What's Behind the "Wantedness" Mystique?

Circulation Management,  July 1, 2002  

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Byline: CHIP BLOCK

If Cole Porter were alive today and working in publishing, odds are that the song would've gone like this: "What is this thing called...wantedness?"

Actually, the vaunted quality of "wantedness" is probably even harder to define than love (and a lot less fun).

As we're all too aware, this word has become a kind of mantra within the advertising community, particularly during the last few years. Putting aside the dubious English of this coinage, there are two central mysteries relating to wantedness: One, it seems to be applied pretty much exclusively to magazines; and two, even the media buyers who constantly employ it seem to have little idea what the heck it really means.

I'm worked up enough about this particular topic that I've decided that it deserves two columns. In this first installment, I'll raise some questions and issues about this concept. My goal for September's column is to report feedback on wantedness from the advertising and publishing sectors. I'll endeavor to interview some executives on both sides, and would also welcome emailed comments. In the interest of getting honest input on a touchy subject, you may stipulate that you prefer not to be identified in print by name or organization, although you should identify yourself within the email. (Your anonymity will be preserved, but we do need to verify that you are a legitimate industry professional, as opposed to some crazed, non-industry person who is monitoring my column for reasons known only to him/herself.)

Moving on to the meat of the topic, then...

Again, I think we need to start by asking some fundamental questions about this concept. The first one that comes to mind is why wantedness, however it is defined, is more relevant in buying magazine ad space than it is in buying other media. Obviously, we also need to ask what this term really means to buyers. But more specifically, what assumptions are being made when it's used? Is a magazine's wantedness assumed to be directly correlated with the price a subscriber pays for it? With a subscriber's renewal performance? With other factors?

More questions: Why does anyone believe that wantedness can be quantified? Have some advertiser or media buying organizations actually come up with objective, verifiable ways of defining and measuring it?

Most important, why is it desirable to try to define and measure wantedness? Logically, one would assume that the only things that really matter to advertisers are how many reasonably targeted prospects for their products or services are a) being exposed to their ads; b) looking at and reading their ads; and c) being persuaded to consider buying or to actually buy those products or services.

Fine. So then the question is, do these basic motivations for advertising necessarily have anything to do with how much a given subscriber, or even newsstand buyer, "wants" the magazine? What is it, really, that compels a subscriber - or any reader - to pay attention to an ad in a magazine? (Or for that matter, what makes any person attend to any ad, in any medium?)

In this day of multiplying media options and shifting consumer product-consumption patterns - and in this economic climate, in particular - marketers would be crazy not to look for evidence that their dollars are being productively spent. And it's only fair to assume that those responsible for using those dollars are trying hard to pin down ways to deliver results and provide accountability. But why not focus on measuring the efficacy of advertising in a particular publication or other medium, rather than on how much someone "wants" the magazine itself?

If someone can show me that they've done real research that's resulted in hard, quantifiable evidence correlating price paid or any other factor used to define wantedness with advertising's effectiveness, I'm not only all ears - I'll gladly admit that I'm all wet right here in the pages of CM. (If, as we hear, General Motors has found a measurable relationship between editorial affinity and someone's likelihood of buying as a result of seeing an ad, great. But why is it so secretive?)

Unless there's genuine evidence that a magazine's wantedness, however it's defined, makes any difference in selling products, why does it matter? Could the quest to measure wantedness amount to advertisers trying to play publisher, instead of concentrating on achieving their real goals? After all, much as we depend upon and lust after advertising pages, these pages are in a real sense "guests" in our magazines. The main customer for our print products is supposed to be the reader, and publishers have hard, economic reasons to do everything possible to make their magazines wanted by their readers. Just like advertisers, our survival ultimately depends on providing products that people value enough to use. While sustaining and growing advertising revenue levels is the overriding financial concern of many publishers, all publishers know that a magazine that's not read is a magazine that will not long attract either reader or advertiser revenue.