, designers will undoubtedly tighten their focus on the younger niche. Naturally, Vogue will move in to capture those newly directed ad dollars. "We talk strategy constantly," Florio says. In this market, counterintelligence is critical.

But Florio may have an ulterior motive for this afternoon's offsite rendezvous. Six months ago, he jumped from GQ to Vogue, and apparently he hasn't spent much time in his apartment since. "In the first two months, I was gone 80 percent of the time," he says. "I was in Europe for most of it, visiting advertisers." The whirlwind tour is a sign of the times, Florio says. "The number of meetings [publishers have to attend] has gone up significantly." So when you travel now, you have to book back-to-back meetings to squeeze everyone in. "We literally had 32 meetings in one week - including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cocktails every night."

Semi-annual agency meetings are but a dot-com memory. Nowadays, publishers have to sit down with buyers on a regular basis. "You see [agencies] throughout the planning process because budgets are being released later and later," Florio explains. "In another time, people had their budgets in place up front. They tried to get onto the schedule as early as they could. You locked it up, and that was that."

But the most visible change this year, Florio says, "is the access [we have] to people in senior positions at the advertiser level." Which means another round of road trips and 32-meeting weeks. Still, he's happy to take the meetings. He knows he'll need them. Despite Vogue's stature in the fashion category, advertisers remain skittish about committing too much, too soon to anyone. The trick, Florio says, is not feeling beat up. "We're gauging the changing environment, the fact that there's fewer ad dollars, and wondering where we should spend our time." What little of it that's left, anyway.

PUBLISHER/ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR

SALARY BREAKDOWN

COMPENSATION BREAKDOWN, 2002

VS. 2001

LOWEST/HIGHEST SALARY REPORTED: $25,000/$410,000

AVERAGE OVERALL BONUS: $56,777

BUSINESS BONUS: $64,026

CONSUMER BONUS: $49,357

PUBLISHERS DISH ABOUT TRENDS AND TROUBLE SPOTS

JAMES DIMONEKAS PUBLISHER, Playboy

"The hardest part right now is getting the time from the marketers. You're calling on a lot of people who are suffering so much that they can't have a discussion with you. Those who can, have gotten leaner and meaner. You used to call on a media team, a scheduling team, etc. There were so many layers, it was ridiculous. By getting leaner and meaner, they've gotten more effective, but it's a lot harder to get their time."

ANNE ZEHREN PUBLISHER, Teen People

"When you're part of a start-up, you're always in this times-are-tough, tighten-the-belt mode. What this year did was put that feeling on steroids. You have to go above and beyond what you used to do. A West Coast trip used to mean three days in Los Angeles - now I'm going to San Francisco on that trip, then up to Portland. On another, I went to Wal-Mart, then to Procter & Gamble, then to rural Nebraska. You're crisscrossing the country to show up where the client is. I used to shut off on weekends - not anymore. Now when I'm on the beach in the Hamptons, I'll take the time to show up at a cocktail party on the chance that a client might be there."

BILL WACKERMAN VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLISHER, Details

"It's a tough market out there. The people who are doing it best are the ones who love to be in the thick of the battle - people who are scrappy and willing to fight for everything. After 9/11, everything got a lot tougher. Ironically, I think I've been traveling a lot more since then. Any opportunity we get to spend time with clients and get to know them better as people, we have to take. I'm spending more of my time listening to the market and being on the street."

MIKE FRIEDENBERG VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLISHER, Information Week

"A few years ago, everything was focused on new ideas, creating new revenue streams, etc. Now the focus is on the business process and driving more efficiencies out of your organization. The sales cycle for media has changed dramatically in the last year. Companies used to put out plans for a year - now it's a month or a quarter. You have to generate leads and identify the ROI in a shorter time frame. In this environment, a publisher who doesn't get in front of customers is making a big mistake. You have to interact with clients on a daily or weekly basis."