ABC consumer magazine results: Agency views

There is always considerable excitement surrounding the ABC Consumer Magazine release and this period is no different. Circulation, whether it be print or digital, remains the lifeblood of every print brand; but it’s also more than this. It is the bellwether of brand health, and the signal for production, performance, sales and publishing viability for those paid-for titles that still derive valuable revenue from cover price.

Quality content will always be at the very heart of the magazine brand ecosystem. The ability to get content in front of as many eyeballs as possible, irrespective of the devices or platforms on which they consume, is becoming ever more crucial.

The likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, BuzzFeed and Flipboard have played a pivotal role in helping magazine brands extend their content and conversations, but the advertising revenue for the content originators has been somewhat elusive – until now.

The release of iOS9 in early September will see the death of Newsstand, once heralded as the saviour of traditional publishing, and the birth of ‘Apple News’. So what is Apple News?

From a user’s perspective it will be a newsfeed aggregation app very similar to the Flipboard offering. The user can choose areas of interest to follow from dynamic lists and then let the app do the work to suggest additions, which will also track user interests over time.

At first inspection it seems like standard stuff, but interestingly it will give advertisers and publishers more control than ever before with the ability to place ads alongside key content with various formats via Apple’s own iAds platform. Apple has also taken the unprecedented step to reward the originators with up to 100% of the ad revenue generated from advertising on its hosted content.

In the past Apple has been very protective over data sharing and tracking but all this looks set change. Tracking and collaborative smart targeting is rumoured be part of the offering giving advertisers the insight they’ve been craving from Apple, as well as a richer creative environment for publishers. We welcome this transparency with open arms but only time will tell if this will be the silver bullet for publishers.

Whilst it has been a yet another very challenging period for many, the medium to long term outlook appears to be relatively bright. There is a renewed confidence returning to this vibrant sector, with publishers putting the recession far behind them with a plethora of launches in the offing in the ad-funded Freemium market.

But this is no place for the faint hearted or complacent. Those who to continue to innovate and embrace change will only improve their chances of survival and ideally growth.

Survival can be summed up in three words – never give up. That’s the heart of it really. Just keep trying – Bear Grylls.

This round of ABC figures revealed few surprises; some notable bright spots punctuated an expected shrinking marketplace. In total 47 titles, including impressive performances from Women’s Health and Elle, recorded growth in their print edition year-on-year, set against 134 declines.

Yet, for all of the hours of analysis and rate negotiations following an ABC release, we should also be clear about the role that these figures play. The ABC is crucial in providing a verified circulation, which forms the trading currency of the print market, but few magazines justify their inclusion in the multimedia advertising mix purely by the extent of their reach.

Magazines are rather used for the depth of their influence. Being a low wastage, high engagement, 100% attention medium in an age when media consumption is increasingly bite sized and fragmented makes magazines a very powerful advertising proposition.

Many magazines can also boast about the high regard for their editorial, which extends their sphere of influence far beyond their circulation base.

When we look at a period of circulation declines, the natural reaction is to think that magazines’ role in the marketing mix is lessened. ABCs can indeed be a barometer of brand health but we should remember that their primary role is in providing a framework to ensure that we only pay commensurately for the audience that a magazine reaches; these figures have no reflection on the effectiveness of that advertising.

The challenge to the magazine industry of course is to better quantify that effectiveness so reach metrics are not the only measurable figures the industry has.

The latest release of magazine ABCs has once again been a mixed performance in an overall declining market. The best results are from the news & current affairs sector, with Private Eye and Economist up +4.6% and +1.9% respectively.

One of the key drivers for the Economist’s overall growth was their digital growth (31.1% of its circulation made up of their digital editions), and we expect many titles to similarly strive for higher digital editions growth in order to future proof themselves and reduce costs. Although total digital editions circulations are up +28% YoY, 37 of the 90 of these have actually seen a decline YoY.

A possible reason for the digital editions sitting at just 409k is that readers don’t want to engage with a pure replica of the magazine on a digital platform, they are expecting the content to be packaged up in a different ways.

In today’s world publications cannot rely on the newsstand alone to sell their titles, or simply include a pair of flip flops to entice as a cover mount.

We are now seeing titles reaching out and engaging with consumers in non-traditional ways to build up brand awareness and loyalty, e.g. Tatler’s fly on the wall documentary (Tatler enjoyed an +8.7% YoY increase on UK actively purchased), Shortlist launching ‘Shortlist Sessions’ which are free intimate gigs for its readers (Shortlist maintained its print distribution at +0.4% PoP) and Women’s Health’s #sweatwork event (+10.1% YoY).

Radio Times is putting on a festival in September in the hope to reconnect with its readers about its offering and hoping to turn around its -6.5% YoY circulation decline. Stylist is hosting an event called Stylist Live in October which will drive further brand awareness and brand loyalty.

In the past couple of weeks there has been news of three additional freemium titles being launched or converted from paid to free; Dennis Publishing’s new fitness and wellbeing title, Time Inc’s NME and Bauer’s Kiss magazine. On top of the other freemium titles we have in the marketplace, it could be argued that this market will become over-saturated.

However, I believe it is a reflection on how readers now expect and want their content. It will be those with strong brand heritage and/or sufficient infrastructure who will undoubtedly succeed.

An exciting development in the magazine world is launch of new magazine trade body Magnetic, the new marketing agency for consumer magazines in the UK. In the past this role was taken on by the PPA (which still exists, however they are now focused on the issues of their members; consumer and business magazine publishers).

The magazine industry was in desperate need of a new trade body to revive, promote and bring back the confidence of magazines to media agencies and advertisers.

Over the past decade, as new and exciting mediums have come to market and magazine print circulations declined, magazines have dropped off media schedules. However, magazines still play a very important role in the media mix, they can not only provide high coverage but also very high levels of engagement which other media struggles to achieve.

In today’s media world it is difficult to capture attention as people are bombarded by lots of different media messages at once and are frequently dual screening. Yet magazines are probably the only media left which offers a fully immersive experience.

It is a solus media that drives high dwell times, and is actually welcomed, accepted, valued and non-intrusive to readers. We look forward to Magnetic’s full launch and getting magazines back on the agenda.