Scott Donaton: 'The Integration of Advertising Messages Into Content Will Become More Prevalent'
The editor of Advertising Age says that audiences are receptive to magalogs and product placements in TV programs as long as advertisers don't try to be deceptive.

By Patrick Phillips
I Want Media, 12/18/03

Scott Donaton is the editor of Advertising Age, the 73-year-old Crain Communications publication for advertising, marketing and media professionals. In that role, Donaton oversees the editorial strategy and editorial operations of the weekly industry bible, as well as various line extensions. Donaton joined Ad Age right out of college as a reporter in 1989, and covered the magazine and the interactive media beats before he was appointed editor five years ago (except for a brief stint in the mid-1990s as editor of TV Guide Online).

Donaton spoke with I Want Media about a variety of current topics -- the failed A&F Quarterly, the hit Conde Nast magalog Lucky, the possible new trend of media deconsolidation, Bruce Wasserstein's New York magazine, and Rupert Murdoch's "tremendous impact on the very concept of news and news objectivity."

I Want Media: In a commentary this week, you described Abercrombie & Fitch as "desperate marketers." Why do you think they're desperate?

Scott Donaton: Their marketing tactics just smack of desperation. Up until last week, they put out catalogs that had [photographs of] nude people, interviews with porn stars and information on drinking games. But the brand is aimed at high school and college students. To me it just smelled desperate.

They didn't have anything interesting to say about their products, so they resorted to some kind of leering appeal. There's a difference between doing something edgy that stands out in the cluttered environment, and just making noise. And in my mind, Abercrombie was just making noise.

IWM: Who's good at doing something edgy and standing out?

Donaton: A brand that's edgy and has positioned itself really well is Mountain Dew. They've become very popular among teens. All of their commercials are very young, with a flashy, MTV style and [imagery of] extreme sports. A 35 year old might see the commercials and think, "What the heck was that?" But a 15 year old will see them and think, "Right on." Mountain Dew's ad messages reach young people without crossing the line into tastelessness.

IWM: Abercrombie's A&F Quarterly was basically a magalog. Isn't Conde Nast's Lucky -- which Ad Age named as its Magazine of the Year -- also a magalog? Aren't they both blurring the line between editorial and advertising?

Donaton: A&F Quarterly and Lucky are two different products. A&F Quarterly was clearly a custom magazine, which is a magazine designed for a specific advertiser. And, to me, the issue was not so much that A&F did a custom magazine, it was the content and the approach of that magazine. In the case of Lucky, it is something that has blurred the line in terms of what we think of as a traditional magazine.

Lucky is a new form of magazine publishing. And what makes it different from a magazine that you would say is blurring the line in a dangerous way is that Lucky is not trying to fool its readers. It's very honest about what it is. It may not be a magazine that I want to read; it's certainly not a magazine that I would want to edit. But I can respect that it has found an audience and an advertising base. It's been very successful, and it's done it without deceiving its readers.

The real danger of blurring of the line is if, for example, a magazine attempts to advance an advertiser's agenda and hides what it's doing from the reader. In the case of Lucky, it doesn't pretend that it's not a shopping magazine. And there's an audience out there that accepts it for what it is, and likes it.

IWM: The mixing of content and marketing is also turning up on TV in the form of product placement. Is the "blurring of the line" just more commonplace nowadays?

Donaton: Yes, absolutely. Technologies such as TiVo and audience fragmentation are bringing changes. Digital cable subscribers now literally have hundreds of channels available to them. So, network television -- the primary advertising medium -- is no longer as efficient as it has been. One way the ad industry is responding is by integrating products into programming. And marketers are taking ownership positions in shows and helping to develop them.

The integration of advertising messages into content will become more and more prevalent. I mean, you can't move all of that messaging into the programming, or else you would have programs that would be nothing but brand integration. But there is no doubt in my mind that as advertising evolves into new forms, this is going to be one of those forms.

