Quote, unquote: Advertising will decline 30% in next 5 years

“We are so disrespecting people’s time that they are spending more and more time in advertising-free environments.... We don’t value their time. You’re asking me to give you my time for less than minimum wages, which is not worth my time.” 

--  Publicis Groupe’s Rishad Tobaccowala predicts that  the amount of advertising reaching consumers over the next 5 years may decline 30%. [He spoke during the opening session of CIMM’s Cross-Platform Media Measurement & Data Summit in New York City Thursday afternoon.] From Media Daily News

Ad Age redesigns, top to bottom

Advertising Age, the U.S. bible of the advertising industry, is undergoing a complete redesign, not only its print edition but also its website. It becomes officially what everyone has called it for years -- Ad Age -- and will have a new look, logo, colour and palate, said a story in the New York Post. 

The first issue on Monday will have a series of covers, including controversy-plagued NBC anchor Megyn Kelly and a trio of Facebookers including Sheryl Sandberg.

Braiker says the new Ad Age will feature a more contemporary aesthetic and (most crucially) heavier cover stock — a costly investment at time when many mags are reducing frequency. 

Editor Brian Braiker insists there is plenty of money to be made from print pubs — even those with limited focus and niche audiences like Ad Age. Editor Brian Braiker says the redesign will transform the publication from a mere trade to a bona fide cultural must-read.

"This isn't merely a new look," an announcement said. "This isn't window dressing. This is a new Ad Age for a new advertising age. Things are moving faster every day. Which means they'll never be this slow again."

Online ad fraud may be twice as bad as thought

It makes us wonder why advertisers would seem rather to risk billions to ad fraud than pay for audited, provable audience in print and digital magazines and other publications. 

An article in Business Insider says that online ad fraud may be twice as big as first thought and advertisers stand to lose $16.4 billion to it this year.

A study commissioned by WPP ad agencies estimates that fraudulent traffic and clicks manufactured by bots in 2017 may be more than double what the [U.S.] Association of National Advertisers estimated would be lost to ad fraud in 2016. 

The World Federation of Advertisers predicted that fraud will cost advertisers $50 billion by 2025. 

Across 200 billion daily bid requests,4 billion ad calls, and 10 billion ad impressions a month, over a period of 12 months, the study by ad verification company Adloox found

Across the 200 billion bid requests, 50% were detected as being either non-human traffic (either a bot or a hijacked device) or fraudulent traffic, which includes bad actors trying to spoof real web domains to attempt to pass off to ad buyers as premium publishers.

Magazines Canada allies with ad intelligence provider MEDIARadar

Magazines Canada has allied itself with the advertising intelligence platform MediaRadar to provide the trade association with in-depth digital and print advertising sales information to its members and to use in its projects, from content to events.  

MediaRadar serves a growing number of top publishers, including Star Media Group, La Presse, Reader's Digest Magazine Canada, TVA Publications, and St. Joseph Communications.

It's a cloud-based platform using data science to provide advertising sales intelligence on more than 2.3 million brands across multiple media platforms, including: online, print, linear TV, social media, and newsletters. Ad sales professionals, management and research teams may use these insights to more effectively and efficiently get more qualified leads, create high-performance sales pitches, and close more deals.

“Actionable advertising research is part of our mission at Magazines Canada,” said Matthew Holmes, president and CEO of Magazines Canada. “This partnership with MediaRadar, a leader in ad sales intelligence, will have a direct impact on the rich information delivered to our members at key networking and training events, and in the research and advocacy we conduct for magazine media across Canada.”

