I’m here to help build up Ringier’s portfolio of online and print properties. What staff I already have is loyal, entrenched and talented in unique ways. I’m responsible for hiring the rest. Like any new company, we’re faced with tight budgets, strong competition and huge mandates i.e. “be no. 1 market leader in magazines.” Given how much growth is predicted in media and entertainment for Vietnam, I have little excuses to succeed.

Like most out there doing too much with too little, I’ve been busy. Here’s what we’ve started my first month:

1. Creating monthly marketing reports i.e. what’s the market share, important ad sectors and how we’re faring.
2. Web site development for current and future print projects.
3. Marketing campaigns.
4. Short and long term sales packages. Latest one: “End of Summer Special!”
5. Meeting with Vietnamese publishing license partners. Foreign companies are not legally permitted to publish in Vietnam.
6. Recruitment. Recruitment. Recruitment.

Speaking of recruitment, we’re about to launch a redesigned family cooking magazine, Beb Gia Dinh. And we’ll need a sales director to help us monetize the publication. Finding people with media sales and advertising experience is tough in Vietnam. But you can find people who are smart, hard working and have sales/leadership experience. Recently, I interviewed several candidates. After meeting with them I sent a follow up email asking each candidate to put together a sales proposal for an imaginary client. I thought it was a good exercise.

The client and the magazine description is below. Depending on the feedback, I’ll post a few of their responses (anonymously) afterwards.

Dear X,

Good to see you again today. Ringier is interested in you for the cooking magazine position, however, because you have little media advertising experience, we need to think carefully about how to proceed.

For instance, I’d like to know more about how you would construct a sales proposal. You don’t need to be detailed, but what would be the basic information for making a sales proposal to this imaginary client below?

Potential Client

• Company name: Rice Cooker.
• Client contact name: John Smith
• Product target: housewives and newly married young women
• Advertising budget for 3 months: 50,000,000 VND.
• Goal: Want to sell more of their new rice cookers with steam heating in HCMC.

• More information: John Smith thinks that a good return on investment would be about 2%. He is interested to know what the CPM of the cooking magazine advertisement package. He is also interested in online opportunities. Their competition advertises a different rice cooker in Tien Tep Vao Dep. Mr. Smith’s friends tell him that Vao Dep is the most popular cooking magazine in Vietnam. Why should he advertise in Bep Gia Dinh?

Bep Gia Dinh information

• Created in 2003.
• Circulation of 45,000
• Frequency: every two weeks
• Readership is 180,000 people.
• Circulation is 70% in HCMC. 25% HN. 5% middle Vietnam.
• Cost of full page ad: 20,000,000 VND.
• Discount ads up to 50% (Bep Gia Dinh is relaunching, so gives a good discount the first 4 months after launch).
• Editorial content: Vietnamese and Western recipes, family cooking, children recipes, celebrity chefs, kitchen products, popular restaurants in HCMC and HN. Each section includes a space for “soft-advertising” or PR.
• Advertising positions: Standard with creative options for discussion. No cover advertising.
• GOAL: Get the Rice Cooker company to buy as much advertising as possible for as long as possible.

• More information: Recently, BGD was bought by Ringier, a Swiss publishing company. Ringier has many cooking magazines in the world. Ringier gave BGD a redesign. The new design and content is fresh and modern. Ringier doubled the number of pages of BGD from 24 to 44. In October, BGD will launch a new Website. In September, Ringier will launch a marketing campaign in HCMC and HN to promote the new magazine.

Some questions to think about:

1. How would you prepare a sales proposal for the Rice Cooker company?
2. How can you satisfy the client and BGD’s goal? Have fun and be creative.
3. What ads would you sell? How often?
4. How do you explain Bep Gia Dinh’s “unique selling points”?
5. How do you prevent the client to advertise in competitor magazine?
6. Where would the ads go?
7. How can you encourage the client to advertise for more than 4 months?
8. What special benefits can you give the client?

There are no right or wrong answers. Just be creative and do some media advertising research. We want to see how you can apply your sales experience to media advertising.

How well would you do? I dunno myself.

My classmate Karn Dhingra passed this link along. I loved it. First, I work for a Swiss publishing house and relate closely to expanding into Eastern Europe/Asia. Second, I absolutely love redesigning magazines/newspapers/Web sites. I’ve had the pleasure to redesign several products while working with Stephane Carpentier, Ringier’s art director, at City Weekend. To see how design can transform a product is priceless. But it’s too easy to become seduced by the allure of sexy design. Simply put, Jacek Utko is right, great design is the result of a partnership between editorial and design (a work flow) – not a standalone feature. Editorial must work closely with design and vice versa to produce compelling results. Utko does a great job and has amazing results to prove this case. Take a look.