Time Warner, Inc.
Time Warner Inc.CARTOON NETWORK PROMOTIONAL AND BRANDING CAMPAIGNTHE WORLD'S MOST INTERESTING MAGAZINE CAMPAIGN1 Time Warner CenterNew York New York 10019-8016USATelephone: (212) 484-8000Web site: www.timewarner.com
Time Warner, Inc.CARTOON NETWORK PROMOTIONAL AND BRANDING CAMPAIGNTHE WORLD'S MOST INTERESTING MAGAZINE CAMPAIGN1 Time Warner CenterNew York, New York 10019-8016USATelephone: (212) 484-8000Web site: www.timewarner.com Source for information on Time Warner, Inc.: Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns dictionary.
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CARTOON NETWORK PROMOTIONAL AND BRANDING CAMPAIGN

THE WORLD'S MOST INTERESTING MAGAZINE CAMPAIGN

1 Time Warner Center

New York, New York 10019-8016

USA

Telephone: (212) 484-8000

Web site: www.timewarner.com

CARTOON NETWORK PROMOTIONAL AND BRANDING CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

In 1998 Time Warner Inc.'s Cartoon Network, second in children's programming to Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon Network, was a 24-hour basic-cable service offering nonstop animated entertainment. Cartoon Network created and showcased original programming such as Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Drawing from the world's largest cartoon library, it also relied heavily on reruns of such classic cartoon series as The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo along with the entire Warner Brothers cartoon archive. Time Warner and vice chairman Ted Turner hoped that Warner Brothers' material and its own ad campaigns would make Cartoon Network a top channel, with 60 million-plus subscribers, by the first years of the twenty-first century.

For the first time in the Cartoon Network's six-year history, advertisements for the network appeared outside of the channel's own programming, in the form of small television campaigns and cross-promotions with other brands. March 31, 1998, marked the debut of "Get Tooned," a campaign that resulted from the partnership between the Cartoon Network and food company Kraft Foods, Inc. Cartoon characters appeared on Kraft packaging. Several "Get Tooned" spots were created with the Cartoon Network's $53 million on-air budget. The network's senior vice president of on-air promotions, Michael Ouweleen, developed the fictional Cartoon Crisis Center for the spots, in which phone counselors humorously guided cartoon characters through the stress of cartoon stunts. The tagline for all the spots was "Screwy, Ain't It?" The next year the Cartoon Network released a nationwide promotion titled "Coaster 2 Coaster" in conjunction with Six Flags theme parks. In 1999 the network formed a cross-branding campaign with the snack maker Pepperidge Farms titled "Ultimate Cartoon Hangout." Similar promotions and branding campaigns continued into 2006.

In November 2000 the Cartoon Network met its goal with 67.5 million U.S. subscribers and 145 million subscribers worldwide. The campaigns also earned several ad-industry awards, including a 2002 Gold One Show award in the category of Consumer TV (Various Lengths). In 2004 one spot garnered a gold medal for media promotion at the Golden Award of Montreux, an advertising festival held in Switzerland.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Cartoon Network was launched in 1992 when Turner Broadcasting, Inc., acquired the 8,500-cartoon Hanna-Barbera and MGM cartoon libraries. After a tough start, Cartoon Network began to grow rapidly during the mid-1990s. The network was able to challenge the cable children's channel Nickelodeon, in markets where they competed, with little more than reruns of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons. Early in 1994 the burgeoning cable channel finally broke even thanks to high ratings. Limited channel capacity and re-regulation, however, meant its subscriber base faced a challenge in moving much past 11 million homes.

In 1995 Turner Broadcasting merged with international media conglomerate Time Warner. That alliance brought additional material from the vast Warner Brothers library, including a complete set of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons. The merger, with its influx of new programming, helped propel Cartoon Network to even more robust growth. "Cartoon Network may have just turned 4 years old, but it's not acting like a toddler," announced network president Betty Cohen in 1996. "Where we aren't on yet, we're usually either first or second in line. You're never happy [with your subscriber count], but at least those 30 million homes are real homes that haven't been acquired through cash payments or retransmission-consent deals."

