Unlocking the trade-ad formula

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June, 1990 by Abbe Wicheman

Trade-ad veteran John Emmerling applies tried-and-true approach to Reader's Digest campaign

NEW YORK CITY-Can john Emmerling, who made "Rewards of Money" one of the most enduring magazine ad campaigns of the eighties, work the same magic on Reader's Digest?

The jury is still out on the three-month-old campaign. But Emmerling, president of John Emmerling Inc., is trying a new tack to position the mass-market title: brand power.

The two-page spreads, which tout the Digest's readers as "powerful people," were conceived in a conversation Emmerling had with the then-marketing director of the Digest. She used to include in her sales letters the fact that Reader's Digest readers wield powerful influence over many name brands. Hence, the campaign: "If [readers] weren't allowed to use a single bar of Ivory Soap, it would slip from being the number one brand-to number three."

The message is particularly viable in this age of splintering network television, Emmerlin says. Where are advertisers, especially in the packaged goods field, going to find a reliable and loyal block of 50 minion people who trust a medium month after month?" And the campaign marks the first time in recent memory that the Digest, which slipped 9 percent in ad pages and 4 percent in newsstand sales last year, has revamped its plans to enter the minds of media buyers. Checklist tactics

As with his former campaigns for Money and Working Woman, Emmerling follows a simple seven-question checklist that he claims gives an ad visual impact; short, interesting body copy; and a sustainable idea.

With the first question-"Is it an emotional campaign?"-Emmerling notes that the best way to enter someone's mind is via emotions, not logic. He also aims for short copy, but with an idea "big enough to be sustainable" and applicable to selling situations.

Finally, as with all of his ads, the Digest campaign claims to influence the "gatekeepers-those people up and down the advertising line that influence the buying decision-making process. "

Anyone who believes the cliche that the twentysomethings wield all the media power is "making a big mistake," Emmerling says. What is important, he says, is that trade campaigns break through the clutter, and not appeal to age.

Emmerling drove that home in a presentation for Magazine Publishers of America's Magazine Day Congress. To the strains of "The flight of the bumblebee," he ran through some 70 advertisements found in a thick issue of Advertising Age. "People don't read Ad Age to see your ads," he reminded the audience. "In this environment, you have to stop those gatekeepers." Ads that do so, he said, possess a "simple, visual power and stay with a successful approach. "

For that reason, Emmerling is critical of any advertiser that discards campaigns like tissues. "The magazine category does suffer from 'changeitis,' but any advertisers that have powerful campaigns make tragic errors if they throw them away because of someone's ego. "

An informal survey of Time, Newsweek and U S News & World Report, he says, noted that each averaged seven different campaigns over the past decade. "The strategic content hasn't changed, just the words and pictures. if any of those magazines had stuck with one campaign, it would be ahead of the pack."

That stick-to-it nature is apparent in the campaign Emmerling devised for Money in 1984, when "Rewards of Money" became the magazine's tagline. "I could go to 100 media buyers at random and say Rewards of. . . 'and 97 of them would correctly fill in the blank," Emmerling claims. A good test for any ad, he says, is whether someone can figure out in five seconds what that ad is trying to say.

His ads for both Working Woman and Money also draw comparisons to other upscale titles, showing the differences in circulation and reader income. "Comparisons are only important if they bring forth a surprising fact-one that will make a gatekeeper take notice," he says.

He's told Reader's Digest that there are enough surprising facts about the magazine to sustain its new campaign for "at least 17 years." Eight versions of the ad are expected to run this year in The New York Times, The Wall Street journal, Inside Media and other publications.