Glossy Girl at the MediaTel Future of Consumer Magazines Seminar
I am not big on research…well unless it’s the sort of robust sampling research used by some of my favourite mags on what’s hot and what’s not in the style stakes.
Anyway, the seminar kicked off with an Ipsos-Mori presentation around usage and attitudes to print publications and their online and tablet formats. The ‘deprivation’ exercise was interesting, persuading avid readers to give up their periodical of choice for a couple of weeks. This seems not dissimilar to the jurors on the Stephen Lawrence case banned by the judge to read the latest issue of The Spectator. It’s questionable whether missing Rod Liddle is deprivation? A plus for The Spectator is that the publicity must have boosted sales of this latest issue!
The panel all thought the research told them nothing new and there is nothing wrong in this. Confirming assumptions and hypothesis or insight from other research studies is no bad thing the panel concurred. Moreover, they trusted Sarah Jenkins; she is a doctor you know!
The panel were very buoyant about the future of magazines. The optimism was around the magazine as a brand rather than just in printed form. With tablet incarnations representing a more printed magazine experience the key is still how to monetise the audience. There is an agreement that publishers should ensure that the same mistakes are not made again, as they were when the whole publishing industry flocked to put up content on the worldwide web…free!
However, it seems the key, especially echoed by Peter Phippen on at least a couple of occasions was the ability of the magazine brand to create a relationship with the customer and provide them with live events and specially tailored products. Consequently to increase the revenue per user to more than the basic £30 per annum generated from cover price sales.
No one can doubt Phippen’s resolve and strategy on the ability to know his customers more, so as to sell them a multitude of related products and services…more so now with the attention of the private equity company, Exponent, to ensure targets are met and shareholder value is created.
However, my issue with this is that the publishing industry has been talking and investing in knowing their readers more for at least the last decade. Not research survey data but specific customer behavioural and transactional data…the sort of data the smart management consultancies ask you for first before putting your survey data to the bottom of their in-tray. Is anybody close to cracking this?
The magazine industry has been held to ransom by the big grocery multiples for years. The retailers decide on the ones they stock (the best sellers amongst their customers) and have the power to de-list titles. The retailers own the transactional relationship with the purchaser thus having the ability to understand the other things a customer buys and their motivations towards lifestyle choices.
This is where Phippen is quite rightly cautious about Apple’s Newsstand and similar offerings. Yes, it’s great to be able to charge for the expensive content produced. As sales in this channel increase so publishers need to be wary. Apple, for example, will own the customer data and the transactional relationship. Therefore limiting the opportunity or at best controlling the ‘value gateway’ for publishers to up sell and cross sell a whole range of offers.
So publishers seem to be caught between an app and A SQL database. However, at least they are aware of the potential hazards and a careful strategy and negotiation with app newsstand providers will be interesting to observe.