Good News for Single Books

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb, 2000

In a rather amazing statement before the American Magazine Conference, where large conglomerates dominate, David G. Ropes, former director of Ford corporate advertising and integrated marketing, offered a message of encouragement to publishers of single magazines. "The buzz word lately has been multimedia approaches," he said.

"They are attractive, but not as big a threat to single books as you may think. The conglomerates appear to have an advantage in that they can cross lines and offer packages that include print, television, the Internet and even billboards. But the truth is, the conglomerates really haven't done much of a job in breaking out of their own chimneys. What they have is a loose league of independent operations, all competing with one another. It's more like intramural sports than an across-the-organization team effort. There's definitely an opportunity in your fragmented industry to leverage publishers' full range of resources, including an Internet component. But you know what?" added Ropes . "Even that isn't essential. Some books can be effective and important without multimedia. Some can be effective operating low-tech or even no-tech. Their content is so good, brand loyalty so firm, that marketers have to seek them out."