Speed up your sites, or else, Facebook tells publishers

Facebook is telling publishers that if their sites aren't zippy enough, it won't serve ads to them.

http://www.pubexec.com/aggregatedcontent/facebook-pushes-advertisers-speed-mobile-sites/#utm_source=publishing-executive-insight&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=2016-09-02&utm_content=facebook+pushes+advertisers+to+speed+up+their+mobile+sites-3

Disclosure of "native ads" doesn't always follow recommended guidelines

In 2015, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission published guidelines for how "native" advertising should be labelled and presented. A whitepaper released recently by leading native advertising developer Polar says that a large proportion of advertisers didn't use the recommended terms such as "sponsored" or "advertisement" and instead used no disclosure at all or chose ambiguous terms such as "promoted" or "partner" or "presented". According to an article in MediaDailyNews

The report, Polar’s “State of Native Disclosure,” analyzed 137 native placements across 65 publishers and found only 55% of them utilized the term “sponsored” and 4.5% used the term “advertisement,” adhering to Federal Trade Commission guidelines that native ad placements are explicitly labeled as sponsored advertising content 

The remainder either had no disclosure at all or utilized more ambiguous terms such as “promoted,” “presented,” or “partner.”

The FTC guidelines in 2015 said ambiguous terminology could potentially “mislead consumers that advertising content is endorsed by a publisher site and/or that the advertiser did not create or influence the content."

Some advertisers found that ambiguous terms were preferable because they performed better than explicit ones.

The study found the highest click-through rate (0.19%) was achieved by native ads labeled “promoted,” and the second-highest (0.17%) by those labeled “partner” content. “Sponsored” ranked third with a click-through rate of 0.16%, while native content with no disclosure achieved a rate of 0.15%.

FASHION magazine sells cover exposure to fashion retailer Joe Fresh

FASHION magazine (St. Joseph Media) is collaborating closely with major fashion retailer Joe Fresh with a September 2016 8-page gatefold cover featuring supermodel Karlie Kloss. The magazine says this is the first of its kind branded integration spanning both print and digital platforms. 

 “This is partnership at its best and it really raises the bar for collaborations in the future. Joe Fresh challenged us to do something bold, first to market and groundbreaking — and we responded with a beautiful multi-platform editorial integration that is on-brand for FASHION, and designed to engage consumers.”said Jacqueline Loch, VP & Group Publisher St. Joseph Media, Women’s Brands.

The issue has a prominent coverline mentioning Joe Fresh also contains second cover with model Kloss. Inside the magazine is  a five-page article showcasing the model wearing items from the Joe Fresh fall collection. A special 5,000 copy print overrun of the cover gatefold will be available at Joe Fresh’s flagship store on Queen Street West  in Toronto. The magazine is on newsstands Aug 15.

UPPERCASE magazine to go ad-free

Janine Vangool, the publisher and editor of UPPERCASE magazine, has decided to do away with advertising in the magazine altogether. It has always been reader-supported publication (disclosure: I am and have been one of its loyal subscribers.)

But advertiser support that was expected/anticipated has been slow in coming and, given that Vangool is a one-woman show, she lacks the resources to sell even the "calling card" ads for small creative businesses in the back of the magazine. She told her readers in her regular e-letter:

"Just think about how advertising and sponsored posts and paid content have changed over the past 7 years... As a single person on editorial, design and marketing duty, I simply don't have the time to craft content for advertisers (nor do I want to be influenced in that way). So I've decided to remove ads from UPPERCASE altogether. Freeing up more time for me, and more pages of content for you."

The decision came soon after she recently took a week off.

"It wasn't a complete break, but enough of time away from my laptop and work worries to return with some fresh perspectives and new ideas (oh no! more ideas! ha ha)."

Only about 1 in 6 Canadians have ad blockers installed

Despite dire warnings about ad-blocking software's impact on advertising --publishers' main source of revenue -- a new study from IAB Canada, using comScore data, shows that only one in six Canadians (about 17%) have ad blocking installed on their desktops; and even fewer (6%) have it on their mobile devices. The highest usage of ad blockers (28%) is among millennial males.

"Interestingly, the study revealed that 13% of Canadians that had installed ad blocking software/apps at one point have actually disabled or deleted it from their system,The biggest motivators cited for uninstalling/no longer using ad blocking were the fact that the ad blockers didn’t work properly and that they interfered with site functionality."

The study found that Canadians overwhelmingly prefer free, ad-supported online content versus pay-for-content options. The preference was for less intrusive ad formats with skippable video ads and behaviorally-targeted ads getting the highest scores.

