Do you think the mainstream surfing media/industry stands to benefit more from dividing its consumer base, or by promoting unity and diversity?
When the economy is good and everyone is spending the media benifits from dividing and conquering. But, when the spending gets tight, too many mags and not enough ad dollars to go around really put the pinch on the media.
The current trend in advertising is to divide and conquer. And I think it will stay that way regardless of the economy. The more you know your target audience the more effective the ads. The magazines can control their readership by content and make a more attractive medium for the advertisers. The biggest division I see now is the kids vs mature audience. Have you noticed the proliferation of Surfer Journal-like magazines? It seems (to me anyway) that other portions of the industry are headed the same way; longboard or shortboards but not many doing both…Retailing, though, will have to sell everything under the same roof. Did I hear right? Surfer Magazine now owns Surfing? Just like soft drinks…
ing bought er. It’s interesting that you guys talk about readership of the “popular” surf mags. Both these mags used to sell in the neighborhood of 250,000 copy’s per issue. Check out today’s published numbers and they’re down to 110,000 per issue. Of those 70,000 are subscription with probably over half of those going to doctor and dentist offices. The remaining few go to kids that just look at the pictures. Short story is, they don’t have “readership.” They make it almost totally on advertising dollars from companies who still believe that they have. Bottom line is they are today smoke and mirrors. Making advertisers believe that they have some kind of impact and kissing the asses of those who spend the most.