When John Beni began his publishing career in 1955 as an advertising sales representative for American Weekly (a Sunday newspaper magazine owned by Hearst), Eisenhower was president, Rosa Parks would soon be arrested for refusing to give up her seat in a bus and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had yet to reach the crawling stage. Several decades and presidential administrations later, Beni, currently serving as vice chairman of Parade Publications following tenures at Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing Inc. and Cahners Publishing Company (now Reed Business Information), among others, is still going strong.
Forever a Student
What accounts for his longevity and eternal youthfulness? Simple. He loves what he does. And when it comes to new developments, such as social media and the Web, Beni is not a churlish traditionalist or Luddite dismissing change and pining for a bygone era: He is inquisitive and embracing. “When I came to Parade (in January 1996), it was a whole new learning experience,” he recalls. “That’s what people in this business should think about: Every day there’s something you can learn.”
Beni views online advertising and social media tools like Twitter or Facebook as viable vehicles or “distribution options” that can quickly and efficiently communicate an advertiser’s message to target audiences. “This isn’t a case of [nontraditional media] versus [traditional],” he says. “You should bring them into the tent and use them. If you can partner with these alternative media, then you can sell integrated programs and buy the entire market sector.”
Infusing Titles With Life
Part of the thrill for Beni in his long and distinguished career has been in meeting challenges head-on, which include reinvigorating titles in a cluttered marketplace. When Beni was president of Gruner + Jahr, he and his staff relaunched and repositioned Parents magazine as more of a woman’s publication and less of baby magazine. Unfortunately, the category was flooded with seven other titles.
“We said Parents magazine is a mass special interest magazine devoted to the total needs and wants of a woman before and after she has a child—never forgetting she’s a woman,” recounts Beni. “From there on, [the publication did not just include] advertising to babies and children but to mothers, such as toiletries. The magazine went up to 1,100 pages and became a woman’s magazine, which is what it is today.”
Beni Looks Back—and Ahead Campaign he’s most proud of: “At Parents, we created a special advertisers section called ‘As You Grow,’ which referred to children. We saw how advertisers wanted to be positioned in that type of content because their product had more relevance for people interested in that content. We went to Procter & Gamble and talked to them about the ‘As You Grow’ section. For 10 years (from the early 1980s to the 1990s), we were able to mail targeted copies to those mothers who wanted that information. It made a lot of money and it was sparked by an idea that made sense to a marketer and met that marketer’s needs.”
Disturbing trend: “It’s always difficult for salespeople to get face time with agency people or clients because there are so many walls in place. Everybody is so busy and so shorthanded. That’s a real problem, and because of this advertisers and agencies are missing opportunities.”
Tips to survive the current economic climate: “Don’t be so focused on the end result (i.e. pages). If you can come in with an idea that can demonstrate sales for that advertiser, then you’ll find money.”
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for refusing to give up her seat in a bus and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had yet to reach the crawling stage. Several decades and presidential administrations later, Beni, currently serving as vice chairman of Parade Publications following tenures at Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing Inc. and Cahners Publishing Company (now Reed Business Information), among others, is still going strong. 