Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Advertising and Casablanca
Two stories about magazines today sent my mind immediately to that immortal scene in Casablanca. But first, the links:
Advertising Age has a story "65% of Readers Believe Magazines Sell Editorial Plugs" with the subtitle "Study Finds Widespread Cynicism about Editorial Integrity"
http://adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46354
Publishers Information Bureau released September data, claiming in its headline that this was great. Sure, look at the table a few links inside: pages up 1.9% for the year (real GDP is up 3.5%, though) and September pages were down -0.8%. The revenues they report are rate card revenues, which would be like Wal-Mart reporting its sales at list price.
http://www.magazine.org/Advertising_and_PIB/PIB_Revenue_and_Pages/Revenue
___Pages_by_Ad_Category__monthly___YTD_/13695.cfm
And now, back to our movie:
An angry murmur starts among the crowd. People get up and begin to leave. Rick comes quickly up to Renault.
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Renault: I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
The display of nerve leaves Rick at a loss. The croupier comes out of the gambling room and up to Renault.
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh. Thank you very much.
(Hear the scene at http://www.vincasa.com/gambling.wav)
Advertising Age has a story "65% of Readers Believe Magazines Sell Editorial Plugs" with the subtitle "Study Finds Widespread Cynicism about Editorial Integrity"
http://adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46354
Publishers Information Bureau released September data, claiming in its headline that this was great. Sure, look at the table a few links inside: pages up 1.9% for the year (real GDP is up 3.5%, though) and September pages were down -0.8%. The revenues they report are rate card revenues, which would be like Wal-Mart reporting its sales at list price.
http://www.magazine.org/Advertising_and_PIB/PIB_Revenue_and_Pages/Revenue
___Pages_by_Ad_Category__monthly___YTD_/13695.cfm
And now, back to our movie:
An angry murmur starts among the crowd. People get up and begin to leave. Rick comes quickly up to Renault.
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Renault: I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
The display of nerve leaves Rick at a loss. The croupier comes out of the gambling room and up to Renault.
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh. Thank you very much.
(Hear the scene at http://www.vincasa.com/gambling.wav)