The network added 16 million subscribers between December 1996 and December 1997 alone. By the end of 1997 the channel was available in nearly 50 million homes nationwide. Viewership grew correspondingly, according to Nielsen Media Research; by February 1998 it was in seventh place in prime-time ratings among the top 20 cable channels. That growth enabled Cartoon Network to embark upon an aggressive promotional push for 1998, many aspects of which involved cartoon characters in lieu of flesh-and-blood stars.

TARGET MARKET

Cartoon Network saw its marketing mission as selling "the cartoon spirit, its zaniness," according to Cohen. "That way we appeal to the kid in everyone, even the adult market, which is crazy for cartoons." While the principal market for cartoons was children ages 2 to 11, the network was able to broaden its base considerably by playing on the nostalgia of adult viewers as well. Worldwide, more than 35 percent of Cartoon Network's audience were adults, a fact that made it especially attractive to advertisers. Besides such traditional children's show advertisers as Nestlé and Procter & Gamble, companies that focused on adults, such as Max Factor, bought time on the Cartoon Network.

As an illustration of this trend, one of the Cartoon Network's top-rated shows was Scooby-Doo, a 1970s Hanna-Barbera series about a group of teenage sleuths and a dim-witted Great Dane who drove around in a psychedelic van solving mysteries. Children ages 2 to 11 made up 68 percent of the audience for Scooby-Doo, while adults comprised 25 percent. Nostalgia for the animated characters of their youth explained the show's appeal to adults. "From 1969 to 1991, Scooby was never out of production," explained Fred Seibert, Hanna-Barbera's president. "You have 22 years of audiences with fresh Scooby-Doo episodes in their minds. All those people are now at the age where they have enough time, enough memory, and enough money to capture the parts of their lives they enjoyed the most."

FLIGHT OF THE BOOMERANG

How many cartoon networks could one market sustain? In July 1999 Turner Broadcasting decided to try answering that question when it announced plans to introduce a second cable television channel featuring all-day and all-night cartoons. The new channel, to be called Boomerang, was scheduled to begin airing on April Fools' Day, 2000.

The launch of Boomerang marked a shift in strategy for Cartoon Network. The first network would now focus on airing original cartoons, while Boomerang featured cartoons from the company's Hanna-Barbera library. "Boomerang would serve baby boomers and kids ages 2 to 7," explained Cartoon Network president Betty Cohen. "These people have told us they want more of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons." In contrast, Cartoon Network would be marketed more to middle-graders, teenagers, and young adults who, studies showed, favored contemporary animation. To boost original production, Turner Broadcasting planned to create a separate animation studio for Cartoon Network. The Atlanta-based cable giant hoped to lease a building and renovate it into a state-of-the-art facility in Los Angeles.

Boomerang's creation reminded many cable industry analysts of a strategy Turner Broadcasting followed with its TNT and Turner Classic Movies channels. At first, TNT featured old movies from Turner Broadcasting's vast film library. Then the channel switched to airing films made in the 1970s and 1980s and live sports programming. The company then moved its old movies to a new channel, Turner Classic Movies.

COMPETITION

Nickelodeon was the reigning king of cable television children's programming in the 1990s, capturing over 50 percent of the children's television market. As of 1999 Nickelodeon's Rugrats was entrenched as the most popular cartoon program on television (most weeks the show was among the top 15 basic cable programs, with a typical audience of more than 3 million). Several channels posed a challenge to Nickelodeon's dominance, however, including Walt Disney, Fox, the Cartoon Network, and the three major networks.

Historically, Cartoon Network provided the stiffest competition for Nickelodeon. As early as 1996 independent research showed that, in homes that got both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon's ratings were lower among viewers ages 2 to 11 than in homes that did not have Cartoon Network. The two cable networks employed similar methods in competing for the same audience. Like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network worked extremely hard to market itself as a safe and fun television haven for children. "It's like the reruns that do better on [Nickelodeon spin-off] Nick at Nite than they would somewhere else—the network has created a destination," said Cohen. "A cartoon that runs on our network and that also runs on another Turner network, like TBS or TNT, will do better with us, because we're a destination."

