Mary Berner

Nice article in October Folio: on Mary Berner, new CEO of Reader's Digest. Among the sacred cows she has slain is a ban on back cover advertising on Reader's Digest itself (I wouldn't know, tending to read about the latest celebrity suicide/20 pounds gained/bad haircut/breakup/hookup/20 pounds lost/new baby news in People when standing at the checkout line).

Reader's Digest with no back cover ad??? What WERE they thinking. Mary Berner had the reader's surveyed - predictably, they could care less. That's gotta be $2 million/year easy.

And come to think of it, what about all those midwestern Reiman publications with NO ads in them! Would the readers mind if a few ads for cranberry sauce or Jolly Green Giant peas were tossed in there. By golly, no!!

What do you think?? $50-75 million in two years?

What sacred cows do YOU have in your company? My favorite I hear these days is "we don't use print!" (Hah, you wondered how long it would take me to get onto THIS subject!).

as John Cleese says to the pet store owner in The Dead Parrot Sketch

"WHAT KIND OF TALK IS THAT?!!"

Why don't you use print?

Did it suddenly stop working?

Did someone tell you awareness and brand preference and demand don't matter anymore???

More (lot's more) on this later

But meanwhile, on Reader's Digest:

Way to go Mary Berner!