ABC consumer magazine results: Agency views

Adam Crow, head of print brands, MediaCom

This period’s ABC magazine brand release re-enforces the pivotal role the ABC plays in reporting brand health for print and digital editions. Circulation remains the bellweather of performance, sales and publishing viability for the paid-for titles that still derive valuable revenue from cover price.

The February ABC consumer release heralded the first ‘Combined Total Circulation Certificate’ which, put simply, just adds the print and digital editions circulations together yielding a duplicated ‘gross’ figure. Whilst we fully recognise that circulation remains a key success metric for magazine brands, and the ability to report the net breath of sales remains somewhat elusive, so does net audience.

Newsbrands have been much quicker out the blocks than their magazine counterparts recognising the ability to demonstrate the net breadth of brands as the single most important challenge facing publishers today. Guardian News & Media are leading the charge with their ‘Audiences Not Platforms’ offering, something the magazine brands need to embrace, and quickly, not only ensuring they remain relevant but survive.

The ever increasing prominence and influence of social media means it’s more crucial than ever that magazine brands create cut-through conversations and extend their audience footprint, irrespective of the devices or platforms on which they consume. Enter Twitter and Facebook stage-right.

The exponential rise of Twitter followers and Facebook ‘likes’ has become integral to facilitating these conversations which will no doubt grow evermore significantly in the near future. With an explosion in mobile unique users these audiences are now demanding fast, intuitive, high velocity content feeds more than ever. ‘Mobile first’ responsive design is now high on the agenda for the most progressive publishers but will fast become the norm.

Put simply the best quality content remains the lifeblood of the magazine brand ecosystem. Two magazine brands in a particular, Cosmopolitan and Red, have extended their brand eco-system way beyond their print and digital editions.

Whilst this has been a very challenging period for many, there are more green shoots than ever before. The more progressive publishers are continuing to adapt and innovate more than ever to ensure their brands not only survive but flourish once again in an ever connected world.

In the words of Malcolm X: “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

Stephanie Arlett, media director, Carat

More celebratory treats were flying around the office on this ABC Day than previous years, a sure sign of some positive highlights to come.

Rightly, the lead section of the report is now the combined print and digital circulations, last time this was buried back in Section 12!

First, let’s dwell on the fact that print circulation is up 1.5% YoY, with an average of 33.4 million copies consumed every week/month. This demonstrates that there is still a huge appetite for the printed product and the declines of recent years are stabilising.

A good variety of sectors have posted print increases including Women’s Interest: Cookery & Kitchen, and News/Current Affairs/Business.

In terms of individual titles, true to form The Week posted its 32nd consecutive print increase. The mature end of the Women’s Lifestyle market capitalised on 53% of the UK population being over 40, with Prima, Essentials, Woman & Home and Good Housekeeping all posting increases.

A key factor in these successes is maintaining a loyal readership; The Week’s circulation is 75% subscription, Economist UK 62% and GH 53%. Similarly, Waitrose Food has driven its circulation by 65% through its My Waitrose Card loyalty scheme. In contrast, other sectors are more volatile, with a fickle readership choosing between cover stories, cover stars, price and promotions.

Whilst digital circulations have seen growth of 26% PoP, the figures are still a little underwhelming. Combining all titles, the average digital circulation is 409,000, a small fraction compared with the print numbers. Nevertheless, publishers have come a long way since 2011 when the figure was a mere 9,000. The Week has the highest digital circulation figure at 26,000, helped by its ‘Daily briefing’ editorial which drives readers to the edition.

Yet we still do not have the full picture of magazines’ total brand reach. The ABC report does not cover all touchpoints – websites, social, live events, etc. The ‘success’ of a magazine brand is currently based on very limited metrics.

The industry needs a multi-platform solution, as well as a way to measure trust, engagement and influencer metrics with the likes of ABC (and NRS). We would then have a much clearer picture of our fantastic magazine brands.

Until then, it is likely that we will lose more of our much loved print brands to a digital only future, as we saw with Company this week.

Emma Cranston, investment director, Manning Gottlieb OMD

The Jan-June 2014 magazine ABC data release dawns another milestone for the ABC because it is the first time that both print and digital figures have been used as a combined result in the headline figure.

There has been significant growth in titles reporting digital editions, up 25% YoY to 369,000 (a relatively small number but continually growing). The specialist sectors are reaping the greatest benefit of this joint headline figure in particular Total Film who are spearheading this area with 23% of their total circulation being digital editions.

However, it does need to be noted that to report a digital edition the publication does still need to be sufficiently similar to be considered the same product as the print parent edition.

Therefore this does limit titles to expand their brand reach and not give readers a reason to invest both their print and digital offering if it’s not going to be counted towards their total reported ABC reach.

Although titles are investing into digital editions we have seen some sector’s digital editions decreasing YoY, especially the high end women’s monthlies, indicating that readers of these digital publications are expecting more than just a replica of the magazine.

From the women’s monthly magazine stable we see yet another closure announced this week; this time it is Hearst’s Company magazine, which comes as no surprise given that the largest migration to digital is coming from the younger end of the magazine marketplace.

Hearst claims that they will be focusing their efforts on Company’s digital properties which have seen significant growth over the past six months (up +46%). It will remain to be seen whether the website will still be able to continue without the support of the magazine. Other areas of the women’s monthlies have had a promising set of results particularly in the older end of the market (Good Housekeeping, Women & Home and Prima all posting positive YoY results), demonstrating that there is less migration to digital in this sector.

Over the past few years we have seen sales houses investing into new websites which are not directly linked to a magazine within their stable, which has been an encouraging sign that publishers are putting digital at the heart of launches.

However, this period has seen the closure of Shortlist’s Never Underdressed (fashion website) on account of the website failing to attract a large enough audience to be sustainable in the long term.

This does put into question whether there is a consumer appetite for magazine content online, although Bauer’s website-only women’s publication The DeBrief claim that their unique users are double of their launch plan targets (currently at c.500,000 unique users’s per month) which is a promising sign.

We have seen large sales houses re-structuring in order to future-proof themselves, they are aligning their structures to the way agencies are now set up. In particular Bauer have recently restructured to multi-platform teams, these teams will sell across all of Bauer’s brands across TV, online, radio, print and mobile.

The changes will result in traditional schedules becoming more efficient (through cost saving) and integrated (seamless partnerships). As the industry evolves further we will expect to see more clients galvanising these cross-platform opportunities.

The decision on the new readership measurement (the NPA has given notice to NRS) is a hot topic right now. Whether or not magazines will be included in the new process will undoubtedly have a knock-on effect to how the ABC report on only digital editions and the need to include a magazines total reach through websites, mobile and social brand extensions.