SI Cranks Up Marketing Efforts In Support Of Annual Swimsuit Issue

Ad Revenue For '10 SI Swimsuit Issue Up 15%

Sports Illustrated released its annual Swimsuit Issue earlier this week, and ad revenue for the issue is "up 15% and the ad pages are flat with last year," according to Jon Friedman of MARKETWATCH. The issue "tends to attract major advertisers," and SI Group President Mark Ford noted Miller Lite and Dodge are back after missing at least '09. Other advertisers include M&Ms, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, SoBe Lifewater and Air Tran. Friedman noted the issue typically "generates about 7% of SI's annual advertising revenue" (MARKETWATCH.com, 2/8). Ford said the issue is the "single best-selling issue that we have." Ford: "You have 64 million people that see the swimsuit, so it's huge." CNBC's Darren Rovell reported for a single magazine issue to "make more than $7M at the newsstand alone is news itself." Former SI Senior Swimsuit Editor Jule Campbell said she was against the swimsuit issue becoming a standalone issue. But she added, "Business is business. Today, business is tough. Advertising is tough so whatever works go for it." Meanwhile, SI Group Editor Terry McDonnell said advertisers "target this issue with specific creative that they spend a lot of time and money getting exactly the way they want it." SoBe Lifewater earlier this year came out with a campaign utilizing SI swimsuit models, and PepsiCo CMO Jill Beraud said, "We don't want to just have our consumers look at our ads. We want them involved." Rovell noted SI "gives subscribers who don't want the issue a chance to opt out of getting it in exchange for extending their subscription," but "less than 1% take the offer" ("Business Model: Inside the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue," CNBC, 2/9).

STILL A HOT SELLER: THE WRAP’s Dylan Stableford wrote under the header, “Why The Swimsuit Issue Matters.” The magazine at the newsstand “usually sells well over a million single copies, or about 10-15 times how many regular issues of SI are sold.” But print “is now just one component of SI’s multiplatform bikini onslaught.” To get “a sense of just how influential the swimsuit issue has become, you don’t have to look too far,” as ESPN The Magazine launched its first annual “Body Issue” in '09, Maxim “has one” and even Deadspin “is planning its own” (THE WRAP, 2/9).

SHOWING VERSATILITY: U.S. Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn appears in this year's Swimsuit Issue, and SI.com's Tim Layden noted she is "most definitely the first athlete to appear on the cover of SI and in the Swimsuit Issue in the same one-week span." Vonn said of appearing in the Swimsuit Issue, "I was honored that they asked me. I immediately thought of some of the other athletes who have posed in the magazine, like Maria Sharapova. The pictures were always classy, they always looked really awesome. It made me feel a lot more comfortable about the whole thing, knowing they had shot other athletes." Layden noted the photo shoot took place "early last July, three months before the start of the World Cup season and seven months before the Olympic Games." Vonn: "I honestly didn't know when the Swimsuit Issue was going to come out, and back then I had no idea I was going to be on the cover of the regular SI. ... I had no idea that both would be within a week of the Olympics starting. It's definitely a little bit of extra pressure. But it's also really cool" (SI.com, 2/9). Vonn: "I've done fashion photo shoots before, but never anything like this. It's so hard, and you work so many hours. It's pretty brutal. But I have to say, I think my working conditions were tougher -- I was in the snow and they're on the beach" (SI Swimsuit Issue, 2/ '10).

OLYMPIC FEVER: Vonn is one of four U.S. Olympians featured in the issue, as she is joined by snowboarders Hannah Teter and Clair Bidez and aerial skier Lacy Schnoor. Bidez said, "It's so great that they're involving athletes, and I think it's great for other women to see strong, athletic women are sexy." Teter noted people "might be surprised" about her photos "because I'm known as the more modest, chill, hippie girl" ("Access Hollywood," 2/9). Meanwhile, tennis player Ana Ivanovic is also featured in a photo spread both in the magazine and on SI.com (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/9).