On the other hand, there were also some salient differences in the ways Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network pursued their viewers. "If Nickelodeon is about empowering kids, Cartoon Network is about freedom to be wacky and zany," explained Joe Uva, president of sales and marketing for Turner Broadcasting. Cartoon Network also gained a competitive advantage against Nickelodeon because it was the only network devoted to full-time children's programming.

MARKETING STRATEGY

"We are the champions of all things 'cartoony,'" Craig McAnsh, Cartoon Network's senior vice president of marketing, said in explaining the cable channel's personality. "If something can come from the world of cartoons, smash through the glass of a TV set, and somehow penetrate a kid's life, then we've achieved that personality. We are cranky, surprising, and a little irreverent. Our tonality tries to reinforce all those things."

Cartoon Network's 1998 television advertising campaign was designed to reflect that iconoclastic "tonality." In one series of spots, "Cartoon Crisis Center," created in-house by Michael Ouweleen, creative director and senior vice president of on-air promotions for the network, telephone counselors manned emergency hotlines in a Cartoon Crisis Center. In one representative spot, "Ledge," a crisis counselor was depicted talking to a cartoon character who had walked off a ledge. He told the animated creation what to expect: first his legs would run in place while funny music played, then he would fall to the ground, creating a hole in his exact outline, and finally, he would walk off making accordion noises. The tagline for all the spots was "Screwy, Ain't It?" "That campaign went a long way to helping define our personality," said McAnsh.

In addition to these commercials, Cartoon Network ran $53 million worth of on-air sponsored promotions in 1998. That year the network completed its on-air promotional calendar by mid-April, achieving its earliest and most profitable yearlong schedule of corporate-sponsored on-air events to date. In one such promotion, Cartoon Network and Kraft Foods—a major children's advertiser that had been a mainstay partner with Nickelodeon—struck a $10 million deal to feature the Cartoon Network logo and animated characters on some 80 million boxes of macaroni and cheese, cereals, and other foods popular with children. Cartoon Network characters appeared on Kraft products through March 31, 1998, as part of a publicity campaign called "Get Tooned." Among those products were Post brand cereals, Hand-Snacks, Kool-Aid, and Kraft Singles. Cartoon Network also conducted a contest that awarded one lucky child a free trip to Hollywood. The winner was featured in an original two-minute cartoon produced by the channel's animators. "This helps us plant our brand name in areas where we're not always visible," said Jodi Tull, the channel's director of promotion marketing. "We're also partnering with a brand that is already powerful with kids."

The "Get Tooned" promotion was a breakthrough in several ways for Cartoon Network. It was the first time the channel had promoted itself outside of television advertising. The Kraft deal also represented the first time Cartoon Network used characters from both its Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers Looney Tunes libraries in a promotion campaign. Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and Marvin the Martian were among the Looney Tunes characters. The Hanna-Barbera characters included Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, and a new one called Dexter.

Dexter was also featured in a giveaway featuring Dexter-related toys and a Dexter Laboratory built in the winning child's bedroom as the grand prize. Cartoons tied in with Discovery Zone for on-air spots in this promotion, which also featured the zany Dexter Mobile, a specially equipped bus that toured 25 cities and 64 stops in 90 days, including Discovery Zone locations, Six Flags theme parks, and various malls. The Dexter Mobile events were organized in conjunction with Beyond DDB, Chicago, a division of the ad agency DDB Needham Worldwide. Additional tour sponsors included Schering-Plough Corp.'s Coppertone, Gardetto's, and Nestlé Foods. The Dexter tour provided another example of the way in which Cartoon Network branded itself. "The promotion was very much about treating our characters as stars," said Cohen.

