3/5/01- ABM Chairman Daniel Ramella, Penton Media, led a panel discussion, which included John Failla, Bill Communications, Peter Goldstone, Hanley-Wood, and Kenneth Gazzola, The McGraw-Hill Companies. They spoke to 160 key media buyers and planners in New Orleans last Thursday at the 4As Media Conference. The panel covered everything from b2b integrated media platforms to maintaining the quality of readers, viewers, show attendees and more. Questions such as "If you don't charge a subscription fee for your magazine, how can you compare it to consumer magazines that do?" The answer, which seems simple to traditional business publishers and endemic advertisers, surprised and impressed non-endemic media executives. Attendees learned that business to business magazine garners far more information about their subscribers than do consumer magazines. The story is quality, not quantity to those reached. Data on b2b readers, Internet users, and show attendees provides advertisers with a far better description of their potential buyers. The fact that one individual may be interested in buying not just one - but an entire fleet of cars was an eye-opener to the 100+ media planners and buyers attending. Questions were raised - and answered - business cards flew and new relationships were struck. ABM also setup a trade show booth at the conference and members, such as Ziff Davis, displayed their brochures along with ABM. The Ad Age Group, Adweek, Brandweek, and SRDS also had booths.