Conde Nast Forced to Abandon Its Long Standing No Rate Negotiating Rule Thanks to The Pressures of Digital

CONDE NAST MEDIA GROUP BOSS EDWARD MENICHESCHI

Digital has taken the media industry by storm. Everyone is making changes and rolling out products to get a seat on the relevance bus especially the one headed to millennials-ville. Conde Nast which has had a long standing rule of never negotiating ad rates, is now stepping back from that position in favor of more flexibility. Why? Well its not because the powers that be are feeling all warm and fuzzy. Its because they have no choice but to ease up on the rule simply because they have to remain competitive in this digital age where buyers have dozens of options to reach audiences similar to Conde's. This was probably the holy shit moment that lead to the policy change.

“Condé Nast is off the rate card,” said Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen. “They’re willing to negotiate. I was having lunch with a Condé Nast publisher, and one of the first things he said was, ‘If price is an issue, we can talk about that.’ You never would have talked about that in the past.”

Another buyer, who asked to remain anonymous, put it more harshly, saying that at a time when the industry and market are “changing at neck-breaking speed,” Condé Nast is “consistently one step behind.”

“They are making all the right moves but not necessarily keeping pace to compete,” the buyer said, referring to the publisher’s deals to distribute its content on other platforms like Apple and Facebook. “We can buy these audiences more efficiently on other sites that have the scale and better targeting capabilities.”

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