Ponzi Sweetens Roster; SMC Taps Wirestone’s OC Office
Road & Track has revamped its look.
The magazine plans to debut design and format changes with its February 2001 issue, which hits newsstands this week.
Besides taking on a sleeker design, the magazine will be two inches wider when opened and a half inch taller. There also will be more full-page and two-page spread editorial pages, as fractional advertisements will be eliminated from the first third of the magazine.
Thos L. Bryant, Road & Track editor, said the changes aim to help differentiate Road & Track from competing car enthusiast magazines while making it appeal to a wider swath of advertisers.
“There was no feeling within our company that there was anything wrong with the design, but this was an opportunity to kind of elevate Road & Track above the crowd and make it the largest format among the major automotive magazines in America,” Bryant said.
Road & Track, which competes with Motor Trend and Automobile magazines, had its last redesign 11 years ago. The publication is a unit of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines; it also vies for readers with Car and Driver, also a Hachette magazine.
This overhaul started as a format change, and then led to some design changes, such as reserving the front for ad spreads and single-page spots from major advertisers.
“The hope is that the magazine will take on a look that will be a bit more glamorous, a bit more upscale,” Bryant said.
Road & Track, which houses its editorial staff in Newport Beach, is predominantly read by “educated, upscale men” who purchase new cars at a rate four times higher than the national average and possess a median household income higher than that of any other monthly automotive enthusiast magazine, according to Road & Track.
Despite the changes, Bryant said Road & Track’s focus will remain the same, with similar graphics, photography and editorial content. The magazine also plans to keep its comparison tests, road tests, comprehensive reviews and auto racing coverage.
“It will continue to be Road & Track through and through, but there’ll just be more of us,” Bryant said. “We’ve been here for 28 1/2 years and for the first eight or nine years we kept downsizing the magazine. So I’m delighted that we’re finally coming back and providing the readers with more magazine.”
The number of pages in the magazine ranges between 150 and 190. Circulation hovers around 750,000 per month.
“We’re not on a strong drive to raise circulation enormous amounts,” Bryant said.
Ponzi Lands Cookie Account
The Ponzi Group, Trabuco Canyon, has developed a sweet tooth.
The company, which focuses on marketing, research and media, was recently tapped by Traditional Baking, a cookie company in Bloomington, Calif., to handle marketing, public relations, media planning and buying.
The account for an undisclosed amount was won without a review, and is part of a win-run by the Ponzi Group, which over the past nine months has added six accounts (including Traditional Baking) to its portfolio. The wins,totaling $3.5 million to $5 million in annual billings,brings the Ponzi Group’s annual capitalized billings to about $14 million.
The following other companies and organizations plan to use the Ponzi Group for services ranging from public relations to media planning and buying, to advertising and market research: Petersen Brothers Construction, Brea; Orange County Retirement Systems, Santa Ana; SupplyPro, San Diego; Johnny Rockets Group Inc., Irvine; and Qvergent Radio Corp., Irvine.
Wirestone Working for SMC
The Costa Mesa office of Emeryville-based Wirestone LLC was tapped by SMC Networks, Irvine, to handle the marketing campaign for its new line of Internet-sharing devices and wireless networking products.
Wirestone, an ad agency specializing in e-business, branding, marketing and technology solutions, worked with SMC on a trial basis before winning its account for an undisclosed amount without review. The OC office will focus on SMC’s advertising, direct mail, channel strategy and Web site design.
Ads for the campaign broke in the November issues of Business 2.0, Small Business Computing and several other publications.
Wirestone’s Costa Mesa office, which projects $13 million in annual capitalized billings, also handles integrated marketing for Hewlett Packard Co., Everett Charles Technologies and Managestar.com.
The shop recently won a “Best Ads” award from Test & Measurement World Magazine for the print ads it created for Everett Charles Technologies.