Cartoon Network's other on-air sponsored promotions in 1998 included Coaster 2 Coaster, a spring contest to send children on a roller coaster journey across the United States sponsored by Six Flags Theme Parks, got milk?, and Zoinks!; an October celebration of the ever-popular Scooby-Doo and the 25th anniversary of Lego; and Say When!, an annual toy-driven holiday fantasy from Hasbro Toys and Games. Finally, Toonami, Cartoon Network's afternoon adventure programming block, provided a launching ground for instant on-air giveaways for premiere toy manufacturers Nintendo, Bandai America, and Hasbro Toys and Games. "We could not ask for a more prominent list of sponsors to be involved in Cartoon Network integrated promotions," declared McAnsh. "It's a compliment to us that recognized industry leaders such as these choose to align themselves with our emerging brand of cartoon entertainment."

To supplement the on-air promotional spots, Cartoon Network's Cartoon Branding Group created a number of major brand extensions in 1998, including retail, music, theme parks, and publishing. On the retail side, the network partnered with Six Flags Over Georgia in Atlanta for the 31,000-square-foot Cartoon Network Superstore. There was also a Camp Cartoon Network section at Six Flags Great America park in Gurnee, Illinois, featuring a number of rides tied to cartoon characters. On the music side, Cartoon produced character-titled music CDs in a partnership with Kid Rhino Records.

Time Warner connections also played a key part in Cartoon Network's 1998 marketing strategies. The network experimented with stand-alone, branded sections inside some Warner Brothers Studio stores. Publishing partner DC Comics, also owned by parent Time Warner, produced comics and activity books featuring Cartoon Network characters. And in a major Warner Brothers children's direct-to-home video release, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Cartoon Network inserted a trailer hyping its upcoming new series The Powerpuff Girls and Ed, Edd n Eddy.

In 1999 Cartoon Network partnered with another provider of children's snacks, Pepperidge Farm, for the "Ultimate Cartoon Hangout" campaign. Characters from cartoons were placed on two million packages of Pepperidge Farm Flavor Blasted Goldfish Crackers. A 60-second commercial that mixed cartoons with computer-animated Pepperidge Farm Goldfish also aired on the network. To promote its popular Powerpuff Girls cartoon, Cartoon Network joined with Nintendo in 2000 to create a Game Boy video game featuring Powerpuff characters. Cartoon Network then gave away 500 Game Boy Color systems and Powerpuff Girls games via an on-air promotion.

In early 2002 Cartoon Network serviced 77.7 million subscribers and was about to campaign for one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. Movie critics predicted failure for the feature-length film Scooby-Doo, which was based on one of the Cartoon Network's most popular cartoons. The movie lacked A-list actors and was financed by AOL Time Warner, one of the smaller studios in the movie industry. Nonetheless, on its opening weekend the movie earned $56.4 million, more than any other movie that month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The film's success was partially credited to its heavy promotion on Cartoon Network. Scooby-Doo advertisements targeted not only children but also adults who had watched the show during the 1970s and 1980s. Time Warner specifically advertised Scooby-Doo to adults by featuring ads on AOL's website.

OUTCOME

Cartoon Network's advertisements and its on-air and off-air promotions helped it achieve exceptional ratings and delivery gains in 1998. The campaigns helped propel Cartoon Network to second place among basic-cable networks in the 6- to 11-year-old demographic group in total day Nielsen ratings during the summer, right after Nickelodeon. One successful campaign, "Dexter's Duplication Summer," promoting the network's original animated series Dexter's Laboratory, drew 35 million phone calls over eight weeks—despite the fact that the toll-free phone number was only flashed on the screen once a day.

