Well hallelujah I say on the appearance of a new monthly, glossy, “celebrity / society” type, free magazine titled, “H!”.
This has been running for some years on the Costa del Sol, is well designed, has readable editorial and now has a Mallorca edition with local editorial content.
This is surely the death-knell for the ridiculous waste of paper knocked out by the Ken and Barbie team featuring the same people in the same places with drivel purporting to be editorial separating the snaps of assorted blingbos.
Which brings me to the question that I’m often asked, (as I’ve been involved in various aspects of the magazine business from Fleet Street to these shores for more than 35 years) “How do you decide where to advertise?”
Well, at the real risk of boring you, here are some of my thoughts.
One of the original advertising gurus (David Ogilvy I think) coined the phrase, “Half of all advertising expenditure is wasted”.
Starting from that negative statement do not be too depressed gentle reader, there are a few basic rules.
Firstly, that the editorial environment may be the key.
If you have a specialist product or service it’s pretty easy to cut down that 50% wastage by using media that directly targets that specialist area.
For example, if you are producing muck spreading machinery, Muck Spreader Monthly would obviously be more cost efficient than The Sun newspaper although the latter has millions more readers.
However, the relative amount of “muck spread” by these publications would be debatable- but I trust you get my drift on this point.
If there’s a choice of suitable media and your budget allows, allocate your expenditure according to (reliable) circulation and readership figures. Importantly, don’t forget the further down the circulation/readership pecking order the media is, the more you can screw their published rate card!
You have every right to demand proof of their print run and if they have a cover price in the newsagents, ask for an independent certificate of circulation.
Beware; you will encounter a considerable amount of bullshit here which, unless of course you are in the business of producing muck spreaders, will be unwelcome.
Be firm- demand facts not fiction. You need to make your money talk…make the bullshit walk!
If they are a free circulation publication keep your eyes open for them in your neck of the woods. If they disappear quickly it’s a good sign; if they hang about in numbers obviously people are not interested.
During the height of the holiday season, in certain areas, be aware that this pick-up element will be distorted as holiday makers will pick up anything free in their own language- if your product or service is aimed at this market, all well and good.
Also, phone around to friends and colleagues to check up on distribution patterns further afield- whilst you are at it, ask their opinions’ of the publication.
Ask the publishers for a list of distribution points and tell them you are going to check them out before committing yourself. You will either get a list that will impress you; a list that is so-so or no list at all which will explain all!
On the point of freebie publications, leaflets and hand-outs etc it is important to realise that more and more establishments, fed up with the proliferation of litter, discard much of the material that is delivered.
One case in point here is the Club de Mar, Palma. If a magazine, newspaper, or leaflet does not have written permission from the club’s administration then it is unceremoniously binned!
With more and more publications and leaflets being produced and distributed this selectivity will probably become more wide-spread and consequently more and more advertisements never seeing the light of day.
As a rule of thumb, I would suggest that if you’re presented with a new advertising vehicle and unless it offers something quite unique from what is already available say, “no thanks”.
Coming back to my pet subject of editorial environment recently I picked up the latest copy of a local, free magazine.
This latest issue has three local stories that constituted less than 10% of the editorial content and are all too obviously motivated by an adjacent advertisement.
The remaining 90% is an eclectic combination (all of which I suspect was lifted from the internet) which included some pretty poor and old jokes, dowsing (how to locate resources such as water), various conspiracy theories, remote controlled bombs, UK medical research units and King Tut of ancient Egypt. More interestingly, in the latter article an advertisement for a local doctors’ practice was placed adjacent to the picture of an embalmed skull.
Feeling unusually charitable I will put this down to fiendishly clever advertisement placement- Mummy, you look like death-must get you to a doctor!
What, I ask, has all this piffle got to do with living in the Mediterranean as the title of this particular magazine unquestionably infers?
Ask yourself about any media when deciding on your advertising campaign.
Who reads this type of content? Do you think that your current and potential clients do? What will it do for my company’s and products’ image?
Editorial environment is similar to the company you keep in social terms- you’ll be judged by it. You can spend a fortune on a clever, effective advertisement but if it’s placed in a particular environment it will still stand out but the reader may say, “What on earth is that company doing there- do I want to be associated with them?”
If, after all that, you are still totally confused, to the point of a nervous breakdown as to where to spend your advertising money either flip a coin (after all David Ogilvy would have said you’re probably half right) or, perhaps change career course, get into muck spreading and, just relax and enjoy the relatively stress-free advertising life it offers! Here endeth this Gospel according to Bates.
