FAREWELL, OAKLEY
	JuLY/AUGUST 2004

by Richard Koscher, Publisher

This is the third and final issue we are sending out for free to all the people in Oakley. The bad news is, if you're an Oakley resident, you have to subscribe now in order to continue receiving future issues of 110° Magazine. The good news is, this only costs $19.95 for a full year — ten issues. Tear out the card in the middle of the magazine and send it to us, or go online to http://110mag.com/subscribe/, fill out the online form, and we'll sign you up.

Believe me, you won't want to miss a single issue.

Getting Your Word out!
Last week someone told us that he was going to allocate his advertising budget towards TV spots. That seems like a bad choice to us. We are biased towards 110 Degrees Magazine, of course. But we've seen recent market research that indicates magazine advertising is not simply more effective than putting spots on TV, but it is MUCH MORE effective.

For example, 43 percent of people in a recent survey conducted by Media Choices choose magazines as the medium they "trust and believe," as opposed to only 32 percent for TV. The figure plummets dramatically for Cable TV and the Internet.

Even more significantly, the same survey shows that 44 percent of the respondents say they often purchase a product or service as a direct result of the advertising in magazines as opposed to only 34 percent who chose TV ads.

We believe that the numbers would be much higher for our magazine, since we're sure our readers "trust and believe" things they find printed in 110 Degrees Magazine much more than, for example, in the Inquirer.

Frankly, research showing the shortcomings of TV is borne out by our own experience. Most of us in the office don't watch too much live TV. We often tape shows and then watch them later, at a more convenient time, and fast forward through all the commercials. And even when we're sitting watching the broadcast, we usually mute the sound or go make a sandwich during ad breaks.

Our Advertising Director, Natalie, told us that she and her husband have TVo and, as a consequence, they haven't watched a TV advertisement during the past year.

In addition, when a local business buys a spot on, for example, KPIX-5 , what percentage of viewers who see the commercial are actually in a position to visit the business being advertised? I doubt that anyone in living in South San Francisco will make the trek to East County to buy a hamburger or a Honda because of an ad they saw on TV.

On the other hand, when local businesses buy ads in 110 Degrees Magazine, they can be assured that almost 60,000 people will actually see the ads, and that 59,800, or so, of them live within 20 minutes, possibly five minutes, of the advertised product or service.

Furthermore, our advertisers are pleased with the staying power of their advertising investment. A TV spot is gone in 30 seconds, but some people might never throw away this issue, with its cover story about youth sports or last issue with its cover story about Vasco Road.

We've had a number of readers tell us, "I never throw away issues of 110 Degrees. I've got the first issue you put out." One of our readers told us that he keeps them in plastic wraps. "These are going to become collector's items!" he told us.

We get kind of discouraged by people who want to advertise with us for a couple issues to "see if we get any response." If someone purchases something six months from now because of an ad they read in a back issue of our magazine, it will be too late for the merchant to correct his or her error in judgment in cutting off that effective channel of getting the word out to their potential customers.

Better 'N Ever
We've had a great time getting out this July/August double issue! In our opinion, this is our best effort yet! It's reassuring when our Editor In Chief keeps passing items to me with the line, "This is a great article!" Of course, I'm always tempted to discount the comment as coming from a potentially biased source, but then I read the piece he's talking about and have to admit in almost every case, "He was right! This really is great!"

The current issue seems to us to be rich with articles by interesting people on interesting subjects. Our cover article, for example, "Daddy! Will You Please Shut up!" begins with an amazingly funny story about a youth sports problem that is not really very funny. But the writer, Kerry Salisbury, isn't whining about the problem — he and the other people in the Brentwood Youth Sports program are doing something great to encouraging positive values in youth sports.

Kelly Hobart, in "Growing a Way of Life" describes the marvelous solution she and her husband Jim are putting together to bring a healthy countrified life-style together with his hi-tech business.

In "My Favorite Vacations," travel agent, Karen Mancuso, not only describes the great vacations she has gone on, but tells what was so great about them.

In "East County Cornucopia," Jim Tachella describes what the Brentwood farming was like 50 years ago and talks about what his life as a U-Pick farmer is like today.

In "Big Band in the Little Church, Wes Niles writes engagingly about the Brentwood Neighborhood Church's program of entertaining its neighbors in grand style with some grand old songs.

Our own artist, Bill Weber, describes some amazing things about a local artist in "Bronze Visions," and about the exciting plans that are in place to bring his art to Brentwood.

"The Odyssey of Rick Lemyre" will reveal some things about the Editor In Chief of the Brentwood Press that even Rick's fans never knew.

In the article "Pint-size Champion" Nancy Belliveau describes how she expanded her world as a world power lifting record holder to include a horse, an amazing dog, and especially patients who come to her clinic.

We hope you enjoy reading this magazine as much as we enjoyed putting this issue together for you.

This is a double-issue, so we'll see you again in September!

God Bless!