The strong performance of Cartoon Network's marketing programs and brand campaign earned the cable channel widespread industry recognition, including several awards. Advertising Age magazine named Cartoon Network its 1998 Cable TV Marketer of the Year. At the 22nd annual One Show Awards in New York, sponsored by the One Club for Art & Copy, Cartoon Network won gold in the 30-second campaign category for its internally created image campaign and took a silver in the 30-second single-spot category for "Ledge." The network also won several Golden Marble Awards at the first annual Advertising to Kids Conference, hosted by Brunico Marketing of Los Angeles. The judges consisted of a panel of senior creative professionals from ad agencies and from the children's entertainment industry. The campaign later won two Gold One Show awards, one in the Consumer TV (Various Lengths) category and one in the Consumer TV (Under $50,000 Budget) category. In 2004 one spot, titled "Duck vs. Rabbit," which was created by the animation studio Cuppa Coffee, collected a gold medal at the Golden Award of Montreux, an international advertising competition held in Switzerland. The spot promoted a 12-hour marathon of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, negatively affected ratings for both Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network. One year later, however, Cartoon Network's ratings bounced back; from the fourth quarter of 2002 to the first quarter of 2003, the daytime delivery for Cartoon Network rose 8 percent for children between 2 and 11 years old, according to the data analysts Nielsen Media Research.

As much as the Cartoon Network increased its subscriber base, Nickelodeon increased its own even more and continued to dominate the children's television market. In 2002 Nickelodeon reported its best year ever. With hit shows such as Blue's Clues, Little Bear, Dora the Explorer, Bill Cosby's Little Bill, and Franklin, Nickelodeon remained the leader in 2003 and ranked number one for children ages 2 to 5. Its share of the 2- to 11-year-old market grew 3 points in 2003.

FURTHER READING

Ault, Susanne. "Mattel Motors to Warner to Distrib Hot Wheels Titles." Video Business, February 14, 2005, p. 5.

Carvell, Tim, and Joe McGowan. "Showdown in Toontown." Fortune, October 28, 1996, p.100.

Curry, Sheree. "A Seller's Market." Television Week, April 14, 2003, p. 22.

Lippman, John, and Bruce Orwall. "'Scooby-Doo,' Where Are You?" Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2002, p. B5.

Ross, Chuck. "Cartoon Network: Cable TV Marketer of the Year." Advertising Age, November 30, 1998, p. S1.

Robert Schnakenberg

Kevin Teague

THE WORLD'S MOST INTERESTING MAGAZINE CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

In the early 1990s media watchers predicted the death of the weekly news magazines, yet Time magazine seemed as strong or stronger than ever in 1997. To succeed in changing times, the magazine adapted by emphasizing the depth, interest, and insight it brought to a wide span of subjects.

Introduced in 1996, Time's "The World's Most Interesting Magazine" campaign grew to include more than 50 color print ads. The series, from the advertising agency Fallon McElligott, featured large, compelling photographs with a key section boxed by the Time icon—the magazine's name within a red border. The mostly print campaign ran first and foremost in Time but also appeared in several other Time Warner publications-Sports Illustrated, Money, and Fortune—as well as some trade journals.

One ad featured an aerial shot of a forest and road engulfed in smoke. A stream of emergency vehicles headed into what looked like a major forest fire. With the Time icon partially hidden by the smoke, the copy read, "If there's a story in there, we'll find it." Another ad showed X Game competitors in helmets and bright colored leathers whisking around a race track corner. The leader's helmet was boxed by the Time icon, and the copy read "824 words on the X Games. (And only two of them were 'dude.')" A sports ad used the Time icon to frame boxer Evander Holyfield's ear just after Mike Tyson had bitten it. The copy read, "What kind of bandage can boxing possibly put on this?" When a gorilla nurtured and protected a three-year-old boy who had fallen into her enclosure at a zoo, Time used the photograph in the campaign with the line, "A weekly reminder that the world is a pretty amazing place." The only ad in the campaign that did not use copy showed a heavily perspiring President Bill Clinton framed by a red box. It ran early in 1998 during the height of speculation about the President's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Time used this series to stress the depth and breath of its coverage. The magazine wanted to move beyond the usual assumptions about weekly news magazines and broaden people's view of what they could find within Time. Building brand affinity was another campaign goal. The campaign demonstrated that the 75-year-old magazine covered not only hard news and major world events but also technology, business, sports, lifestyle, and entertainment.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

For several years the three major weekly news magazines—Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report—had been called dinosaurs. The theory was that with so many up-and-coming news sources (cable news stations like CNN and MSNBC, television talk shows, national editions of newspapers, the Internet, week-in-review sections) the weekly news magazines were not needed. But instead of disappearing, the magazines gained strength while some competitors—newspapers and network TV—struggled to stay afloat.

