I think nobody can nowadays really deny that the world is in a crisis. It is all over the news in every country around the globe. Even if one refuses to read the papers and to watch the news on TV, the airplanes are emptier and in hotels, one is suddenly an unusually welcomed guest. So, most people are somehow influenced by this crisis in one way or the other.

MFN has been very fortunate to be one of the few exceptions. Since most of the advertisement agreements are over the whole year, we can already foresee that we have about the same amount of advertising as in the previous year. Of course we had some cancellations, but then new customers joined MFN. This trust of our long term clients has been very rewarding for us. The philosophy of MFN has been always to keep the prices of the ads very low, in comparison to other publications. This is to ensure that advertisers stay with MFN in basically every issue. So we even have some advertisers that literately have not missed a single issue since our start in September 2000. One of our rules at MFN is that any advertisers who commit themselves to becoming a "regular" at MFN, will have no price increase for as long as they stay.

But in general, especially in a crisis, a company should have a good marketing plan. It certainly gives completely the wrong signals to the industry if company "x" had heavy advertisement involvements for years and then suddenly everything is cut. I have seen that on many occasions. It is clear what message that gives to the industry. Especially if it appears to be a decision made in "panic". And nothing turns away business more than the impression that a company makes rushed and unreasonable judgments. However, a very important, but often misunderstood part of advertising is not the direct sales of a product, but the building of an image for a company. A business with a good image indirectly sells more products. And in order to create a good image, continuity is key. That is why MFN has told many advertisers in the past to better save the money instead of just putting one ad in one issue. That has no real impact.

The present outlook for our MFN publication proves to us that our team is heading in the right direction. To come to such a conclusion in such difficult times, gives us great satisfaction.

We would like to thank our readers and this time also especially our advertisers for making this possible!

Best Regards
Andrzej Wojtas (Ph.D.), Chief Editor MFN, E-mail: andrzej@mfn.li