Not surprising to see lad mag FHM shed some staff in its print division to focus online. Read more.
From 2000-05, I was a part of the team at AskMen that took on FHM, Maxim, Esquire, GQ and company in the lifestyle space. They had so much more resources at their disposal, but they all threw in the towel online before even putting up a fight.
As the VP of Ad Sales for AskMen, I would frequently lose ad business to the print mag’s online websites. A highlight of mine was losing a deal to Bacardi early on to Maxim’s website, and then upon finding out about it, emailing the media buyer a Letter from Maxim’s Editor Keith Blanchard titled “The Internet Bites.” It was from the February 2001 issue. Suffice to say after that, I managed to secure some business from Bacardi… not sure what happened to Mr. Blanchard, of course.
The thing is Maxim, FHM and company could have buried us online, but they chose to shy away from the fight. Today, with AskMen being hidden in IGN’s portfolio within News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, it’s not inconceivable for a Maxim or FHM to invest in marketing and surpass it and even dare I say it, take on the likes of ESPN.com as the largest site in terms of men’s audiences. But therein lies the problem, as much as lad mags have an identity online, if a media buyer wants to reach men, he or she can go to a Yahoo! or ESPN, so it might be hard for an FHM to really see a return. Then again, adding 3-5 people online can make a big difference and won’t exactly burn a hole in the corporate coffers.
It’s interesting: the lad mags have a lot of good content, but they definitely need to get their houses in order.
Tags: Internet & Web|
Posted By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | Aug 28th
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