In the continuing upheavel across all media, we are now hearing about the huge exodus of advertisers from men's magazines and moving to where most the young men go: online to interactive media.
A large number of magazines are struggling tremendously, although a few have done well. The end result is that they are finally realizing that they must embrace convergence if they want to survive. Men's magazines have reportedly had a four percent drop in ad pages through June, according to Mediaweek Monitor.
"It was a pretty lousy first quarter," said Chris Mitchell, VPand publisher of Conde Nast's Details. "Auto is soft, liquor is always threatening to do more on broadcast television, and consumer electronics is hot and cold." Although auto spending rose 7.7 percent, beer, wine and spirits spending through April fell 23.1 percent, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Among the titles struggling: Rodale’s Men’s Health, where ad pages through June declined 14.3 percent to 437, according to publisher’s estimates; Dennis Publishing’s Maxim fell 15 percent to 395; Emap’s FHM slid 17 percent to 348 (though it has published one less issue in 2006); Details slipped 6 percent to 492, and CN’s GQ dipped 1 percent to 673.
Every single media outlet must completely think outside the box with this. The box is simply disappearing. The reason they have been so slow to respond to what has been known for several years is that they are attempting to keep their subscriptiona and advertising rates growing based upon the old model. Hello. It's not going to work. To fruitlessly bang their heads against the wall makes no business sense whatsoever. Things will never go back to the way they were.
Especially in the young male demographic, companies better put their greatest thrust online; that's where they hang out. They no longer wait for a print magazine to come out when they can read what is in it online two weeks before it appears.
If you have any market to young men, I would hit this hard in your online marketing.
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