Deutsche Discounts

A sales rep from Q magazine in London once told me a wunderbar story about negotiating prices with the Germans. In the UK one of the greatest works of fiction is press title rate cards. Steep discounts are always available depending on the season, the category, the volume & your 'relationship' with the media owner.

However the Germs weren't aware of this and so when they called London to buy pages they only asked for the normal volume discount available on the ratecard.  Which was how business was conducted in Germany.

As Q is one of the strongest music magazines in the World & Bertelsmann is one of the biggest music companies  there was quite substantial trade flying over the channel. 

Apparently one of the favourite jokes was to try to teach the poor teutonic fellows how to negotiate English style in a way inspired by Monty Python.  It would go something like this;

"Hallo, can I book zwolf pages in Q fur die nachtse jahre fur Village People bitte"

"Don't you want a discount mate"

"Ja, das ist fantastiche, can I have a discount bitte?"

"No you can't; now bugger off"

Ironically Q (and Empire) are now owned by the Hun - Bauer bought them in 2008.