As they wrap up a brutal year, many magazines are able to make a claim they haven't in a long time: Ad pages are up in the fourth quarter.

With a last-minute push from food, beauty and auto marketers, many titles saw an uptick in ad pages -- or at least smaller declines. Hearst's Good Housekeeping managed a 6.5 percent increase in December, and American Express Publishing's Food & Wine posted a 1 percent bump. Time Inc. is seeing fourth-quarter improvements in 14 out of its 19 ad categories.

"Food and beverage is up. They're spending more in the fourth quarter, knowing people are hunkering down more at home," said Stephanie George, Time Inc.'s president of ad sales and marketing. "Domestic auto has been incredible this year. It's nowhere near what it once was, but we're really bouncing back. The beauty companies are being more aggressive for the holiday season."

With most titles' full-year results in, ad pages were down 21.7 percent for 2009 versus '08, per the Mediaweek Monitor (full results at Mediaweek.com). Business, travel and shelter titles generally fared worse while entertainment, food, and women's and men's lifestyle pubs' declines were smaller.

Looking at results by company, Meredith was one of the best performers, with five titles that were up in pages for 2009 and three that were down. For the second half of 2009 (the first half of Meredith's 2010 fiscal year), Meredith's overall pages were up 2.9 percent versus the year-ago period. Hearst counted six titles with ad-page declines in excess of 23 percent, and seven down between 10-16 percent. Rodale's year-over-year pages were down 27 percent for all 2009 (or down 20 percent excluding BestLife, which folded in May). Conde Nast didn't release company-wide numbers, but sources there projected overall ad pages would be down about 30 percent. Glamour was projected to be down 17 percent, Lucky down 26.8 percent, and Architectural Digest down by nearly half.

This fourth-quarter lift won't likely carry over into first quarter, which is typically a slow time of year for magazines anyway, publishers said. But if they aren't seeing a resurgence in advertising, they predict ad spending will be at least level with 2009.

"What we're going to have in the first quarter is flat," said Bill Wackermann, Glamour's publisher. "Consumers are slowly dipping their toes back in, getting over the fear of shopping. It's going to be a slow climb."

"I don't see a lot of budgets and decisions being made," said Claudia Malley, vp, U.S. publisher, National Geographic. "Everything is last minute. They're still waiting for consumers to show signs of confidence."

"Nobody's ready to jump all in," agreed Jeff Fischer, svp, managing director of Universal McCann's print activation group. "The big story I continue to hear is people are making commitments later and later."



Where money was being spent, publishers said they benefited from having relevant editorial in today's recessionary times, fresh redesigns and unusual creative units. Time Inc.'s InStyle, for one, is jumping on the augmented reality trend with its December issue. The cover will trigger a video when the user holds it up to a Webcam. Inside, a holiday buying guide called Gifting in 3-D will let readers click to buy advertisers' products when activated by a Webcam.

Some publishers also said that in a few cases, schedule changes that enabled them to take ads later in the sales cycle helped their paging.

Above all, publishers said efforts to sell large, integrated deals are paying off. "I do see people wanting that 360 [degree] approach in all categories," said Reader's Digest vp, publisher Tracey Altman. "I've seen it on every RFP we've filled out this year, probably more so than last year."

With that in mind, RD created a pet contest in 2009, sponsored by Procter & Gamble's Iams, that involved a presence in print, online and on NBC's Today show, where the winner was announced.

And Rodale saw the share of its print revenue attached to multi-platform, customized programs grow to 13 percent in '09 from 11 percent in '08. It hopes to continue that growth in '10. The publisher is working to sew up sponsorships of three programs involving ads in multiple titles, a sign of confidence that advertisers are ready to spend if the idea is right.

"In 2009, they kind of retreated and said, 'We just want to do traditional media and [we'd] like a discount, too,'" said MaryAnn Bekkedahl, evp, group publisher, Rodale. "We're seeing much more leeway. I feel like there's a sense that it can't be worse than 2009, and now they're thinking about growth again."

Let's hope.

See also: "Hearst, Time, Wenner Plot Marketing Push"