Monday, July 30, 2012

Time Inc.’s New Chief Rethinks Magazines for a Digital Audience

NYT reporting:
....She came at a tumultuous time for the magazine industry and the company. Her predecessor had been fired after less than six months on the job, leaving the publisher of Time, People, InStyle and Sports Illustrated without a chief for nearly a year. In the three months that ended March 31, adjusted operating income at Time Inc. fell 38 percent to $39 million, driven mostly by a 5 percent, or $19 million, drop in advertising revenue. Overall revenue at the publishing company has declined roughly 30 percent in the last five years.
...
Ms. Lang talks about Time Inc. not as a magazine publisher, but as a branded news and entertainment company. She believes she can sell digital products to advertisers tailored to a level of specificity not previously available. Marketers hoping to reach new mothers, for instance, can incorporate messaging into an issue of People magazine (and its various app and online editions) with Jessica Simpson’s baby photos or Sandra Bullock’s announcement that she has adopted a child.
That’s not an entirely new goal, but Ms. Lang may be particularly suited to impose the strategy. As the Digitas chief she turned a traditional direct-mail service into a business that built and placed digital ad campaigns customized for Web sites and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. She also helped start the “newfronts” that take place around the time of the TV network’s upfronts, where advertisers see the coming slate of TV shows, and connect advertisers to online companies like YouTube and Hulu.
“We’ll be building lots of new products for advertisers” that use a similar approach, Ms. Lang said.
By Time Inc.’s estimates, its print and online magazines reach 130 million unduplicated consumers a month and the publisher has 65 million households in its database..

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