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ASME PRESIDENT'S REVIEW

Moderator: David Willey, SVP and Editor-in-Chief, Runner's World

ASME President David Willey provided a capsule of how well the organization during the second day of General Sessions at AMC 2008. He discussed how the 2008 National Magazine Awards were the most successful ever, partially due to a new inclusion of online entities and magazines distributed through newspapers. The National Magazine Awards received 2,000 entries, an all-time high. ASME also established a new level of membership called ASME Next geared for younger editors with up to five years of experience. ASME Next currently has about 80 members.

In other news, ASME added Sid Holt as its Chief Executive. Some of his responsibilities will be to grow membership, raise ASME's profile and work with MPA on shared agendas, such as government affairs, audience membership, developing sponsorship opportunities and the sustainability issues at hand.

CAUSE MARKETING/EDIT IN MAGAZINES: WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOUR READERS…AND YOUR BRAND?

Moderator: Dave Zinczenko, SVP/Editor-in-Chief, Men’s Health and Editorial Director, Best Life (extreme left)
Panelists: Linda Fears, Editor-in-Chief, Family Circle (second from left)
Colin Kearns, Senior Editor, Field & Stream (second from right)
Stacy Morrison, Editor-in-Chief, REDBOOK (extreme right)

The first panel discussion on Tuesday morning at AMC 2008 centered on editors’ successes with cause marketing.

Moderator David Zinczenko's own title, Men's Health, is rolling out a program to elementary and middle schools across the country to help share physical and nutritional education. It started with one school in 2007 and expanded to a dozen in 2008. "It carries forth the mission of the magazine," he said, "and helps a group of people who need it while also exposing them to your brand."

Stacy Morrison said that every issue of Redbook features some kind of cause marketing in it, such as a get-out-the-vote message. However, one of her biggest causes is helping women fight against domestic violence. "Redbook is about relationships," she said, and getting involved with this issue gave the magazine a certain seriousness and credibility. She pointed out that partnerships are very important when it comes to cause marketing. Redbook has partnered with Liz Claiborne on this ongoing effort and is still looking for a retail partner.

Colin Kearns discussed Field & Stream's longtime relationship with environmental conservation. "This has been part of our magazine for 115 years," he said, since without conservation, hunters and fishers would have nowhere to go. The magazine is recognizing, honoring and rewarding everyday hunters and fishers who recognize the problem and did something on their own to improve the environment. "There's a tendency to make this kind of thing a little negative and preach to your readers," he said. "That's the last thing they want to hear." So the magazine recognizes monthly winners and then has an annual awards banquet in New York City to pick an overall winner, who goes home with a Toyota pickup truck.

Family Circle readers hold bake sales each spring and sends all the proceeds to food banks, Linda Fears said. The project helps the magazine focus attention on such issues as hunger and childhood obesity while also providing recipes and creating community online.

WHY MAGAZINES ARE A MUST-HAVE MEDIUM FOR ADVERTISERS
Rex Briggs, CEO, Marketing Evolution

1. Magazines are a strong complement to TV at the top of the purchase funnel.
2. In the lower part of the funnel, magazines generate dramatically better cost per impact than TV or online.
3. Magazines are more effective in building traffic and search.
4. With budgets being squeezed, building a media plan based on greatest impact per dollar spent is absolutely critical.

THE MOST INNOVATIVE THING I’VE DONE THIS YEAR
Steve Sachs, President, Real Simple

Steve Sachs of Real Simple, spoke about a new reality television show, "Real Simple, Real Life," in which experts take over someone's life and help them find solutions to their problems. The program, Sachs said, breaks the mold of prior such relationships in that cable channel TLC and Real Simple will have a multimedia advertising partnership. "We work together," he said. "We know advertisers have a desire for multimedia." There will be a website and extra pages in the magazine devoted to the project as well. "We created a full 360 offering for consumers and for advertisers," he said.

MONETIZING BEYOND THE AD PAGE
Moderator: René Syler, Host of “It Moms” on Meredith Corporation’s Parents.tv (extreme left)
Panelists: Robert Ames, Vice President and General Manager, Digital Automotive Group, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc. (extreme right)
Jennifer Andre, Online Sales and Marketing Director, Healthy Living Group, AIM Media (second from right)
Jeff Price, President, SI Digital (second from left)

Moderator Rene Skyler of Parents.tv led a discussion about "Monetizing Beyond the Ad Page."

SI Digital’s Jeff Price noted that 25 percent of Sports Illustrated's bottom line revenue is coming from online and that the title is using such things as streaming radio and fantasy games on such sites as Facebook to bring in more dollars.

At Yoga Journal, Jennifer Andre said that the title is trying to use online in as many ways as possible. The magazine also utilizes mobile devices such as the iPod, for which the title offers downloads.

Robert Ames from Hachette Filipacchi’s Auto Group warned against doing anything that could jeopardize a consumer's trust of the brand. Ames noted that a third of the magazine's audience is made up of diehard car nuts and the rest are more casual so that balance needs to be maintained in all of its entities. At Car and Driver, the editors built out online sections about various automobile brands and created communities around them. "We created virtual test drive programs, using editorial content from our magazines and material from the marketers, all put together in an interactive, engaging design," he said. 

KEYNOTE
Hon. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor, State of California (left)
Interviewed by Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME (right)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke with Richard Stengel of TIME about the economic difficulties both California and the nation currently face. Schwarzenegger stated that government was the root cause of the problem and it would be government that should solve the problem. "I think it was Einstein who said the brain created the problem and the brain will solve the problem," he said.

Schwarzenegger also noted how difficult scrutiny on the campaign trail can be and how anything anyone says can be turned a thousand different ways. He is supporting McCain in the Presidential run but also found himself relating to Obama as well.

"I can relate to this," Schwarzenegger said.  "You have to have this in you. You can't learn that. From the time I was 10 years old, I had a vision of coming to America and being the best in something. I didn't know it would be bodybuilding and acting and politics. But the drive and the will to do anything that it takes—if you're meant for that, it's in you."

He also noted that he and wife Maria Shriver never attempted to change the other politically. "When we married, I said I take this woman in sickness or in health, and being a Democrat is a sickness," he said, laughing.

GOOGLE DAY

AMC 2008 closed with a field trip to the Google Campus in Mountain View, California. There, two hundred magazine executives heard comments from a number of Google leaders, such as CEO and Chairman of the Board Eric Schmidt (pictured, above), VP of People Operations Laszlo Bock, and YouTube Head of Client Solutions and Ad Programs Jamie Byrne, among others. The attendees also heard from another Silicon Valley executive, Twitter Chairman and Chief Product Officer Evan Williams. The discussion focused on the many ways magazine executives can use new technologies to further their brand reach as well as to bring in more revenue.