Rogers and Transcon team up to cut ad insertion lead times to 2 weeks

Canada's two largest magazine publishing companies, Rogers Publishing and Transcontinental Media, have announced that they are cooperating in cutting the lead times for advertisers' insertion in the companies' monthly magazines. Pressexpress is an ad-close schedule that means ad creative can be sumbitted only two weeks prior to publication.

Brian Segal, president and CEO of Rogers told Marketing magazine that Pressexpress will make advertising more atttractive.

“Both us and Transcontinental were of the view that we needed to reset the position of magazines within the minds of media buyers,” said Segal. “We think it helps reposition the industry in terms of being more urgent, more timely and more competitive with some of the other media cycles.

“My sense is that [advertisers] will see more opportunities to match merchandising strategy and marketing planning with advertising. If they know they have eight or 10 or 12 merchandising events or cycles that they’re working on for the year, but that [under the previous ad-close schedule] the creative might not be ready, they’ll now have the option to buy magazines where they may not have before.”

Transcontinental now has a long-term contract to print all of Rogers magazines, so the ad insertion system is a natural extension of their business collaboration.

Francine Tremblay, senior vice-president, consumer magazines for Transcontinental Media, said:

“Advertisers are always waiting to see what the latest thing is before making a final decision,” said Tremblay. “Final decisions are critical in our industry, and the more information you have, the best final decision you will make.”

Rogers plans to launch the Pressexpress schedule for the January 2010 issues of Chatelaine and Châtelaine, with the March issues of Today’s Parent, Flare, Glow, Pure and the French and English versions of LouLou to follow. Schedules for the company’s weekly and bi-weekly consumer magazines, such as Maclean’s, Hello! and Canadian Business, will not be affected as the already provide short lead times.

Transcontinental will launch Pressexpress with the January issues of Canadian Living and Coup de Pouce, with other titles to follow in March and April.