Ad Campaign Will Encourage People to \'Love People\'

September 11, 2012, 9:00 am

By STUART ELLIOTT

People magazine is addressing a slump in single copy sales â€" issues sold one by one, in venues like newsstands and supermarkets, rather than by annual subscription - with what executives are calling their most comprehensive advertising campaign to date.

The campaign, which carries the theme “People love People,” is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, to promote the Sept. 24 issue that will be the annual Best and Worst Dressed double issue. Ads will appear on national television, in print, online, in stores and in social media as well as in other magazines that, like People, are published by the Time Inc. division of Time Warner.

Single copy sales are important to the people at People because t hey bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue. About 35 percent of the 3.56 million copies that People sells each week are as single copy sales â€" by far the largest percentage for any Time Inc. title.

The ads will arrive not long after a report that People suffered a steep slump in single copy sales in the first half of 2012. The decline was 18.6 percent compared to the same period of 2011, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

By comparison, for all magazines tracked by the A.B.C., single copy sales in the first half fell 10 percent compared with the same period last year.

The campaign has a budget estimated at more than $16 million and is scheduled to run for the next year. It has been in the works for about 18 months, People executives say, and as a result is not a direct response to the decline in single-copy sales. People - and many other magazines that rely on single copy sales - have been experiencing difficulties in that realm for several years.

For one thing, since the recession consumers have been cutting back on impulse purchases like individual copies of magazines. A regular weekly issue of People costs $3.99 a copy on a newsstand or at a checkout, compared with about $2 a copy if bought by subscription.

Another problem for publishers is that consumers have been making fewer trips to shop since gasoline prices have been climbing, which means there are fewer occasions for them to peruse tempting displays of magazines at checkouts, newsstands or bookstores.

The goal is “to create the urgency” among readers “at the point of purchase, closing the deal,” said Karen Kovacs, publisher of People.

“We know people really love this brand,” she added. “It's just about engaging them, to drive the weekly excitement.”

Years ago, People regularly ran national television commercials to stimulate circulation, but those have n ot appeared in some years. “We haven't done anything to this extent,” Ms. Kovacs said, referring to the scope of the new campaign and its presence in new media that did not exist when People was a regular TV advertiser.

Of course, another reason for declining single copy sales is the amount of editorial content in the People bailiwick of celebrity news and gossip that is free in new media like online, mobile and social. The campaign acknowledges that by selling People as a franchise.

“All day, our reader is checking People in mobile and social,” Ms. Kovacs said. “During the week, she reads the Web site, and then the weekly magazine is her ‘me-time.' ” (The typical People reader is a woman, ages 18 to 54.)

The campaign was tested in five markets in the spring: Baltimore; Indianapolis; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Nashville; and Portland, Ore. The results showed “about an 8 percent lift in over all single copy sales,” said Jennifer Ogden-Reese, seni or vice president for consumer marketing of the Style and Entertainment Group at Time Inc., as well as increases in subscription sales, “Web site engagement and Facebook fans.”

“We were really encouraged,” she added, and hope that when the campaign runs nationally the percentage increase in single copy sales will be “in the low double digits.”

People is “the biggest retail revenue generator in the magazine industry,” Ms. Ogden-Reese said. “We want to re-ignite the emotional passion around the magazine.”

By giving readers “even more reason to buy,” she added, the campaign could “increase the buy rate” among regular customers.

That is often easier to achieve than to woo people who rarely or never buy the magazine. In another field, fast food, the strong sales gains in recent years at McDonald's have come from getting regular customers to stop in a time or two more each month rather than converting those who do not usually eat at the Golden Arches.

The People campaign is being created by an agency in New York named the Terri & Sandy Solution. The commercials depict pages and covers of People magazine flying through the air, looking like tiles, and forming colorful mosaic patterns.

In one spot, in which Bruno Mars sings “You're Amazing Just the Way You Are,” a female announcer comes on at the end and says: “Pick up this week's amazing issue of People. In stores now.”

Other ads will be devoted to themes. One, featuring photos from the annual Sexiest Man Alive issue, declares, “People love sexy.” Another, offering photos of stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, asserts, “People love legends.”

People's circulation has held fairly steady around 3.56 million because as single copy sales have decreased, subscription sales have increased. The ratio used to be 50-50, compared with the current split of 35 percent single copies and 65 percent subsc riptions.

But because single copy sales are more lucrative, People executives hope the campaign will help get them back on track.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter by clicking here.