Gourmet Magazine Says Goodbye (and the First Derivative)
You might have heard about the demise of Gourmet Magazine. So what happened? Why does a magazine with nearly 1 million circulation decide to call it quits? The answer is in the first derivative.
I don’t want to get into a long calculus lesson but the rate of growth of Gourmet Magazine was a clear signal that things were not good and only would get worse. Even if the magazine was growing (which I am not sure it was) the rate of growth showed a clear trend that it had hit a wall. That is what the first derivative tells you. It was slowly dying. Advertisers knew this information which resulted in a 46% decline in ad sales (ouch!). They saw the ship sinking and jumped off in masses.
In the video below Gary Vaynerchuk (hater of traditional media and lover of new media) gives a ‘no-holds barred’ take on Gourmet Magazine and its advertisers. The take-away her is that ad agencies need to stop screwing over their clients and spend their money more wisely on advertising that is cheaper, more effective and can be tracked. Not all ‘BIG BRANDS’ get it yet — but they will. And you can be positioned to take advantage of this mind-shift.
I like it when Gary says that magazines will be replaced by lean, entrepreneurial three person teams. I could not agree more.
Gary Vaynerchuk comments on Gourmet Magazine
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Why the hate for magazines? Just curious… Here’s something to consider – unpaid trad media is worth 3 – 5 x what a page of advert in a magazine is, and 20 times MORE than what a similar page on a newspaper’s ‘website’ costs. I gave daily google alerts for my favorite activities and yes, examiner.com comes out quite highly in the SEO rankings, but the stories are crap and they are clearly written by amateurs with grammar and spelling skills one step above your typical chat-room idiot.
As for ‘entrepreneurial three member teams’ – how about ‘entrepreneurial three member teams who are on the take from advertisers and who are using a cheap media format to get a lot of free crap? (*see ‘consumer products blogging’).
Ask any industry pro and they’ll say that part of the reason the CN magazines are experiencing financial difficulty is that they are WAY too top heavy with editorial staff. You really don’t need an ‘assistant to the deputy managing editor (on leave)’ – WAY too many cooks in the Gourmet kitchen. It is a staggering brand and I bet Hatchett or SourceLink or someone would buy it but the cost will of course be prohibitive…
Here’s another issue that you print haters can chew on. Sooner or later you all have to get out of your spare basements at some point to stagger down to the 7-11 or whatever, and chances are you’ll take a quick flip through that copy of Maxim or whatever. And while you’re ogling the flesh, you’ll likely check out that hot new BMW as well and it will root itself into your subconscious in a way that I would argue banner adverts can NEVER do.
Metrics are a sketchy business at the best of times, regardless of medium. A savvy buyer will determine what’s right for his or her client and likely take an approach that is a mix of several buys.
As a print journalist and professional blogger, I’m still amazed when PR companies tell me, “my client is looking for glossy print coverage.They don’t see the value in on line media.”
Fortunately, as Gary points out, I’m a print journalist who has successfully embraced on-line publishing. I straddle both editorial worlds. It’s going to take further education for advertisers to realize that on-line editorial coverage is forever, while newspapers and magazines eventually end up in the recycle bin.
Thanks Gary. I’m with you on this one.
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Very good and incisively correct, I am impressed.
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Real or lies, not going to touch that.
I make 50 K per year with my Internet sites, I personally am not happy when a better researched medias go out of business because their formula for making money did not evolve. I try to explain to these older types of media some ideas, but in a way they say, “We have always done it this way.”
Pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords is where Advertisers need to learn about, do the math, calculate conversion rates, but this requires you understand. I would estimate that only 1 in 10,000 Webmaster can make 50,000 Dollars per year from their websites. This means we have 99,999 thousand people who can not explain how to make money with the Internet.
It becomes too tricky for a big company to do, only a three man team can agree, a team of 20 would disagree too much.
Andy Graham of HoboTraveler.com Travel Journal a.k.a. Blog
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