Downloadable study

March ad pages bulk up U.S. fashion mags

The big U.S. fashion magazines tend to have their biggest issues in September/early fall, but coming up close behind are March issues. According to data published by WWD , the tally of Big 5 advertising pages was as follows:

• Vogue (405)
• Harper's Bazaar (336)
• Elle (315)
• InStyle (263)
• W (209)

How to block those blockers

The burgeoning growth of ad blocking software on the internet is threatening magazines' revenue, there's no question about it. The industry is pushing back with some strategies and tools  to combat ad blockers and improve the effectiveness of online ads. Magazines Canada is offering a webinar on March 3 at 2 p.m. featuring Ben Barokas, the Founder and CEO of Sourcepoint Technologies. The webinar is moderated by Sharon McAuley, publisher, marketer & business consultant. There's no cost to attend, but spacesare limited. Registration: http://www.magazinescanada.ca/ad-webinar-registration-page

Forbes offers readers "lite" ad experience for disabling their blockers

A  visitor to the Forbes magazine website may be surprised by the message that tells them they need to disable their ad blocker to continue accessing the site. In return, according to a story on Digiday, they are given an "ad-light experience" for 30 days, during which it is hoped they would "whitelist" the site. Forbes will still serve up ads, but they do not include autoplay video or animation. The company regards this as a test, during which they'll see how readers react and behave. 

“It’s about doing something based on what our users are looking for versus not doing anything,” said Mark Howard, chief revenue officer at Forbes Media.

(Other publishers such as The Atlantic are making polite requests that ad blockers be turned off. Most publishers and advertisers are puzzling over how to retain readers without losing ad revenue and how to respond to ad blocking software without coming out on the wrong end of the argument.)

The Forbes approach is interesting in offering a different experience for users of ad blockers, but it also creates something of a moral hazard of rewarding people who install ad blockers with a better user experience. 

“They’ve already chosen to install the ad blockers,” said Howard. “They’ve already chosen that Web experience. For us, is there an experience we can offer that they’ll whitelist us? It’s not all or nothing.”

Spread and popularity of ad blockers is a growing threat for publishers, study finds

A major new study by Reuters (summarized by a story in the Columbia Journalism Review), on the state of digital news says that the growing use of ad blockers threatens not only legacy publications (in other words, print) but also the disruptors (in other words, things such as Buzzfeed and Huffington Post). Just 11% of US consumers are paying for online news and this hasn't increased since 2013.

The report says that 47% of US internet users now use ad-blocking software, which is free and easily installed. And 55% of the valued 18-24 demographic do so. And  the situation is only going to get more dire as ad blocking is coming soon to the mobile web.

“A small number of loyal readers have been persuaded to pay for brands they like,” the report says, “but it is proving hard to convert casual readers” when there is so much else available for free, even if the quality isn’t as good as the paid-for stuff. Most of those not paying in the United States said they never would or that they could be persuaded for less than $1 per month, which is a lot less than they probably pay for coffee.

Readers are also not fooled by, or impressed by, so-called "native advertising" or "sponsored content", which they find intrusive and annoying. 

"More than 40 percent of US news consumers say they “have felt disappointed or deceived after reading an article they later found had been sponsored,” the study says."

It seems that readers are making their own rules and their preferences and behaviour will not have evaded notice of the advertisers and agencies; as the story says, if advertisers know people aren’t even seeing their ads, whether on desktops or mobile devices, in apps or elsewhere, why would they continue spending billions of dollars a year to place them? It's a real poser for publishers.

Mags Canada presents free webinar on making the most of digital editions and their advertising

Magazines Canada is offering a free webinar on February 26 called Making the Most of Advertising on Tablet Editions. The expert presenters are Jessica Ross, tablet publishing manager of TC Media and Sylvain Coutu, director of operations at TVA. Moderator is Sharon McAuley, publisher, marketer and business consultant. Learn how Canadian publishers are making the most of their digital editions.  Registration is online; capacity is limited. 