Now here’s an almost unbelievable story!
A woman spoke of her distress at emerging from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one.
Linda Walker, 60, is one of only 50 people to have been recorded as suffering from foreign accent syndrome. She is now helping researchers from Newcastle University in the hope that they can find a cure for future sufferers.
The condition occurs when patients wake up after a brain injury. In Mrs Walker´s case it appeared as she regained consciousness from a stroke in March.
Foreign accent syndrome was first discovered in Norway in 1941 when a young woman started to speak with a German accent after an air raid.
Is Spain a safe place?
According to a leaked report published in El Pais newspaper, Spanish police believe that proselytising by Islamist terrorist groups is increasing in the country´s mosques, where several small groups that sympathise with Al Qaeda are trying to recruit members. Some of them are formed by the second generation immigrants but at least four foreign groups have been detected, two from Morocco, one which originated in Algeria but which now has members from Somalia, Nigeria, Tunisia and Mauritania and another which originated in Pakistan.
The report said that one of the reasons for creating jihad or holy war in Spain was to liberate the Moslems currently in jail in the country. Since the Madrid train bombs which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,500 on March 11th, 2004, more than 250 Moslems from several countries have been arrested and more than 100 are still in jail.
The report warned that the National Court in Madrid, where terrorists are tried, is a prime target for the Islamist groups.
More good news for partakers of golden nectar.
According to a study carried out by a Madrid university the moderate consumption of beer is beneficial to your health. Doctors at the chemistry faculty of the Alcala de Henares University, María José González and Isabel Meseguer, recently presented their findings at the Málaga medical college.
The tests that made up the report were carried out on mice. It was found that the daily consumption of two ‘cañas’ of beer of 200 milligrams gave 50 per cent of the minimum required amount of silicon.
According to the doctors this mineral interacts with aluminium and is important in preventing dementia and other neuro-degenerative illnesses- salut!
Whilst on the subject of medicine.
Five surgeons are discussing the types of people they like to operate on.
The first surgeon says: “I like to see accountants on my operating table because when you open them up everything inside is numbered.
The second surgeon responds: “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside is colour coded.”
The third surgeon says, “No, I really think librarians are best, everything inside is in alphabetical order.”
The fourth surgeon chimes in: “You know, I specifically like people who work in the flat-pack industry…..those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over.”
But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong; politicians are the easiest to operate on. There are no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine. Plus the head and the arse are interchangeable.”
v
Double Dutch?
Britain is certainly going to the dogs but I think recently Holland has topped Blighty.
Police in Northeast England allowed the first open-air Hindu funeral in Britain for 70 years in a field last month. This is expected to be the go-ahead for Hindus in the UK to publicly burn their dead!
However, across the channel in cloggy land, a Dutch court ruled that, The Brotherly Love and Diversity Party (PNVD) has the same right to exist as any other party and was protected by democratic freedoms.
What, you may ask, does the PNVD stand for?
Well their campaign was launched in May which advocates the cut in the age of consent to 12, the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals!
As we go to press the bigwigs in the Balearic Port Authority will be making the important decision of who will run the boat yard in Palma for the next 15 years or so.
In classic Spanish fashion this has taken far more time than expected and has been beset by controversy and eventually had to be referred to the national port authorities for guidance.
The Balearic Port Authority’s president, Joan Verger, has been put under the immense pressure because of his former shareholding in one of the prime contenders, IP3M.
The other contenders for the concession have pointed out through the local press that IP3M have won no less than three Port concessions under Verger’s presidency and are not-so-subtlety crying “foul” before the boat yard decision is even made!
At the end of the day, as the saying goes, let’s hope that the winner gets on with things rapidly and the long overdue refurbishment of the yard that has seen little investment over the last few years or so.
Although, no doubt a mess for a while, the extensive refurbishment stipulated by the authorities will return Palma at the top of the Western Med. refit and repair pole.
In closing, I have it on very good authority that former Palma resident and yachtie, Barry McNamara, has turned from poacher to gamekeeper and is now the proud owner of a 31 metre sailing yacht.
This may be an attempt to achieve respectability but remember, this is the bloke that “borrowed” a baby elephant from a visiting circus some years back- but that’s a story that you must ask him to relate yourself as he’s threatening to head this way!
Until next month...
Bates