12 | Magazine World | Q4 2008 www.fipp.com
cover story
Expect a wave of consolidation
Bernd Kundrum CEO, G+J, Germany
T
the current economic situation
impacts the magazine sector as well.
Advertisers, now under cost pressure
and doubting their customers’ willingness
to buy, are reducing their investment in
advertising. As a market leader, this trend
won’t pass us by, and I fear the situation
Lead generation
will not relax in 2009.
is the key focus
Although the advertising business has
been hard hit by the banking crisis, I see maintain their advertising pressure rather
Bob Carrigan CEO, IDG, USA
the current situation as contradictory: the than reducing it have good prospects of
financial crisis hasn’t swayed consumers very quickly increasing their market share.
A
lthough we have had a very good to adjust their habits yet. Strategically, we will continue to rely
2008, we are not impervious to the It seems many are waiting to see how on developing and extending our quality
global downturn. We have seen softness much of an impact the crisis will have on brands and on investing in international
in this quarter and expect a more their standard of living. At the moment, and emerging markets. The crisis actually
challenging first quarter 2009. we are dealing more with an ‘industrial holds opportunities for companies
I think it will take a significant amount crisis’: companies are suffering from with a solid setup. I expect a wave of
of time before this situation changes. tougher lending terms, have misgivings consolidation in the media market very
It comes down to the US consumer about their sales markets and tend to feel soon, which could open up investment
who is so over-extended. We have seen that the mood among consumers is worse opportunities for big publishing houses
years of excess and the US consumer than it really is. like G+J. We will now review our budget for
accounts for around two thirds of the In fact, this moment marks a great cost-cutting potential and synergies. This
nation’s GDP. Consumer spending, opportunity for advertisers. Those who may include discontinuing titles.
or lack of it, will have ripple effects
throughout the world – particularly in
"We will continue to rely on developing
Asia where a lot of products are made.
Print advertising has been most and extending our quality brands..."
impacted by the downturn. In the US,
our online advertising is bigger than
print, and you can see that this will
happen elsewhere.
Develop creative ad solution
With events, regional events
are doing well, whereas resort-
Brian Segal President and CEO, Rogers Publishing, Canada
based events, which involve
travel, less so. based, so we haven’t seen much impact
Digital continues to grow, on magazine sales. Equally, we have
and being an IT media company, only seen single digit declines at the
it is even more relevant to us and has newsstand and even then some are still
been hugely profitable. The digital doing well. For example, Hello! has seen
subsection, lead generation, accounts 100 per cent growth since we launched in
for 40 per cent of all digital revenue in Canada last autumn.
the US, and around 15 per cent globally. Our strategies are two-fold. Firstly we
Lead generation, which uses databases look at profit-protection and analyse all
and inventories to deliver leads to
sales and field marketing teams, is I
n the first three quarters of 2008, we elements of the cost structure. We also
saw little or no impact. However, it look at ways of reducing costs without
generating more revenue than straight is being felt in the fourth quarter, with undermining our brands.
forward advertising. The results are very little revenue growth expected in The second strategy is to develop
more tangible, deliver better return on 2009. Next year will be tough, and we are creative ad solutions.
investment, and often the costs come unlikely to see much daylight before 2010. Some 39 per
out of marketing budgets. Events, also, Advertising has been hit the hardest. cent of Canadian
are benefiting from lead generation. Although the Canadian economy hasn’t magazine adspend
Focusing on this ‘recession-proof’ sector suffered as greatly as the US one, we flows through to
is a major part of our strategy. are tied to the US. Global advertisers are our magazines so
And finally, we will definitely focus on cutting back in North America and Europe. this sector is very
cost management. Most of our magazines are subscription- important to us.
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57