Awards or Ad Dollars?

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June, 2000 by Bob Moseley

Both are nice. But six publishers and editors are split when confronted with the question: What honor would you rather your magazine have, a shelf full of editorial awards or the distinction of selling the most yearly ad pages in your category?

Geoff Dodge

Publisher Money

A shelf full of editorial awards. If our magazine is doing a great job journalistically, a high-quality audience will follow. What's more, there's a good chance the readers will pay a premium to receive our content. Once we build our audience and have a quality circulation in place, the ad pages will follow. In fact, we might even win the ad-page crown.

That's what we've done at Money, and it's a real formula for success.

Robert Aronson

Publisher Healthy & Natural

The honor of selling the most yearly ad pages in my category would be the greater distinction, in my opinion, as it would be proof positive that we provide better response, generate more sales, and deliver better results and service to the industry we serve. In short, the industry we serve will have voted with their advertising dollars. We are constantly working toward this goal through quality editorial and striving to reach the audience our advertisers need to reach. This reinforces our goal to serve our readers, our advertisers and the industry as a whole.

But awards are nice. We have some posted in our lobby for art direction and editorial excellence.

Jane Pratt

Editor in chief Jane

I know this may sound politically incorrect, but I have to say I'd prefer the distinction of selling more ad pages. Having launched Sassy, which was an award-winning magazine, and as founder of Jane, this time around I'd hope to produce a magazine that will still be in print in 50 years. Obviously, the way to ensure that is through lot of ad pages (which Jane has).

Honestly, I have never published anything with the intention of garnering the praise of my peers in the industry or to win an award. The opinions I'm concerned with are those of my readers.

Larry Burke

Publisher Outside

My preference is to have both a shelf full of awards (which we do) and be the category leader in ad pages (which we are). Another way of saying this is that both the editorial and advertising departments have their own goals for success and excellence, and the idea of choosing one over the other is sort of like asking if I'd rather have a ceiling or a floor. Within the culture of Outside, editorial and advertising are tied inextricably to each other.

Of course, plenty of ads without the awards would be a better consolation than awards with no ads.

Phil LoPiccolo

Editor in chief Computer Graphics World

Both would be great, of course, but I'd suggest that neither is necessarily the best measure or guarantee of success. A, higher honor, especially for a publication like Computer Graphics World that serves a specialized audience, would be to achieve the top ratings among competitors in readership studies. If a magazine builds engaging content, readers will come. And when they do, ad pages, additional resources and editorial awards will follow.

Ripley Hotch

Editor Success

Our whole team, from the owner on down, would answer this question the same way: We'd definitely want the awards. We believe strongly that a commitment to editorial excellence is primary. Our reader comes first. If we serve the reader well, the philosophy is that, of course, the sales will follow. If we don't serve the reader, the sales won't last. As a team, we have committed to a minimum number of editorial pages--and it's a generous minimum--that will run as we grow our business. That's a clear statement of our commitment to editorial quality.