Critics claimed the weekly news magazines were losing their hard news edge and pampering readers by featuring pop culture stories. They pointed out that during a week when India and Pakistan were testing nuclear bombs, Time devoted its cover to the death of entertainer Frank Sinatra. While in 1987 Time's cover featured government or foreign affairs 23 times, by 1997 that number dwindled to five. The number of celebrity covers changed little over this 10-year span—from seven in 1987 to eight in 1997.

Time began stressing elements such as human interest stories, entertainment, health and science, and women's issues and lifestyle that had formerly been associated with other types of magazines, such as Reader's Digest, People, Prevention, and Ladies Home Journal. The magazine also changed format, going for a more graphic look, shorter articles, and more photographs and charts. And it produced more special issues covering colleges, personal finance, health, business, and technology. These changes needed to be communicated and explained to the Time audience.

"The World's Most Interesting Magazine" campaign grew directly out of Time's 1995 campaign, "Understanding Comes with Time." To deal with the "dinosaur issue," the 1995 campaign reasserted the value of the weekly news magazine. The campaign sought to emphasize that while there were many different outlets through which to receive news, many of them provided headline news without the depth, perspective, and insight Time could provide. "Understanding Comes with Time " focused on the magazine's coverage of big news stories and its commitment to giving readers a fuller understanding of them. "The World's Most Interesting Magazine" carried on much of the look and feel of the earlier campaign but focused on the wide variety of subject matter and interests Time covered.

TARGET MARKET

Because Time strove not to increase circulation but to increase the quality of the audience within that circulation, the campaign targeted current Time subscribers. Historically the magazine has kept a close watch on the demographics of its readership and has kept its advertisers informed of the type of readers it has.

According to Pew Research Center, about 15 percent of all adult Americans regularly read Time, Newsweek, or U.S. News & World Report. Compared with the general population, this audience is older with a strong upscale orientation. In 1997 Pew Research found 13 percent of readers were under age 30 while 40 percent were age 50 or older. The same study found that 44 percent of regular news weekly adult readers had an annual household income of at least $50,000; 27 percent had incomes of more than $75,000.

Compared with other adults, these readers followed some subjects, like international affairs and national politics, more closely. Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report readers were 80 percent more likely than the total adult population to be very close followers of international events.

COMPETITION

In 1997 Time was the clear leader in its category. Its 4.2 million subscriber base was 1 million more than Newsweek's and about 2 million more than U.S. News & World Report's. These competitors were not an influential factor in Time's campaign. During the year both Newsweek and U.S. News concentrated on advertising directed toward the industry or advertisers.

In response to increasing competition beyond the other two weekly news magazines, Time no longer sought to be the sole all-encompassing source for news. Instead, the magazine assumed its readers got the news headlines from television, radio, and other sources. Time's role became explaining the news and providing insight into headline stories.

CLIENT IDEAS STRENGTHENED TIME CAMPAIGN

"Usually when they [Time] push us it's to get us to look at an issue from Time's perspective," said the art director on the campaign, Bob Barry. For example, the agency proposed an ad about a bombing in Northern Ireland that killed three children. The photograph showed a crowd mourning at the funeral as three tiny caskets were carried in. The proposed headline illustrated more about the situation in Ireland than about the perspective that Time brought to the story: "What Will It Take To Achieve Peace in Ireland?" The magazine asked for a rewrite. Copy writer Dean Buckhorn wrote another headline that won quick approval: "We'll Let You Know If Ireland Can Also Wage Peace." "The client has been great," said Barry, "they have their opinions and they're usually right."

MARKETING STRATEGY

When Walter Isaacson took over as managing editor in 1996, he instituted a high-profile, high-interest strategy that helped restore the magazine's authority. "We've brought more storytelling to Time, to try to get at great issues through interesting tales, and to create high impact journalism that makes a difference," he said. Isaacson raised awareness of the magazine by being a frequent social and talk show presence. He also redefined Time's role away from hard news toward lifestyle and high interest topics.

