What 2012 holds
for consumer magazines
Look to the increasing role of tablets for publishers
By Diego Vasquez
Jan 18, 2012
Magazine ad page numbers for 2011 did not foretell a good 2012. They showed a 3.1 percent decline, with the heaviest decreases seen during fourth quarter of last year. But the Publishers Information Bureau numbers don't tell the entire industry's story anymore, because they only include print advertising. Digital is a very small but growing area for magazines, and buyers are most excited about the new prospects this area offers as the new year begins, most notably opportunities for magazines on e-readers. Sales of tablets soared over the holidays, and Amazon's new low-priced Kindle Fire has helped open the market up to a new group of budget-conscious consumers. The business model for digital newsstands has not been perfected, but there are a number of them popping up. And magazines are increasingly selling their brand and their ideas instead of simply their print pages. That means a wealth of new opportunities for media buyers and planners that were not available just three years ago, and it presents a healthier picture of the magazine industry than the ad page data would suggest. Brenda White, senior vice president and publishing activation director at Starcom, talks to Media Life about magazines' digital past, their digital future. and how healthy the industry is right now.
What was the defining story in magazines during 2011?
When you look across all the stories, I think the big theme was publishers have changed the way they do business. They're looking for new revenue streams and approaches. You saw a lot of growth and movement.
There has been a lot of investment in marketing services and branded entertainment, and of course digital platforms.
And also investments in key talent--Condé Nast hired Dawn Ostroff and of course Time Inc. hired Laura Lang as their CEO. Very exciting time in the industry – lot of positive momentum and investment in publishing content.
What will be the three things to keep an eye on in magazines in 2012?
What's on everybody's mind over the past couple years is tablets. With the success of the Kindle over the holiday season, going into 2012 from a tablet standpoint we're looking at audience growth and change. New data will be available and a lot of the publishing companies have measurement strategies. And also different [tablet] newsstands are evolving.
Second, the consumer experience with publishing content--understanding the experience consumers are having with their content. What is the dynamic? What is happening? How is the consumer using the publishing content, and also the ad content?
And last but not least, the continued digitization across publishing companies. How is the corporate digital strategy going to continue to evolve?
What do media buyers and planners need to know about magazines in 2012?
Keeping in my theme of experiences, understanding the consumer experience is going to be critical. It's not understanding what's happening with the pages or print audience. You need to know all the different audiences and how they work together or don’t work together. And also, how do consumers want their publishing content?
Another thing they need to know is the digital strategies of the publishing companies. Years ago it was what is the circulation strategy? What's the event strategy? But that's now just a small piece of the pie.
I think everybody has to switch their mindset. It's not about buying the page or banner ad on the web site, it's really partnering with the publishing companies in new and innovative ways. You have to think of it as a partnership that can help you from a marketing standpoint as opposed to just ad pages.
What developments will you personally be most interested to see with regard to magazines this year?
The first thing is the growth of audience as a result of increased tablet sales. Understanding who those audiences are, but it's also really important to understand how the audience goes from channel to channel or asset to asset.
Also, continued development of metrics that measure performance across all the assets that companies put their content on. Really understanding what's driving ad performance. We're not just buying pages, we're buying experiences. We want to understand how all of the channels impact performance.
Another thing is tablet metrics, we'll have more data on that. And then tablet subscription models--what's working and what's not? It'll be great learning for us to see what's working and what's not.
And of course we'll be watching the evolution of the industry in terms of the brands becoming more content companies as opposed to magazine companies.
How are magazines incorporating digital ad sales into their pitches to media people?
What we're seeing is sales people are selling the brand versus the page or web site or tablet.
That really happened about a year ago when the tablet became a viable distribution point. We're not seeing as many silos--it really depends on the brand and company. Sometimes there are dedicated digital sales people, and that's okay. We work more with the marketing people, they really pull together the concept and idea [of a campaign], and then pull in the experts. And that's something we'd like to continue to see evolve.
Do you think magazines have come up with a viable "digital newsstand" plan? Why or why not?
I really see those as a work in progress. I was encouraged by the fact that there's a magazine newsstand on iTunes. I think the companies are doing what they can to get their content to consumers in a way that they can find it. I do think it's a work in progress, but every publisher I talk to is working to get as much content out there in tablets as possible.
How could the predicted boom in tablet sales help the magazine industry?
I think now that there are more tablets it will grow and retain audiences. We've done some research where we've probed a bit on different age groups and sets of consumers. We asked, "How did you get your publishing content if you weren't subscriber?" In a lot of cases there was sampling going on in the tablet. That drove some to set up a subscription in print or through the tablet.
It's a huge opportunity for the publishing companies. You'll start to see people moving to tablet specifically, and you're already seeing that more on the newspaper end.
Why did we see magazine ad pages slide back into negative territory during the second half of 2011, and will that continue this year?
We have to realize when you're looking at PIB it's only one part of the story. There is also some good growth happening on the digital end. I think we need to look at revenue across all channels, and not just the ad channels, but also the marketing services channels.
To me it wasn't a surprise. Whenever you see pages slide it's concerning, but I'm actually feeling pretty good about 2012 because the industry is really diversifying itself.
What does that say about the health of the category?
I still think it's a healthy and viable industry. There's no question consumers still love published content, and to just look at pages is really not the best metric.
Consumers are going digital, but that's not a part of PIB. I think it really has a bright future, assuming the momentum in the evolution in business models continues. I think they have the right focus and have done a great job in thinking about their content in the digital world.
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