Sophie's Mentertainment® is the best source for information on Strip Clubs in the NorthEast
Editor's Column
Issue February 1997
Dear Readers,
It’s been a month of reflection and meditation for me. After having served this industry for nine years, carefully maneuvering between often conflicting interest of dancers, club owners, and patrons, from the freely flowing love from all directions, I assumed, I thought safely, that my position as the industry magazine of the NY Metropolitan Area is secure. Little did I know that a downturn in the economy will bring out the inevitable human urge: blame it onto other what you cannot or will not change.
Advertising works. We’ve been told that by everybody, so we tend to believe it. Advertising is supposed to make us money. Period. How to judge which advertising will or will not make us money: that we weren’t told, so we go by our gut feeling. In lean times, like these, we choose the most obvious: it must be more, better, or different. We don’t have money for more, we don’t know what is better, because we have no measures even for what we’ve got, so we go with the different. When the going gets tough we change our wives, our jobs, our looks, or our advertising medium. If we can’t do any better, at least we want to do different. Guys who left their relationships/marriages for something different for the sake of change, say it is either worse or the same old shit. In advertising it is the same way. Just because someone is the new kid on the block, has more color, more gloss, more salespeople, doesn’t mean they are better.
It would be very timely to teach advertising to advertisers. Rule #1: the ad needs to be seen by people. This is accomplished by circulation, and that the publication will be opened, and the ad will be seen, several times before the medium gets discarded. (television or radio ads accomplish this by frequency of broadcast.) An average ad needs to be seen between 11 to 13 times before it is noticed and acted upon. That is a lot of times one has to open a publication for the ad to work. Of course some well-designed ads with a sense of spelled-out urgency will do better, but not necessarily. People (readers too!) love to procrastinate. This need for a publication to be handled frequently is the main reason magazines spend money on content, spread out interesting articles throughout the publication, have teaser copy on the cover and in the table of contents: to cause the reader to turn the pages more than once. Publications that have no content will not be a good advertising medium. Publications that are confused about who are going to read them—ditto. Poor value for your advertising dollar.
“Let me get you out of that rag!” is the staple statement of my competitors. “Let me undercut Sophie... what do you want from that woman, anyway” they think, and my beloved advertisers go with the new leaders. Only to come back to value... but alas, maybe by that time neither you, nor myself won’t have a business. You, because of lack of effective advertising, me because of lack of customers. Thanks, guys.
I made a mistake a few years ago. When I had to choose whether to provide four-times bigger circulation, I opted not to cut back, and force people, readers to pay for their copies. The real cost has been the authenticity of Mentertainment. Today I cannot say anything remotely negative about any place... who would want to bite the hand that feeds him?! So the writing has become very sporadic in the magazine, because ‘if you cannot say something nice, don’t say anything’ is such that ‘if I cannot say what is really so, I don’t want to speak.’ Am I having fun? No. Do I sleep well? No. Is there anything you could do for me? I don’t know. Could you? Would you pay for an honest, down and dirty publication? I may have to start something new, but would you? Call me and let me know. If enough of you say you would pay for it, I’ll go for it. If no? Don’t be sure I’ll be here.
Love you, no matter what.
Sophie
[January 1997 Editorial] [February 1997 Editorial] [March 1997 Editorial]
Mentertainment® Magazine is published monthly in New Jersey, and its two editions cover Northern and Central New Jersey, most of New York State, and Western Connecticut. Once, maybe twice a year we publish a directory of clubs in the North American Continent, that is to say, the US and Canada. It cost $3.00, and you need to mail or fax a check.
Click here to send an e-mail to Sophie
Click here for information on subscription to Mentertainment® Magazine
Click here to get back to Mentertainment® homepage
Number of 