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see hope on horizon
Advertisers are returning but at a gingerly pace
By Jeff Bercovici
It’s difficult to be optimistic about the advertising economy when you’ve just spent the best part of three years choking on its fumes.
That’s the situation business magazines find themselves in at the moment. While pointing to a slew of auspicious signs, from the stock market’s gains to the gradual reemergence of spending across a broad range of ad categories, the publishers of Business Week, Fortune, Fast Company and The Economist are notably shy about predicting a recovery in the foreseeable future.
“I think we’ve all learned to control our optimism,” says Geoff Dodge, vice president and associate publisher at Business Week.
Recent evidence of a genuine rebound has been encouraging but not quite convincing, says Dodge. While corporate earnings have been on the rise, that’s mainly the result of cost management and productivity gains rather than more meaningful economic activity, he says.
“A number of indicators are pointing toward a pickup in the economy, but not topline revenue growth. As people think about getting back into the advertising world, they’re going to be careful until they’re comfortable that topline is coming back.”
“I don’t see this as ‘We’re off to the races,’” agrees Michael Federle, publisher of Fortune.
“I think there’s guarded optimism that the basics of most businesses are improving, but not improving to the degree that they feel they’re completely out of the woods again.”
Both men say they’ve been seeing increased demand from advertisers across a range of categories, including automotive, financial and technology.
“There’s a sense that the third and fourth quarter are going to end stronger than the first half of the year,” says Federle. “We’re seeing the financial category come back a little bit, so that’s welcome news. Tech is also showing some good strength, but it’s still not that deep in terms of the number of players.”
“I think it remains a soft market, but there are signs of a little bit of pickup,” says Dodge. “All the categories are moving sort of in the right direction, but it’s not as if the floodgates have burst open.”
Part of the reason publishers are so hesitant to commit to talk of a turnaround is that advertisers have all but given up on long-term planning.
“You just don’t know these days,” says Olly Comyn, The Economist’s vice president of advertising for North America. “One thing that’s really changed is this just-in-time marketing. People are making decisions with two weeks to go. It’s almost too early to call September.”
“It’s very hard to have a long view on anything,” agrees Federle. “People are still running very much a short-term strategy at the moment as far as their media and marketing goes. I don’t know about ’04 just because no one looks that far ahead anymore.”
Perhaps not. But Jim McCabe, Fast Company’s new publisher, argues that the downturn can’t last much longer than it already has.
“I think the bread and butter categories of the business magazines are strengthening to the point where a recovery can be seen,” says McCabe, who joined Fast Company in April as national advertising director.
“You have to think at some point there has been pent-up demand to advertise out there and corporations are now reacting to it.”
|
Business/Finance |
| Title |
'03 pages |
'02 pages |
% chnge |
'03 |
'02 |
% chnge |
|
BIZ 2.0 |
340 |
348 |
-2.37 |
17,863,688 |
17,292,397 |
3.3 |
|
BW |
1,538 |
1,750 |
-12.1 |
170,596,496 |
187,249,687 |
-8.89 |
|
ENTRPRNR |
797 |
774 |
2.93 |
29,458,121 |
26,911,653 |
9.46 |
|
FAST CO. |
416 |
416 |
0.16 |
24,850,486 |
24,265,221 |
2.41 |
|
FORBES |
1,527 |
1,604 |
-4.79 |
122,313,901 |
132,930,651 |
-7.99 |
|
FORTUNE |
1,617 |
1,819 |
-11.11 |
148,063,756 |
160,874,726 |
-7.96 |
|
FORTUNE SMALL BIZ |
269 |
232 |
16.09 |
21,093,019 |
20,243,875 |
4.19 |
|
HARVARD BIZ REVIEW |
250 |
268 |
-6.59 |
8,853,297 |
9,226,982 |
-4.05 |
|
INC. |
430 |
425 |
1.28 |
35,117,107 |
35,967,090 |
-2.36 |
|
Totals |
7185 |
7635 |
-5.9 |
578,209,871 |
614,962,282 |
-6.0 |
|
Source: PIB |
August 7, 2003© 2003 Media Life
August 21, 2003© 200
3 Media Life-
Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life. Click
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