Irvine-based Haymarket Worldwide LLC stops putting out its IndyCar Series magazine this month after a four-year run.
The publication was the official racing magazine of the Indianapolis-based Indy Racing League LLC, covering Indy races with four print issues and two digital issues a year.
“It was a joint decision between Haymarket and the Indy Racing League to end the magazine,” said Laurence Foster, editor-in-chief at Haymarket.
The magazine was ended as part of Indy Racing’s marketing cutbacks.
“We didn’t lose the contract due to anything we did or didn’t do,” Foster said. “It’s just the circumstance of the economy.”
The racing league plans to focus on its television broadcasts and Web site.
“When the economy tanks, you realize that official magazines are a luxury for a lot of companies,” Foster said.
With the auto industry in a slump, automakers have been pulling their ads from magazines.
Through the first three quarters of 2008, auto advertising was down 23% from a year earlier, according to New York-based Publishers Information Bureau. That’s more than any other ad category measured.
While this has put a huge hurt on magazines in general, auto magazines seem to be the hardest hit with a large percentage of ads geared toward the auto world.
Orange County, home to several auto publications, has felt the effects first hand.
Anaheim-based Source Interlink Media LLC, part of Bonita Springs, Fla.-based Source Interlink Cos., already has folded a handful of auto enthusiast titles and laid off people.
“We have taken aggressive actions to position our core print assets to withstand the current softness in advertising,” said Greg Mays, chief executive at Source Interlink.
The company saw a 13% decline in advertising revenue at all of its magazines in the worst ad market in more than a decade, according to Mays.
The publisher ended eight of its 80 auto magazines including two published in its Anaheim office.
Turbo Magazine shut down after 23 years in October. Sports Compact Car shut down a month later.
Subscribers of the magazines were given a choice among the company’s other 72 titles including Road & Track and Motor Trend.
Another auto magazine to fall to the economy was Irvine-based Velocity magazine. The magazine stopped printing in December to focus its efforts on the Internet after a decline in print advertising.
New Client, CEO
Irvine-based Automatic Partners LLC was hired by Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd. to work out the airline’s new in-flight duty-free shopping.
The digital agency known for building Web sites and mobile advertising will be installing shopping software into Qantas’ new Airbus A380 planes.
The software allows passengers to use Qantas’ in-flight system to shop through an electronic duty-free catalog, said Les Kocsis, chief executive at Automatic.
The airline is a good fit for Kocsis, an Aussie, who became the agency’s chief executive last month.
Kocsis comes from the client side of the business having worked in senior positions for Black & Decker Corp. and Sola Optical USA Inc., part of Germany’s Carl Zeiss AG.
Before Sola, Kocsis was chief executive of Florida’s Idiom Partners, a private equity company.
Automatic Partners has been busy, according to Kocsis. In December, it finished redesigning Fossil Inc.’s Web site.
“We finished it just in time for Christmas,” Kocsis said.
The company also is working with Wells Fargo & Co. and St. Jude Medical Inc.
Chihuahua Order
Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp., part of Kentucky’s Yum Brands Inc., was ordered by a federal appeals court in San Francisco to pay the creators of the Taco Bell Chihuahua mascot $42 million from a prior judgment.
The lawsuit stems from a 2003 judgment that found Taco Bell didn’t properly pay the dog’s creators, Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Wrench LLC, after it launched its $500 million advertising campaign featuring the Spanish speaking Chihuahua in the 1990s.
Taco Bell in turn blamed Los Angeles-based TBWA Chiat/Day, part of New York-based Omnicom Group Inc., for shorting the creators and sued the ad shop over responsibility for the judgment in 2003. The court ruled that the fast-food chain, not the ad agency, was responsible for the ads. No word yet on whether Taco Bell plans to appeal.
Bits and Pieces:
Irvine-based Freedom Communica-tions Inc., parent company of the Orange County Register, has hired Seattle-based Mixpo, an online video advertising company, to enable its Web sites to run online video advertising Dana Point-based Aussie Pet Mobile, a mobile pet grooming service, has partnered with Walt Disney Co.’s home entertainment division to promote the release of Disney’s talking puppy movie “Space Buddies.” The mobile grooming company will be offering a $5 rebate toward the movie to any of its customers. Disney will distribute coupons for Aussie Pet within the DVD package Costa Mesa-based El Pollo Loco Inc. launched a television campaign for its new chicken carnitas entree. The commercials will run in select West Coast markets with general market and Spanish language spots.
