Interesting story from Magazine World on product placement in magazines. Sample:

[R]esearch out this month … found that 65 percent of consumers believe that advertisers pay for editorial mentions. Moreover, the media agency found readers were not only receptive to such mentions but that they expected them.

Via Paul Heney on the ASBPE members' discussion forum (login needed).

Interesting post on how B2B pubs can create community--or, more aptly, create a home for a community--on Paul Conley's blog. A couple samples:

When communities have blossomed in the B2B world, they have followed a similar pattern. The community exists -- united by emotions more than by interests --but has no central location at which to interact. Then a B2B publication creates a "space" in which conversation can occur. Web sites seem to work best for this.

…

I've come to believe that community is most likely to occur in B2B media that serve industries where strongly held emotions are the norm. People who work in such industries do more than share interests, they share a belief system. And when people work at something that is more than a job, then they tend to think of the B2B publication they read as something more than a magazine.

…

The great lesson of the blogging phenomenon is that there is someone who feels passionately about any subject you can think of. … Any B2B journalist can tap into that power. You don't need to start a blog, but you do need to become more bloglike. If you allow readers to speak to you and each other, then you have created a place where community might arise. If you let people speak, you may find that they will listen.

The comments on the post are worth reading, too.

Thanks to MeetingsNet's Sue Pelletier for pointing it out.

Neither, according to the panelists at Thursday's State of the Industry panel. Steve Moylan, president of Reed Business Information's Boston Division, suggested a better b-word word to describe the outlook for B2B media: "boost" — slight growth resulting from a balancing of boom and bust in different industry segments. All three panelists agreed that online offerings and events will se growth, whereas print will be a challenge. So the net result will be modest growth overall for B2B media.

The panelists were Moylan, Bob Carrigan, president of International Data Group; and Gloria Adams, vice president of audience development at PennWell Corp. Folio: magazine managing editor Matt Kinsman was the moderator.

The panelists noted that cost per thousand ad impressions (CPM) they are able to charge has increased online, and some cases is even higher than CPM for the same product in print. No one felt that online CPM was where it should be, though.

None of the panelists thought paid online content would be a growth area. As Moylan pointed out, the B2B model has always been to provide free information. "I've never understood the paid-circulation model," he said. He pointed out that even when a consumer magazine like Sports Illustrated sells a subscription, the publisher has to offer so many incentives to get that subscription that it's not really making money on the "paid" sub. And consumer magazines don't even capture information on readers the way B2B pubs do, so they don't have that value to offer to the advertiser. In Carrigan's view, that ability to segment our audience by demographics and to target those segments is one of the big growth areas for B2B media.

A longer recap of the panel will appear on the Boston chapter's page on asbpe.org.