How do events fit into the magazines overall marketing strategy?
They play a very large part. Part of what I bring to the table is that I don’t come from a magazine event background. The problem I see with so many magazine events is that they are so formulaic. A lot of magazines have been doing events the same way for a long time?they have the cover blowups, the magazines displayed all around. Because I don’t come from that world, it’s not where I start?it’s also not where I end up. At Travel & Leisure there’s a feeling that strategic event planning is a huge opportunity. We use our invitations as marketing tools. We send them to a wide array of people. We just did an event in Miami for 300 people, but we sent invitations across the country to show clients what we’re doing, how we’re being creative with our brand. Do you measure the response to your events? We very actively track everything. We track response in terms of ad pages. That’s the hardcore measure of success at a magazine. There’s the image part as well, the buzz, but that’s not so quanti
