Back in season - Florida Trend magazine

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 15, 1993 by Meryl Davids

Having suffered the harsh realities of a frosty advertising climate, Florida Trend is blooming once more with a bumper crop of new business.

Florida's orange growers know that even when the weather is good and the trees are in blossom, the groves must be tended. It's a lesson the folks at Florida Trend forgot a few years back, when the ad dollars just kept coming. "There was a time in the mid-1980s when we were doing so well that some people took the advertising for granted," admits Andrew Corty, president of Florida Trend, Inc. "When the recession hit, advertisers forgot us."

But after several lean seasons, business is ripe again at Florida Trend. The magazine rebounded strongly in 1992. Ad revenue jumped 39 percent over 1991, to $3 million, and ad pages rose 28 percent, to 575. Substantial gains are expected this year, too (ad pages are up 24 percent through March), and the book is projected to turn a profit in '93 after several years in the red.

This is the second time since 1980--when the St. Petersburg-based Times Publishing Co. bought the statewide business title--that Florida Trend has had to recultivate its ad base. The first occurred when the company took over the sagging magazine from founder Harris Mullen. After some retooling, ad revenue soared for a while. But the Times diffused its focus by trying to replicate that success elsewhere. Arizona Trend, launched after the 1987 stock market crash, never really got off the ground, folding in 1990. Georgia Trend, introduced in 1985, showed promise for a while, but the Times eventually sold it in 1991 in the face of an uphill battle with Business Atlanta.

"We found that those kinds of magazines are better published by a local owner," says Corty. No doubt they also decided they'd better get back to the harvest in their own backyard: When Florida Trend's core advertisers, banking and real estate, went into a tailspin, the publication's revenues went with them. (In addition to St. Petersburg's major newspaper, Times Publishing's portfolio includes two other titles, Governing and Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, both profitable.)

One of the company's first moves in revitalizing Florida Trend two years ago was to bring back Corty, who had been publisher of the 50,000-circulation title prior to a four-year stint as general manager of the Washington Post Magazine. In turn, one of Corty's first moves was to bring back Lynda Keever. A former Florida Trend ad saleswoman, Keever was a natural for the post of publisher, having spent the previous 10 years as publisher of Tampa's New Home magazine. A rare breed for Florida--she was actually born there--Keever knows the state, the magazine and, equally important, how to lift a slumping publication. During her years at New Home, she upped the bottom line some 250 percent--with the help of ad director Chantal Hevia, whom Keever also brought with her to Florida Trend.

Keever's team set about reversing the magazine's downward slide by practicing what the editorial preaches and combining the good business journalism it has always been known for with the good business planning it sorely needed.

A primary element in Florida Trend's strategy is making sure advertisers never again forget the magazine. Last year, the publication's promotional mailing budget grew by 28 percent, with Keever bombarding 3,500 potential advertisers and putting her own name and picture on some reply cards--along with a promise to call interested prospects directly. Keever and editor Matt Walsh now spend much of their time attending, and sometimes speaking at, business meetings around the state. And the magazine recently began semimonthly "mini focus groups" with ad agencies to see how Florida Trend can better meet advertisers' needs. "There's now a sense that they are willing to work with us to get the advertising dollar," says Rose Murray, media director of Tampa agency Pearson, Thomas/LKW.

Much of the magazine's added revenue has come from special advertising sections, which Keever not only upped in frequency, but honed as well. "We work on them further out than before--maybe 10 or more months," Keever says, "and we have a prototype so prospects can pick their ad locations."

Keever also introduced city and regional special sections, which have so far done exceptionally well. "They help us develop relationships with people who, before we focused on their city, maybe weren't considering Florida Trend," she says. The sections have also helped bring additional revenue from current advertisers, as when longtime customer SunBanks slipped an ad into the special section for Orlando, the site of its headquarters.

Keever is such a big fan of the special sections that she is planning for 10 of them this year. Still, even though the tactic has proven valuable in helping Florida Trend to rebuild its presence in the marketplace, editor Walsh worries about the mixed signals that special sections may send about a magazine's editorial standards. Having honed his journalistic ethics on the business desk at the Miami Herald, he insists on reading the sections for accuracy before they go to print, and the magazine strictly adheres to the guidelines set by the American Society of Magazine Editors. "It's become a necessary element, unfortunately," he says of the use of special sections. "That's the way the industry is headed."