If We Are in a Media Recession, Why Is It Still So Difficult to Get a Good Table at Michael's? - Steve Blacker - MediaBizBlogger

Nobody asked me, but....

Why doesn't a major magazine publisher ever invent a hot new website like Daily Candy, Hot Tomatoes or Polyvore? Polyvore is a new user-generated fashion website that attracted 825,000 unique visitors in June. That's 25% more traffic than Conde Nast's Style.com or InStyle's site. Answer: The talent to invent hot new sites does not seem to exist at a traditional magazine company. Polyvore was founded by three ex-Yahoo designers and cost less than $5 million to launch. Shouldn't major publishers be recruiting new young talent from digital companies and setting up "skunk works" in New Jersey?

Why doesn't a major media company steal Carol Smith, SVP and Chief Brand Officer at the Elle Group, away from Hachette? She is without question one of the best marketers, team builders and leaders in the business today. With one-third the staff of Vogue and one-tenth Vogue's promotion budget, she continues to take market share away from Vogue and everyone else. Little-known fact: before becoming Publisher of ELLE, Carol ran Elle Digital.

Why doesn't the Magazine Publishers of America do something that actually helps magazines gain market share? Magazines are the most trusted brands in media and they work wonders for fashion, beauty and travel advertisers. Unfortunately, every MPA trade campaign or boring research study does little more than spend money. The best trade campaign for print is Conde Nast's. The only research that can truly move the needle on market share is one that is co-funded by major advertisers and provides them with proprietary information that is marketplace essential.

If ROI is so important to clients, why do they pay lip service to the research they use to buy media? Nielsen is better, but good luck measuring a small new cable show. And while MRI is creating more timely measurement metrics, the margins of error for some of their data are so huge that the data is unreliable. And if selecting media is so important why are most media planners and buyers so overworked and so underpaid?

Why don't the supposed financial experts stop telling us the recession is over one day, and the next day that we are in more trouble? If they were weather forecasters they would all be fired!

If the government allows the Citigroup Energy Executive to earn $100,000,000 this year then I know for sure we are still going to have major problems in the financial sector.

Why didn't the state of California work out a deal to lower the taxes for Toyota? By doing nothing they just lost 140,000 jobs.

If we are in a recession, why is it still so difficult to get a good table at Michael's?

If young kids continue to spend the bulk of their time online and playing video games, will anyone be able to write a sentence or spell properly in a few years? Worse yet, the less they read the more newspapers and magazines will suffer. Shouldn't the MPA or someone sponsor reading programs in public schools starting at an early age? Does anyone still read the Hardy Boys series?

Am I the only one who now receives so many newsletters and blogs online everyday that I had to cancel most of them so I could do my work?

What if every magazine publisher actually charged enough for a subscription to make money on it? Yes, rate bases and circulation would quickly drop, but isn't that going to happen anyway, even with the low current sub rates ($6 a year, 2 years $15 plus a gift)? Wouldn't a more committed readership allow magazine publishers to improve their demos and be able to raise their CPMs?

Isn't ASME (Association of Magazine Editors) a dinosaur that needs to be placed in a friendly museum? If you still believe in the separation of church and state, unless you are The Economist, you may no longer be in business in 5 years. Editorial integrity cannot be dictated by an archaic organization. Doesn't every fashion and beauty magazine trade editorial credits for ad pages? It doesn't seem to hurt their credibility. An editor is an integral part of a business. The Editor in Chief is really the Marketer in Chief to the readers.

Why can't American TV commercials be as funny and provocative as foreign ones? How come George Lois is still the most out-of-the-box thinker I know in advertising?

I hope my grandchild Braden Storm Blacker goes into media. It will still be one of the greatest professions in the world, once we get rid of the accountants and bring back the old time anything goes, no such thing as a bad idea, totally thinking out of the box approach.

Steve's new book You Can't Fall Off The Floor - The Insiders' Guide to Re-Inventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King, Cathie Black, Chuck Townsend and 28 others; Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt & Blacker Solutions, LLC. His web site is blacker-reinventions.com and e-mail address is blackersolutions@aol.com

Read all Steve’s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Steve Blacker - MediaBizBlogger.

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