In 1997 Time's cover featured, among others, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, film director Steven Spielberg, pop singer Jewel, actor Brad Pitt, and comedian Bill Cosby on the death of his son. Also making the cover were features such as "What's Cool This Summer," "Turning Fifty," and "The Most Fascinating People in America." Hard news cover stories included "Big Tobacco Takes a Hit," "Does Gore Have What It Takes?," "What's Wrong at the FBI?" and "Echoes of the Holocaust."

Editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine told the Columbia Journalism Review that the switch from hard news to lifestyle subjects was attributable to two factors. One was the healthy economy. People felt secure and comfortable and were less concerned with hard news than they had been during a tense period such as the Cold War or a bad economy. The other factor was the readers' search for stories focusing on self-interest topics. "It's not surprising that the country has turned more inward. There's always been a balance between educating your reader and serving your reader, but we're not getting a lot of demand for international coverage these days," Pearlstine said.

Time wanted to be viewed less as a studious read and more as an engaging read. While maintaining a hard news element, Time sought to broaden the base of reasons to get involved with the magazine. "This campaign was an attempt to say what people enjoy about the magazine is very personal. Just as the concept of 'interesting' is a self-defined idea, what you take from the magazine is self-defined as well, so that gave us an umbrella so we could say we are different things to different people. There's surprise along with what you expect every week," said Fallon McElligott's Amy Frisch.

Time also decided to concentrate on its long-term relationship with readers. Subscribers to weekly news magazines are among the most attractive targets for advertisers. They are well educated with high incomes and in job positions where they often control significant expenditures. Time studied its core readers and looked for ways to retain them and improve the quality of its readership. Creating a campaign with high interest visuals and provocative copy seemed right.

Nearly all the images used in the campaign first appeared in Time stories. When looking for ideas, the Fallon McElligott team targeted those stories in which Time had both captured strong visuals and delivered a unique written perspective or analysis. An earlier proposed campaign that emphasized the visuals was rejected because the magazine also wanted to convey the importance of its writing.

Senior management had an usually deep involvement in designing the campaign. Each ad was approved by Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and president Bruce Hallett. Time often improved the campaign through its suggestions to the agency's creative team. The campaign ads were instantly identifiable as Time's. With the traditional icon prominent in every ad, readers quickly recognized which magazine was being advertised. The campaign ran mostly—about 70 percent—in consumer magazines, with some trade magazines and a few TV spots on CNN and elsewhere.

The campaign's creators intended for its more than 50 different ads to flow together but also to be distinct from one another. Rather than creating a few ads and running them frequently, the strategy was to continually change the running ad to emphasize the many different aspects of the magazine's contents and to keep the campaign fresh and timely.

OUTCOME

In 1997 key demographics of Time's readership improved. The magazine held and increased its subscriber base and made the type of quality gains in audience that advertisers seek. The goal of renewed brand affinity was also met to the magazine's satisfaction. Time's 1997 financial results were among the best in the business. Newsstand sales increased 40 percent. Reported ad revenue increased 21 percent (an additional $94 million). Ad pages jumped 16 percent. The gain in ad revenue was nearly three times that posted by the two other major weekly news magazines combined.

Adweek listed Time number one on its list of the 10 hottest magazines in 1997. The campaign itself garnered many awards, including several Addy Awards at the American Advertising Federation Awards.

FURTHER READING

Hickey, Neil. "Money Lust: How Pressure for Profit Is Perverting Journalism." Columbia Journalism Review July/August 1998, p. 28.

Pogrebin, Robin. "At Work and at Play, Time's Editor Seeks to Keep Magazine Vigorous at 75." New York Times March 9, 1998, Business Section, Page C6.

Sheets, Ken. "Time Warner Confounds The Skeptics." Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine May 1998, p. 32.

"Who Reads The Newsweeklies?." Research Alert November 21, 1997, p. 7.