Urban agenda - Philadelphia Business Journal's ties with Philadelphia Magazine

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 15, 1993 by Jezra Kaye

Forced to expand its market, Philadelphia Business Journal is forging some valuable new ties.

Commercial real estate is in a slump, but executives at the Philadelphia Business Journal aren't complaining. Never mind that the category used to account for an important chunk of ad revenue for city business titles like Philadelphia Business. In recent months, the publication has moved on to bigger advertising opportunities. "We'd never sold a $12,000 page before," says ad director Harry J. Alba Jr. (A full-page color ad usually goes for about $4,250.) "But we've sold them now."

The secret? In today's magazine-speak, it's known as a strategic partnership. And in the City of Brotherly Love, it's brought together two rather unlikely participants--the Philadelphia Business Journal and Philadelphia Magazine. In February, the two titles published a joint personal finance supplement that combines the money smarts of a local business journal with the visual punch of a city magazine. The 16-page section, including six pages of ads, ran in all copies of the 21,000-circulation weekly and the 135,000-circulation monthly.

"It represents a totally changed way of thinking," Business Journal publisher Lyn Kremer says of the alliance, admitting that such a venture would have been unlikely before the recession. "Each of us realized we could bring something to the table that the other didn't have." As a result, both publications reaped new business from banking and financial companies--and for less money than either would have spent separately. (The Business Journal provided editorial, Philadelphia handled the art, and the two shared editing and sales duties.) "The added costs were very small," Kremer notes.

For the Business Journal in particular, the partnership provided a prime opportunity to offer advertisers a glossier format (the tabloid publication typically appears on heavy newsprint) and an audience much larger and more diverse than its usual readership. "They're getting businesspeople and consumers in one buy," says Alba, who jumped at the chance to show advertisers that the Business Journal's readers aren't just "people in suits who buy computers and nothing else."

Alba's sales calls for the supplement were bolstered by the current lure of personal-finance editorial. "Both publications have good demographics," notes Lucy Gordon, vice president of the Vanguard Group of Mutual Funds, which bought the supplement. "But the Vanguard relies on direct response, and we need editorial compatibility, too. Because this was on personal finance, I thought it made sense for us to participate."

Business Journal editor Jack Roberts first suggested the joint section as a way to heighten the magazine's consumer appeal. "People are used to seeing Kiplinger's and Money, and I felt we needed to be able to compete at that kind of level," he reasons. A former city editor at the Philadelphia Daily News who came to the Business Journal last May, Roberts had noticed some interesting changes at Philadelphia Magazine under editor Eliot Kaplan, who arrived last year from GQ. "I think he's got a more eclectic taste than his predecessor had," Roberts says. "So I figured, I don't know him, but why don't I give him a call?"

For his part, Kaplan was attracted to the thought of speaking to readers on a subject close to their hearts. "I normally wouldn't do a lot on personal finance--there are so many other publications that do it--but this gave us a chance to do it in a different and exciting way," Kaplan explains. Adds Philadelphia publisher David H. Lipson, "People like localized information--where to go for help right in their own town."

The local angle was very much on Roberts' mind as he planned the section. "The lead piece is on the highest paid athletes in Philadelphia and how they invest their money," he says. "Which is nice for us because it has a list, and that's

what we're famous for here."

Indeed, lists are a Business Journal trademark. One appears in each weekly issue, and every December the journal publishes a Book of Lists, which Kremer calls "a huge blockbuster." Ad pages (roughly 80 per 160-page book) sell at 25 to 30 percent above usual rates; revenue for the 1992 edition was up 14 percent. The book, which lists everything from the highest-paid CEOs in the Philadelphia area to the largest credit unions, has proved so popular, in fact, that the Business Journal introduced an annual Market Facts Guide last July. It, too, wooed more business than usual. Advertisers who now buy both the Guide and the Book of Lists receive a 10 percent discount. "It's doubled people's commitment," Alba observes.

All those lists, like the supplement, point to the Business Journal's own commitment to getting readers, and hence advertisers, more involved. "If you look at the old journal--and by 'old' I mean a year ago--it was laid out in a very traditional way," says Roberts. "There was this philosophy that the job of a newspaper |format~ is to guide a reader through from story to story to story. But people don't read that way." The Business Journal's new look, implemented over the past year, revolves around five elements per page.