Again, the key is not to deceive the audience, but to be honest about it. It's happening in television right now with reality programming, and viewers seem to accept it. Coca-Cola's presence in "American Idol" -- with the red room in back and Coke's name all over the place -- didn't seem to bother anyone. Certainly no one was fooled by it. The danger of blurring that line comes when the audience is deceived about the agenda.

IWM: What were the most important media and advertising stories of this past year?

Donaton: A lot of the stories about the "Madison + Vine" space -- about TiVo, about cable companies doing PVRs, about alliances between entertainment and advertising companies -- seem to indicate that there's a transfer of control going to the end user, the consumer.

The advertising industry and the entertainment industry have begun to work together to deal with the business model problems they both have. And consolidation continues to be a big factor due to its impact on our businesses.

IWM: What do you expect will be the big stories next year?

Donaton: Interestingly, one of the things that may start to happen -- and the AOL-Time Warner thing is maybe a leading edge of it -- is that we actually may see some of the consolidation of the last decade come undone. I'm not predicting a wholesale separation. But I think people are now realizing that some of the deals that have been put together don't necessarily make sense.

We'll start to see more opportunities for entrepreneurs who had been shut out by the consolidation and this feeling that you either had to be big or you couldn't make it. And I expect that there'll sort of be a reseeding of the ground, and that smaller companies and independent companies will start to become more relevant again.

IWM: The auction of Primedia's New York magazine received a lot of press attention. What's your take on the winning bid by Bruce Wasserstein? Will he be good for the magazine?

Donaton: I think the Wasserstein win will at least streamline the decision-making. It's interesting to see the magazine go to a more entrepreneurial bidder in this age of consolidation and conglomeration.

The Mort Zuckerman-led ownership group would have been fun to watch, but that's in part because of the potentially nightmarish clash of egos and agendas in a group with so many power personalities. [Media columnist] Michael Wolff is one of New York magazine's best assets. In my opinion, the new ownership should look to make the most of him.

IWM: I Want Media and The Week magazine are running a poll to name the Media Person of the Year -- the individual who had the most impact on the media landscape in 2003. Who gets your vote?

Donaton: I would say Rupert Murdoch. For better or worse, [his] Fox News Channel has had a tremendous impact on the very concept of news and news objectivity -- and across every platform, including print and the Internet. Here in New York, we've got the New York Post, which, love it or hate it, is extremely influential. And then you throw in his DirecTV acquisition ...

Murdoch is not only one of the most powerful media moguls in terms of size and clout, he also has this ability to change the rules. If everybody else is doing cable, he's going to do satellite. If everybody else is doing "objective" news, he's going to do "point-of-view" news. He breaks rules and reinvents models.

IWM: Advertising Age will be one of the media sponsors of the first-ever Advertising Week in New York City next September, a Fashion Week-style industry celebration. New York City, with its legendary Madison Avenue, has always been known as the home of the ad industry, so why is this happening now?

Donaton: I think the question is: Why hasn't it happened before now? Other industries that are part of New York celebrate their role in the city, yet advertising has never had anything like this. It's long overdue. It's also driven by the recession. The ad industry has been hit hard by the recession in the last couple of years. This event could be an opportunity to rebuild morale.

IWM: Does the advertising industry need better advertising, or PR?

Donaton: The advertising industry hasn't been very good at advertising itself, or promoting itself. I was speaking to somebody who owns a PR agency who said that he thinks PR agencies are terrible at getting PR for themselves. I think advertising agencies are terrible at advertising themselves.

IWM: Why is that?

Donaton: They'll give you various reasons; the most selfless being that they're in business for their clients, and they shouldn't be spending time and resources marketing themselves.

But if you look back to the 1930's, ad agencies were big advertisers in places like Fortune magazine. They often advertised the kind of results that their clients got. But, you know, winning new business at agencies is much more complex these days. They still go out with a lot of those results stories, but they try to tell them one-on-one. It's a very relationship-driven business.



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