Wow. What to say about the Marketing Profs post about the LTEs in the magazine 944… words almost escape me. Almost.

Here’s a big lesson for the folks running the new 944 fashion and lifestyle magazine… your customers (i.e. readership) matter. You know, the ones who buy your mag and therefore enable you to sell more advertising and stay in business…

What is the offense?

Reader: “WHY??? Did I have to suffer through 42 pages of advertisements before I got to read your editor’s letter? The anticipation nearly killed me. I sure can’t wait to see what else is in the next issue of 944. Just hope that I don’t fall asleep before I get to page 40…Oh, fx&% it, I’m already BORED to death with this magazine, I think I’ll find something else to read…Maybe think about putting some actual content in the first quarter of your magazine, just a thought.”
-”BOY”

944’s response: “Boy, oh boy. Is that your real name? We like it. Except for some reason, the word jackass came to mind after reading your letter. See,only would a jackass take the time to e-mail us about something so lame. Most readers of any magazine who don’t care to read through ads at the beginning are privy to a little practice called, ‘flipping ahead,’ which takes between two and five seconds, depending on degree of thumb strength and control. But anyone with poor thumb-flipping skills, really shouldn’t be reading any magazine, let alone ours – we don’t want to be responsible for any paper cuts. So, little boy, allow us to introduce to you another finger known for its flipping abilities: our middle one. On second thought, you’re probably used to seeing that one pointed your way fairly regularly.”

This just screams people thinking this approach will make them seem hip and edgy and snarkalicious… but it only succeeds in making them seem like jerks.

Elaine asks if it may be a generational thing and I’d have to say no. No one likes being insulted when they’re paying money for your product and then taking the time to send in feedback, no matter the form it takes. Obviously this guy was pissed off about the ads and felt like venting. Perhaps taking that feedback to heart and trying to make a better product might help, instead of calling him names. Just a thought.

The issue of ad layouts is not new to the magazine world by any means and 944 should not have been surprised that people may have bad reactions to 40 pages of ads before content. It’s something that has always bugged me about Vanity Fair or Vogue for instance. With magazine readership in decline and start-ups failing every day in the US, perhaps taking some time to think about how the ads are distributed throughout the zine may be a good thing. Or, baring that, perhaps responding to the concerns raised by “Boy” with something along the lines of:

Hey Boy, thanks for the email. Really sorry to hear you had such a hard time getting to the content of the mag… which of course is why you read it! I can understand the frustration with that many ads before getting into 944, but, it takes a lot of cash to run a magazine and we need to sell ads. As we go we’ll be looking at ways of making the magazine more reader friendly while satisfying the needs of our advertisers, so we really hope you bear with us and keep reading… now that you know there are 40 pages of ads, maybe next time you could just flip ahead ;). Thanks so much for your feedback… keep it coming, we can take it!

In this day of social networking and community empowerment it boggles the mind a company would take this approach to CRM. Now more than ever the adage “The Customer is King (or Queen)” rings true.

The last word goes to Elaine’s 21-year old daughter: “It’s immature and stupid.”

[photo credit: kittylavender on Flickr]

Technorati tags: 944, Magazines, MarketingProfs, Elaine Fogel