Financial World's Ellen Dweck: taking on the business books; selling FW as a business, as well as investment, magazine is challenge of former Forbes ad sales whiz

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan, 1988 by Karlene Lukovitz

Financial World's Ellen Dweck: Taking on the business books

Once you've managed to bring in 122 new advertising accounts for a venerable capitalist tool like Forbes, what do you do for an encore?

As it happens, Ellen Dweck found a made-to-order challenge in becoming senior vice president, associate publisher of Financial World. FW is an even more venerable (85 years of publication, to Forbes's 70) but less lucrative capitalist tool that's caught its second wind since its purchase in 1983 by publisher Doug McIntyre and partner/chairman Mark Meagher.

During her seven years at Forbes, Dweck was noted in particular for her savvy handling of mammoth accounts like IBM, and for her relentless and successful pursuit of previously unexploited consumer and nonfinancial categories. Airlines and hotels, personal computers, men's fashion (up to that point rarely seen in business magazines) and men's--and even women's--fragrances are just some of the categories that proved fair game for Dweck's salesmanship.

With such a background, Dweck was the ideal candidate to take charge of Financial World's advertising and promotion efforts this past fall. The magazine's strategy of trying to reposition itself as a hybrid business/financial publication, rather than a strictly financial one, was just coming into full flower. In fact its November 17 issue not only was its largest-ever advertising issue (54.8 paid pages), but also marked the death of its old tagline, "The Investment Magazine," and the birth of its new one, "Business and Financial News."

Dweck say she left Forbes because there was "no place to go" as a category manager, and she wanted to put her management skills to greater use. "At this point, I could manage a category in my sleep," she says. She has, however, nothing but good to say about Forbes and its "wonderful staff of talented people"--even though Forbes, Busines Week and Fortune are the magazines FW is targeting when it now refers to itself as "the fourth business magazine." In fact, she says that she, personally, doesn't compete with Forbes. "I think Forbes is a great buy," she smiles. "I prefer to think of us as one of the four business magazines."

She attributes her success at Forbes to the magazine's quality and to her own willingness to put in 80-hour work weeks to build rapport with agencies and clients, learn everything possible about their needs and goals and in general "do the homework" necessary to make credible, helpful presentations. "The most important thing is determining how you make the agency look good by fulfilling the client's needs," she says.

Improved product to sell

In addition to her own drive and skill, Dweck has quite a few other things going for her in assuming sales management at FW at this particular time. The magazine's editorial content and design have been thoroughly revamped under the direction of editor Geoffrey Smith, a 20-year veteran of Forbes, whose staff also boasts several other veterans of the major business magazines. FW has been broadening its editorial focus for some time to serve the concerns of corporate top management, as well as the financial community.

Also, FW's circulation increased by 103 percent between June 1983 and June 1987, to 202,674. Thirty percent of that increase occurred in the 12 months ending last June. In comparison, its ad rates, revised for 1988, increased by an average of "only" 18 percent, Dweck points out. (A one-time four-color page is $18,685, a black-and-white page, $12,455.) FW's basic CPM actually went down for 1988, to $42.95 from $47.97; CPMs of the major business magazines range between about $34 and $41.

Advertisers apparently have noted the changes for the better in Financial World: Ad pages were up 24.5 percent and revenue up 62.7 percent for the first half of last year.

Nevertheless, Dweck's work is cut out for her, when it comes to competing with the big business magazines for accounts. FW's market share of total business category pages, for example, increased by 119 percent between 1983 and 1986, but was still only 4.6 percent--considerably below the market shares of its traditional, investment-oriented competitors, such as Barron's (13.1 percent) and Institutional Investor (18.0 percent), never mind Fortune (14.3 percent), Forbes (16.1 percent) or Business Week (22 percnet).

Tough timing

Not only have business reduced their total number of ad pages in recent years (from 21,800 in 1984 to 18,900 in 1986, according to Publishers Information Bureau), but now, there's the little matter of the stock market plunge. Marketers of Luxury products "will stick with their advertising plans" in the face of the crash, predicts Dweck. "If the market goes down, it could shrink budgets of some companies in the middle market, but people will continue to purchase the products of upscale marketers such as Tiffany's and BMW. And, for financial companies, the crash could actually offer opportunities; they will advertise to advise people about what they can do under the circumstances."