Cisco Systems has replaced Forbes Custom Publishing with Time Warner Inc.'s Sunset Custom Publishing to produce Cisco iQ, a quarterly magazine sent to small and midsize businesses.
The Menlo Park, CA, publisher will produce its first issue of the 5-year-old Cisco iQ in September. The title will reach 90,000 business and technology professionals, explaining how Cisco products can help them.
“It's the same niche that Fortune Small Business [magazine] is going after, but this magazine has ideas on how small businesses can take advantage of technology,” said Shannon Thompson, business development director at Sunset.
Sunset competed with two undisclosed custom publishers to win the Cisco iQ account. Prior to Forbes, Hachette Filipacchi Custom Publishing handled Cisco iQ.
Cisco iQ's editorial covers small-business strategies, computer network protection and technology's role in raising productivity. The 92-page book also has e-commerce reports and profiles of technology professionals.
Advertisers in Cisco iQ include channel partners such as BellSouth and Cisco units Cisco Press and Cisco Capital. Though negotiable, a full-page, four-color ad costs $11,000. Page size is 8-by-10 7/8 inches. The cover is 100-pound dull paper stock, and the body is printed on 70-pound paper.
The free quarterly is circulated 90 percent in the United States. Consumers can fill out a subscription card or visit www.cisco.com/go/iqmagazine to sign up. The site also lists articles.
“It's a pretty qualified audience,” said Robert J. Smith, account supervisor at Sunset. “They're specifically interested in technology.”
Plans call for raising circulation to 200,000.
Cisco iQ is Sunset's second custom publication for Cisco. The publisher also produces Cisco Packet, a user magazine for the Cisco audience. The quarterly goes to 150,000 professionals, 40 percent of them overseas.
The Cisco titles are among many published by Sunset from offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, New York, San Francisco and its Menlo Park headquarters. They include Acura Style, Procter & Gamble Co.'s Avanzando con to Familia and Safeway Every Season.
