Magazines Must Work Harder To Evolve Content For Digital Platforms
The magazine industry needs to adapt in the digital age, with the key being the evolution of content to take readers online, rather than the replication of magazines online, according to panellists at this morning’s latest MediaTel Group seminar.
It is important to give readers a reason to go to magazines’ online offerings, said Future plc chief executive, Stevie Spring. “On the web it’s not about replicating the magazine, it’s about giving people a reason to visit [the sites],” she said, indicating that communities were key to magazine websites.
“There is a lot of bollocks talked about publishing online,” Spring admitted. “I do genuinely believe that setting up somewhere where people can visit, having trusted content, having fantastic editors who make my life easier, have a real value, and I think where all of us have failed… is on how do we monetise that long-term, and nobody has the answer.”
Spring said that there was a real opportunity to gain advertising revenue from magazines’ digital platforms, whilst Media Planning Group’s managing partner, Marc Mendoza, insisted that magazine brands needed to work with digital experts and young media newcomers to maximise the benefits of online, rather than just shifting them to the medium.
Magazines need to adapt their content for the different platforms, said Paul Keenan, chief executive of Emap Consumer Media. “Over time, the platform won’t matter,” he said, indicating that the internet has not yet completed its own evolution. “We’ll have to get good at engaging on multiple platforms,” he said.
Magazines are a different experience on the web, but something that would be a boon, according to Development Hell’s editorial director, David Hepworth, would be a form of email word of mouth. If a magazine concept took off on the web in this way, he said, all of us would be aware of it in minutes.
Most panellists were critical of Felix Dennis’ new online lads mag, Monkey, with Spring saying the publication has received so much publicity largely in part because of the eccentricity of Dennis himself.
Hepworth was also unsure of the new entry. “We’re a world away from the sophistication of the people who actually work in digital and Monkey is a classic example of this,” he said. “I think it has all the weaknesses of the internet and none of its strengths… but I think it’s a really interesting debate.
“As you look to move magazine brands online… I think you have to recognise that magazines are traditionally a push medium and the internet is a pull. We’re going to have to really up our game in the magazine industry to really understand what the internet is good at and what it isn’t,” he said.
Snoddy threw another argument into the mix, pointing out that the biggest cost of launching a magazine is marketing. “How about if Monkey actually establishes its brand online and that online is the cheap version of marketing?” he queried, comparing this move to a YouTube pop star gaining wide acclaim on the back of the video sharing site.
“If Felix Dennis is really smart here and Monkey is any good at all, [a move into print] will happen,” he said.
Hepworth exercised a note of caution on magazine brands moving online. “We shouldn’t bullshit ourselves that just because we’ve got the same computers are everyone else, that we’re as good at communicating with those people as… people doing brilliant websites are, or that our skills are all transferable, because they might not be,” he said.
Snoddy added: “[Magazine publishers] have to be multimedia, you have to find a way of making it work and monetising it.”
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