Meredith chairman invites FIPP community to attend American Magazine Media Conference
What it the overall goal of AMMC?
AMMC is magazine media’s most important conference in the United States. It is the one time each year that we come together as an industry to share our successes, our challenges, our best practices and our optimism for the future of magazine media—despite the fiercely competitive nature of our industry. This conference is attended by magazine media’s top 400 executives, including CEOs, editors, publishers marketers, as well as advertisers, with content developed by a steering committee of MPA board members. Joe Ripp, Time Inc.’s Chairman and CEO, is this year’s AMMC chair and he has done a spectacular job leading the team in designing a really smart programme that will offer strategies, roll-up-your-sleeves tactical guidance and lots of inspiration to advance—and build—all of our businesses.
What are some of the key trends that will be covered at AMMC?
We’ll be addressing the issues and trends on top of all our minds today: sponsored content, consumer marketing, video, mobile advertising, and cross-platform ad programmes. And we’ll do this from the perspective of experts and authorities both within our industry and via technology and content partners, advertisers and business leaders. Our goal is for each attendee’s takeaway to be both inspirational and actionable.
Can you tell us who some of the speakers will be?
We have a very strong line up, so here are just some of the highlights:
• The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta will sit with Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel to talk about what’s next for this revolutionary platform, as well as ways magazine media can extend its social footprint and engagement through Snapchat. In a similar format, Fortune’s Alan Murray will interview AOL CEO Tim Armstrong about the movement toward mobile, video growth and the future of online advertising.
• We have a lunch panel that will be hosted by NBC Late Night’s Seth Meyers. It is the day after the Iowa caucus so he will talk about the results with TIME’s Nancy Gibbs and Vanity Fair’s Michael Kinsley.
• One of the traditions of AMMC is a panel discussion featuring the leaders of the largest magazine media companies. This year, Brian Stelter of CNN Worldwide will moderate the panel featuring David Carey, Hearst Magazines; Joe Ripp, Time Inc.; Maria Rodale, Rodale Inc.; Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., Condé Nast; and me.
• Building on that tradition, this year we will also have a conversation led by Bloomberg TV’s Stephanie Ruhle with the chiefs of some of magazine media’s most respected independent brands including: Michela O’Connor Abrams, Dwell; Larry Burstein, New York; Declan Moore, National Geographic Partners; Mike Perlis, Forbes Media; and Paul Rossi, The Economist Media Group.
In addition, one session will focus on native advertising best practices. We’ll also look at celebrity journalism—how it has evolved and become more competitive through technology—and ways we can continue to build on that critical industry staple. Tuesday will also feature an a la carte menu of breakout sessions on a variety of topics, from how to create video on the cheap to the future of cross platform research/analytics.
Will you be talking about the future of print in magazine media?
Yes, certainly. One of the unique attributes of magazine media is that our multi-platform brands are anchored in print. Last year, we became the first medium to deliver a standardized measurement across platforms—Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report—and we confirmed that our gross audiences were growing steadily year-over-year. This year, we introduced the Print Magazine Sales Guarantee, an industry-wide money-back or space-back guarantee.
Magazine media is further elevating its accountability, promising that print magazines’ ability to connect with consumers and serve as the cornerstone of a cross-platform buy will increase an advertiser’s brand sales and provide a positive ROI significantly higher than other competitive media.
Why do you have such confidence in this bold statement and guarantee?
Meredith Corporation’s own proven success with guaranteeing print advertising campaigns using this same industry-accepted methodology, as well as the success many other magazine companies have had, gave us the confidence to roll the initiative out across the industry. And this year, MPA released two pieces of research that give insight into why print has such an outsized impact on advertising effectiveness overall. Both The Print Campaign Analysis Prepared for MPA by Millward Brown and the new white paper “What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Why Print Magazine Advertising Works?” will be presented in a breakout session at AMMC.
How do you think International attendees could benefit from an American conference?
Many of our challenges and opportunities are universal. For example, we are beginning to see the international adoption of the principles of Magazine Media 360°, which is wonderful. The closer we work together the better chance we all have for success. At MPA we like to say, “The rising tide lifts all boats.”
Anything else you’d like to add?
Just that we would love to have members of the FIPP community join us at AMMC. They can go to magazine.org or click here to register right now.
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