NOW magazine vows to defy ban on ads for sexual services

Toronto's iconoclastic NOW magazine says that it will defy the ban on advertising escort and other sex trade that took effect Saturday as part of the new federal prostitution law Bill C36. Long a source of classified ads in its back pages which promoted a wide variety of sexual services, the controlled weekly maintains it is on solid ground because it should not be asked to discriminate against workers in the sex trade. Editor and chief executive officer Alice Klein told the Canadian Press:

“Now Magazine started taking sex ads because we take ads, that’s how we support ourselves and we have always refused to discriminate against sex work and sex workers. 

“We are committed to free expression and we don’t believe it’s our right to say which advertisers are allowed to advertise and which advertisers aren’t.”

The new law was the government's response to the Supreme Court striking down Canada's old prostitution laws last spring; the old law had penalized prostitutes for selling sex. In response the government is criminalizing the purchase -- rather than the sale -- of sexual services; concurrently targetting those who profit from the sale of sex, including publication which carry such ads.  Last July, justice minister Peter MacKay said

“We will hold those who are advertising — not the prostitute themselves, but those who are advertising these services either through papers or online — also to criminal account.” 

Klein, who said the magazine has taken legal advice from Alan Young, the Osgoode Hall law professor who led the charge against the old laws, said the constitutionality of the new law is highly questionable:  

"NOW has benefited from the advertising dollars this category of business has brought in. But it has also paid a price in real dollars and cents, because there are many potential advertisers that won’t advertise and haven’t advertised as a result," she said in a published statement on NOW's website.  "With costs and benefits on both sides of the ledger, NOW has made a principled choice to stand against discrimination and further marginalization of sex workers. As a publication in print and online, NOW stands for sexual freedom between consenting adults and for the normalization of the reality of sexual diversity....

"Supported by a substantive study of the wording of the law, we believe that running ads placed by sex workers themselves is still legal and we are transitioning our business to comply with this new regulation.

She told the Canadian Press: “This is another area of the law which just makes the lives of sex workers really difficult and of course attacks their ability to earn a living. 

“But the law does say that sex workers themselves are allowed to advertise, and our legal advisers understand that to include the publication of their ads in our publication.”

 Alice Klein's full published statement.

Starting small, Time Inc. titles incorporate ads in previously off-limits covers

TIME magazine and Sports Illustrated have opened the door a crack to advertising on covers, with a discreet ad link for Verizon on the address label of this week's issue and next. Newsstand issues will have the ad next to the bar code. A story in Ad Age notes

The ads are tiny, but their arrival puts a big crack in the longstanding tradition that kept ads off magazine covers. 

The industry's major players have until now almost entirely resisted pressure to sell cover ads, despite a strong need for new revenue in recent years. That's partly because ads on covers violate widely-observed guidelines from the American Society of Magazine Editors, but also because most editors believed in those guidelines, which are meant to emphasize and protect editorial independence from marketers.

Advertisers are also being pitched for ads across the bottom of magazine covers (colloquially called "zippers") and possible "native" placement of ads on the contents pages. 

The Canadian Magazine Code of Reader & Advertiser Engagement  says

No advertisement may be promoted on the cover of the magazine or included in the editorial table of contents, unless it involves an editorially directed contest, promotion or sponsored one-off editorial extra (see “Sponsorship”).

Magazines Canada shortlisted for international research award

Magazines Canada, the Canadian magazine industry association, has been shortlisted for the FIPP 2014 Research Awards, being presented June 16 in Hamburg, Germany. The winners will be announce during the FIPP Research Forum for researchers, publishers and marketing executives. 

The awards are meant to recognize the  best research studies published in 2013 that promote the use of magazine media as an advertising medium, anywhere in the world. ‘Magazine media’ includes print, digital platforms and/or any other relevant publisher channel. Magazines Canada was included in the list because of  the "Media Connections Study" released last year.

