This resignation makes me look back at Steve Weitzner’s move from CEO to head of international business development for CMP. Was this something he really wanted? What he pushed out by the home office in London where parent UBM is based? Was the feeling mutual? A few weeks ago, I would have said that it looks like Weitzner left on his own terms and is now doing what he really wants to be doing. Now, I’m not so sure.
One other question, does Marder’s leaving have anything to do with Weitzner’s? Again, the timing makes me think that the home office in London (ie, David Levin, UBM CEO) was not happy with top management, etc. I’ll endeavor to find out.
Rumors
The search for CMP’s new CEO is on. I’ve heard two names from a few people. Let me preface this by saying that this means nothing, really…just what’s floating out in the ether:
Tony Uphoff - a recent acquisition from Nielsen (he was running The Hollywood Reporter). He is now running CMP’s business technology group
Gary Hughes - Hughes is the CEO of CMPi, UBM’s European B2B media branch
Most of this week’s issue of min’s b2b is devoted to discussing what I will call, for lack of a better word, green. The focus of the issue will be what I wrote about in my post below: using the power of our editorial products to promote environmental awareness in the various industries that we serve, etc.
But make no mistake: there’s lots we don’t talk about. We barely touch the issue of recycled paper and soy-based ink. We don’t talk much about distribution, or digital magazines, or marketing green initiatives, or strategies for launching green columns or products. There is a lot more we can discuss, and we will in the coming weeks and months.
I’d like to publicly call out the other publications that cover B2B media and ask them to join me in making this plea to our readers: let’s band together as an industry and resolve to reduce waste and the environmental impact of our own businesses while helping the businesses we serve do the same.
In my last post, I linked to Paul Conley’s five questions for B2B post on his blog. I think it’s an excellent series of articles, with deep, thought-provoking questions. Perhaps it is best suited for middle and upper management, but I would encourage anyone who is interested in the industry to read it.
I do, however, take exception to his third post, which focuses on diversity in B2B. Before responding, I should say (although I don’t think it should matter) that I’m a Jewish male, 25 years old, and that I have written about this subject before in an earlier post where I chastised American Business Media for holding its annual charity golf and tennis tournament at a club that, to me, stunk of disinclusion.
First, let me answer a question a friend posed to me this past weekend: Do I think I’m a racist? I say: No. Why? Because I prefer not to judge people by their race, or assumed race. When I do judge them, I judge them by other factors, including but not limited to character, intelligence, wit, personality, and personal taste. I do not judge them by race, creed, color, nationality, sexuality, sex, gender, etc.
Read the rest of this entry »
As many of you read last week on my blog, there’s some disagreement about where the industry is really headed. We all seem to know that it’s headed vaguely away from where it’s been–but where is it really going?
The debate was renewed in this week’s issue of min’s b2b. As many of you have figured out, our mystery B2B executive who is bullish on print is Andy Goodenough. (For those of you who don’t know him well, his name is pronounced “good enough,” but said together, and quickly. I like it.) Read what he had to say here.
We also printed three other articles that would be of interest to people thinking about the print/online debate. Here they are:
B2B Marketers: From 90/10 to 50/50
BZ Media Plans New Print Pub Launch
I would also recommend that you take a look at Paul Conley’s excellent blog on this subject (the future of B2B). It’s a bit long, but really good and worth the time. Start at the very bottom (the first of the “five questions”) and then scroll up.
I talked with my friend who works at the company again last night. They said that there have been some defections: four fairly essential people, to be exact. Though they wouldn’t give me names or positions, “fairly essential” was qualified in this way: “they are important, but nobody very high level.”
The impression I got was that the situation has gone back to business as usual. That’s good news for both the company and its employees. I hope that they were able to work out their differences.
My friend adds, “work is pretty good, except when you get a memo from HR.” I think the message here, if anyone from BNP is listening, is that the Stagnito people prefer more informal, personal modes of communication. Just passing along.
I was just going to respond to some of Leslie’s comments, but I think I’d rather let min’s b2b do the talking on this one. Issue comes out tomorrow. There are three articles that discuss the print v. online debate. The first is a long discussion with John French, CEO of Penton. The second is from our mystery CEO…I won’t spoil it. And the third is a discussion about the very subject with two high-profile B2B brand marketers brought into the mix. I’d like to hear what you think about these articles after they run. You can either go to www.minononline/b2b tomorrow afternoon or you can wait until it comes out in print on Monday. Or, for this one time only, if you don’t have a subscription, I will send you the three articles once they’ve come out. If you’re in the square set of non-min’s b2b subscribers, you can email me at jgreenfield@accessintel.com.
I just got off the phone with a B2B CEO who wanted to shout from the rooftops that he still thinks print can grow. I tend to believe him, especially for certain industries and certain sections of those industries. His words will be in min’s b2b this week. For now, I’d like to make a related point:
You might hear publishers complaining that they have a hard time getting their sales staff to focus on selling a $500 piece of online inventory when they are used to getting commissions from a $5,000 ad page. Well, as Eric Shanfelt has suggested, maybe the price of the online ad inventory is artificially low…maybe it should be $5,000?
I think this cuts to the heart of the matter. The measuring the efficacy of advertising in a meaningful way has evolved significantly, but convincing marketers, advertisers, and agencies of the value of your inventory is still largely a sales-talent and marketing issue. Right now, online advertising has all the momentum, and maybe rightfully so, but this momentum is not based on a rock-solid foundation of immutable fact. Neither was the efficacy of print before it. I hope this idea becomes more clear as you read min’s b2b this week.
Over the weekend, a disgruntled Cygnus employee sent me a meeting that s/he had taped secretly. He assured me that what s/he had done was legal. The meeting was a teleconference between Tony O’Brien (co-CEO of the company) and a branch office. Here are some of the more interesting points/quotes:
“[We] finished 2006 with growth of 1.8% year over year. That growth rate, given the dynamic business we’re in, was disappointing to us, and disappointing to the folks at ABRY.“
“We’ll grow at 5.5% in 2007, and we’re pulling out all the stops to grow at 6%.“ We’ve grown our EBITDA “substantially” this year.
“These cuts are necessary to us to have a good relationship with our banks.”
“We have to be a better business than we were when we came in.”
“We did not have a credible interactive offering a year ago…now it is.”
“[We're] worried that people are wondering if they should jump ship before it sinks…but the ship’s not sinking.”
I was at our Integrated Marketing Awards breakfast this morning, and, to be honest, I generally don’t like awards shows, especially when they’re early in the morning. My favorite one to date is the one the Art Directors’ Club puts on. Although I do think our awards programs are great–honoring people and initiatives that nobody else recognizes in a way that only min can–I’ve just never enjoyed almost any awards show.
I did enjoy this morning’s.
The people seemed interested in networking and interested in seeing each other honored. It’s damn creative to think about how to orchestrate a marketing campaign that involves a nationwide music tour, online forums, direct mail, and, of course, ad pages. And, even if you do, to get results commensurate with the effort put in, well, that’s worth recognizing. Yet, the creativity on this side of the business isn’t given one-tenth the drool that we give people on the editorial side (not that they don’t deserve it…commence back-patting now).
I guess my one disappointment this morning was not seeing more B2B people there. I think that on the B2B side, we do a better job at integrated marketing than on the consumer side, hands down. Next year, I’d like to see a lot more B2B entries, and, of course, more B2B winners.
Click here to see our writeup on the event.
And here to see a list of the winners and honorable mentions.
I just finished moderating a panel for min on SEO and SEM. I won’t go over everything that I learned, but I found one point blog-worthy.
According to our panelists, blogs are becoming increasingly important as marketing conduits and content conduits for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Google gives them preferential treatment. The message is to put as much good content on blogs as possible, and, of course, optimize and market it.
More Information:
- Our panelists were Paul Bruemmer, director of search marketing at Red Door Interactive (a consultancy), Sandor Marik, director of search marketing at CondeNet, and Derek Fulford, search marketing manager at The Weather Channel Interactive.
- For more information on the webinar or to listen to it in its entirety, go here.
- Go to BuzzLogic.com to measure which blogs are the most popular in your industry.
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