The meter better be running every issue or else, no ads

I suppose we should feel blessed that the dreaded "rate base" is not an idea that has taken hold in Canada. U.S. publishers, particularly those with high levels of single copy sales, are bedevilled by having to guarantee to advertisers that a certain threshold is reached in paid sales. So far, advertisers have been content to have an "average" over several issues. But now, according to a story in Ad Age, an agency that handles some of the biggest advertisers (Kraft, Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola) is demanding that issue-by-issue guarantees be given. And failure to do so may mean no ads. Talk about leverage.

"Let me be clear that I am a print champion," said Robin Steinberg, senior VP-director of print investment and activation at MediaVest. "However, we believe that all publishers should make this guarantee, and we will walk away from business for those who don't." MediaVest spent about $900 million in consumer magazines on behalf of its clients last year.

It's all part of a push for precision by marketers, who have a plethora of choices about where to spend their money or their clients' money.

"As somebody who's ultimately paying the bills, what I'm looking for is accountability and transparency," said Donna Campanella, executive director for global media at Avon, a MediaVest client. "We want to make sure that the impressions we were hoping to get for a particular issue have been delivered. Because what we advertise is coordinated with what's in our brochures, timeliness is important."

"In this age when there are so many choices out there, particularly in the digital arena, traditional media needs to step up and really prove their value, good or bad," Ms. Campanella added.

Since such ideas tend to drift north, Canadian magazine publishers -- particularly the bigger titles -- will be feeling some pressure. For one thing, many of the bigger advertisers like Kraft are making their decisions continentally or globally. For another, there is a trend towards consolidation of metrics, the standards of measurement that advertisers use to decided if their money is being well-spent. It may no longer be sufficient to give a six-month average circ or an annuallized readership tally. Since other media like the internet offer running, instant measurement, advertisers don't care that it's not that easy, or economical, to do it with print magazines.

The Ad Age story points out that the demands may cause some publishers in the U.S. to play fast and loose with circulation, flooding "public place" copies into the market to ensure that no issue falls below the threshold they've been forced to guarantee.