A few years back I was attending the annual ANA meeting in Amelia Island, Florida. Rush Limbaugh was a featured speaker. When I got on the hotel elevator early one morning Rush was the only other person in it. He preened and beamed at me, waiting to be acknowledged. Instead I started reading my copy of The New York Times and ignored him. When the elevator door opened I paused for a second, giving Limbaugh the opportunity to get out. But he just stayed there. So I left; he stayed. I then realized he was going to stay in that damn elevator until he got recognized properly! I waited a bit off to the side and sure enough, each time the elevator came down Rush did not get off until an elderly couple got off with him chatting in a very friendly manner.
THE TOP 5 MEDIA RE-INVENTION MARKETERS - First Half 2009
1. Jeff Zucker - For out of the box programming innovations such as moving Jay Leno to a 5 day a week 10:00 PM time slot. This very savvy move will not only potentially create a major new profit center but dramatically reduce operating costs. By moving NBC's top branded entertainment personality to five days a week, Zucker now makes Leno available to a potentially greater audience than late night. At the same time, the downside potential for Late Night with Conan O'Brien is marginal. By providing more variety/fun entertainment content at a time when the country needs to laugh, Jeff Zucker is not only saving production costs but reducing his downside, because nine out of ten new TV shows fail each season. Jay Leno is a well known, likeable and proven number one TV comedian in the U.S. today.
2. Cathie Black - For having the courage and smarts to increase the page size of House Beautiful when everyone else is panicking and cutting back. House Beautiful is up in ad pages this year and it has a stronger presence at newsstand. Cathie has encouraged and permitted her editors to innovatively initiate major changes with their covers, i.e. Esquire, House Beautiful. Her digital strategy is savvy in that no existing print content from a magazine is shown online. This approach not only creates a unique and fresh digital platform for each Hearst magazine, it also creates a pay wall for print content.
3. Andy Serayan at Meredith - For leading Family Circle to its largest September issue ever, and creating numerous successful partnerships for Better Homes & Garden, Ladies' Home Journal and other Meredith titles. He has strengthened the company by bringing in outstanding talent. Serayan's team's approach in going after advertising has proven to be highly successful.
4. Carol Smith, Chief Brand Officer at ELLE - For her continuous ability to out-market a larger-staffed Vogue with an extremely small promotion budget. What ELLE lacks in support from Hachette Carol more than makes up for with her endless array of new opportunities for advertisers that no one has thought of before, i.e. The Music Issue, Women in Hollywood, etc. Smith inspires tremendous loyalty and energy from her staff with her sense of humor and the notorious pace she sets for herself.
5. Barbara Walters - For her endless ability to be provocative, amusing and different. Like a great wine, Walters just seems to get better with age. Her ability to make fun of herself, be the key catalyst for The View and still do her Oscar specials (and make them special) makes watching TV worthwhile..
EVERY EDITOR SHOULD VISIT THE APPLE STORE ON 5th AVENUE IN NEW YORK CITY
If you want to see where your current and future readers are going, visit Apple's New York flagship store at any hour of the day. The store is always crowded with hordes of people coming and going. Most people are purchasing new digital products and being serviced quickly by a huge number of salespeople. The typical visitor appears to be under forty. The Apple Store has been running counter to any retail recession for quite some time.
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 MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Steve Blacker - MediaBizBloggers.