It is in impressive company, covering a wide geography and range of subjects, research done by other associations such as American Business Media and the Magazine Publishers of Australia and major publishing companies such as IPC Media, UK, Meredith Corporation and Bauer Media, all selected for a particular piece of industry research. 

FIPP is the worldwide magazine media association representing companies and individuals involved in the creation, publishing, or distribution of quality content, in whatever form, by whatever channel, and in the most appropriate frequency, to defined audiences of interest.

[Overview of the study.]

TC Media launches ad buying site Canadian Programmatic Marketplace (CPM)

TC Media has launched an online marketplace for programmatic buying of advertising on a wide range of websites, principally its own. The Canadian Programmatic Marketplace (www.cpm.tc) means that advertisers can access a large portfolio of digital display advertising through real-time bidding. 

The inventory of ads is from more than 95 premium content partnres and more than 650 websites. Partners include TC Media, Livingly Media, Spin Media and Hockeybuzz along with more than 100 regional newspaper sites in English, French and Atlantic Canada. Even before the launch, the CPM is already delivering over 1 billion monthly impressions to more than 14 million unique Canadian visitors, the company says.

Advertisers will, of course, still have access to traditional advertising and direct sales. The new arrangement makes available premium websites such as canadianliving.ca, ellecanada.com, hockeybuzz.com, stylebistro.com, and spin.com, as well as French properties like ellequebec.com and coupdepouce.com in a 100% programmatic environment” says Patrick Lauzon, senior vice-president of interactive marketing solutions at TC Media.

"TC Media recognizes the importance of programmatic buying and has invested heavily in its team, technology, and partnerships“ [he] says. "This investment includes TC Media’s acquisition of Canadian real-time bidding supply company Redux Media Inc. in May 2012. The Canadian Programmatic Marketplace provides Canada’s only fully transparent, brand safe programmatic environment and can offer advertisers the largest reach of RTB enabled display, video and mobile inventory in Canada, setting the bar in terms of premium programmatic”. 

  

U.S. mags see 4% decline in ad pages in Q1

The total number of magazine advertising pages tallied in the U.S. market declined by 4% in the first quarter of 2013, from 29,745 down to 28,567. The Publishers Information Bureau, which counts ad pages in 181 titles found that 60% of them declined in the quarter, year-over-year. MediaDailyNews reported that two categories -- tech and retail -- were responsible for 63% of the overall page losses. (Many magazine publishers reported strong results in digital advertising on tablets.)

Women’s domestic and homemaking titles took some of the biggest hits, with Martha Stewart Living down 34.8% to 109 ad pages; Country Living down 29.2% to 63; Family Circle down 28.2% to 160; Better Homes and Gardens down 23.4% to 191; Ladies’ Home Journal down 22% to 87; and Good Housekeeping down 18.1% to 212.

The list of big titles that experienced significant declines also included Rolling Stone, down 27.1% to 139; Maxim, down 25.3% to 40 ad pages; Men’s Fitness, down 24.4% to 144; People Style Watch, down 22.3% to 193; Lucky, down 19.9% to 141; Motor Trend, down 19% to 132; Entertainment Weekly, down 16.7% to 214; and Food Network Magazine, down 15.7% to 138.

Consumers do avoid TV ads, sure, but magazine ads are part of the experience

A  blog post from The New Yorker talks about the propensity of people to avoid ads, which is undoubtedly true on TV (what most commentators continue to mean when they refer to "media".) By being selective, the argument goes, and using tools such as TiVO and Netflix, consumers are placing a price on their attention. All of which is very interesting, but ignores the fact that, unlike on TV, advertising in magazines is actually part of the reading experience and the enjoyment. 

Magazine readers expect certain kinds of advertising in certain kinds of magazines and would find it weird were it not there (cruise lines in a travel magazine, packaged goods a women's service magazine, clothing ads, accessories and scents in fashion magazines). Rather than being a interruption or a distraction, it is part of the ecosystem. For an example, a 2007 study (available on the Magazines Canada website) says consumers are most receptive to magazine advertising of all media. Far from avoiding it, they expect it and like it. The same point was made in a recent  MC Connections presentation: