A little more than a week ago, I spoke as guest of Better Homes and Gardens to a group of marketers and media planners in New York City. For the weeks leading up to this presentation I had been collecting examples of how magazine publishers are adapting to the new world of digital content and meaningful advertising. What I discovered is that despite the predictions that the magazine business is fading, there actually is an incredible rebirth of the medium going on.
First let me call out that this breakfast at Better Homes and Gardens is itself an outstanding example of Marketing with Meaning. Along with my speech, the magazine brought in Robert Levy, who shared insights from his group’s most recent study of consumer habits and attitudes around new products. The magazine provided valuable, free content to the marketers that it works with—in a way, investing in their careers, rather than just giving them cheaper ad space. This is a lesson in B2B marketing that I wrote about several months ago here.
One of the most remarkable examples I discovered was the December 2009 issue of Food Network Magazine. As described in this article at Talk Back Media, much of the advertising in this issue offers added value content. For example, an ad for Hillshire Farm and Hamilton Beach had tear-out recipe cards, and an insert from Viva paper towels included tips for keeping the home clean. These are great examples of Meaningful Solutions.
I also dug into the archive for an example in which Wired magazine partnered with Xerox to create a limited number of magazines with actual subscribers’ faces on the covers. The experience was tied to an issue focused on digital personalization, and allowed Xerox to feature its new small-batch printing equipment. While it was a great opportunity for those who got their own covers, there were a lot of people like me who were disappointed because of the limited number Xerox made.
One of the great lessons here is that some of the best magazine marketing occurs when an advertiser dedicates a significant portion of their budget with the specific title and builds ideas together. This flies in the face of the traditional media approach, in which agencies come up with the ideas, and media buyers seek out many titles and the lowest possible ad rates. With a partnership, the magazines can bring much more creativity into the marketer’s business.
It reminds me of when I was launching the Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash business for P&G in 2003. I met with the leadership team of Motor Trend and we put together a deal in which we agreed to a year of back cover ads at a reasonable fee. In return, our product was used and reviewed by its editors, and received a “Motor Trend Approved” endorsement that we used on our package. This helped us get over the main barrier to purchase—that car guys would not believe our product actually allowed a car to dry without spots. I recall many discussion boards around the time of our marketing launch where guys said, “If the people at Motor Trend say it works, then I believe it.”
In the future, smart magazine publishers would be wise to insist that their advertisers be more meaningful, and consult with them to help them succeed. The reason is that the ads are part of the reading experience, and the more valuable the entire reading experience is, the more people will subscribe. It will take a publisher to show some guts for this to happen, though.
Although these examples show that meaningful marketing can find a home in magazines, it is interesting to wonder whether or not market shifts could make advertising a lot less important to content makers like this. Overall, advertising is a “necessary evil” to publishers. Their desire is to make a magazine that people love and choose to subscribe to. Advertising makes up for the difference between subscriptions and the cost to publish the magazine. But what if new devices such as Kindle and the iPad, and new payment schemes that allow a cost-per-article revenue model, end up making the quality of the content the driver of business? Imagine if magazine publishers could get rid of the advertising sales department and just make great content? It might seem like a long way off, but if I were starting a magazine today, I would try to figure out how to build a business that doesn’t even require an advertising model.
Some of your examples very much remind me of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval program (http://bit.ly/b1jIM7). Last spring I was in New York City for a product launch and I met with GH. I toured their labs where they test all of the products that are advertised and featured in their publication.
Here is an example of one of the most circulated publications (also with decent online traffic), that simply doesn’t allow products to advertise with them unless they stand up to their tests. This takes Marketing with Meaning to the product and development process. Sidebar: Bob, I think I saw some P&G products that you worked on there, too… I specifically remember the Tide pen and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.
In regards to your comments about publications that don’t rely on an advertising model, I think we can look no further than services such as Consumer Reports (http://bit.ly/ENcj0) or Angie’s List (http://bit.ly/CujfS). Here, we have high value content, that can stand on its own and people are willing to pay subscription fees for the material alone.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by mktgwithmeaning: New blog post: How Magazines Are Becoming More Meaningful http://bit.ly/aPEp1Z…
Bob,
I completely agree with you about agencies working with magazines to create more meaningful and targeted campaigns. I started a local men’s magazine several years ago and would beg advertisers to work with me rather than put the same ad they ran in all the other magazines. Unfortunately this usually led to them asking for positive editorial coverage. The line between editorial and advertising is gray these days to be sure but anything that undermines the magazine’s credibility with their community is potentially lethal to the brand. Would you trust a magazines opinion if you knew it could be bought? We wouldn’t even allow advertisers to appear next to editorial coverage where they were mentioned. This is the complete opposite of online advertising where every intention is made to place ads next to relevant copy.
In the future I’m not sure magazine publishers will be in the position to insist on anything from advertisers. But you bring up a great point: What if publishers didn’t need advertisers? That’s when advertisers will pay a lot of money to partner with publishers.
I don’t believe cost-per-article is the future revenue model. One of the reasons why people like magazines is that you can flip through them and skim or read certain articles that catch your eye. Page layout and design have a lot to do with this. This is also why, as you mention, ads are apart of the reading experience. Having to decide whether or not an article is actually worth paying for would ruin that experience and the bond magazines have with their readers. This is the promise and potential of the iPad brings. It will keep that bond with the reader while making the experience even better. There is a great video on Youtube showing what an issue of Sports Illustrated would be like on an iPad.
In my opinion subscriptions and pay-per-issues are the only solutions. WSJ, GQ, Esquire, and others are already doing that. The question is how do you separate your free content online from your paid content. This is where publishers will have to have guts. Making non-subscribers decide whether or not they are willing to pay for online content that they used to get for free. That will send a lot of them elsewhere. Can the publisher stomach fewer page views. Can they convince advertisers that those who stayed are actually more valuable to them? What if, just maybe, more people end up staying? Then they would need as many advertisers. But then again that would all come down to whether or not the publisher had great content.
Thanks,
Tom
The last part of this article–specifically the part about magazines working with advertisers as partners–reinforces an idea I’ve been thinking about for my own magazine.
The dilemma, though, is similar to what Tom mentions above: The advertisers expect positive editorial coverage. I’m not willing to compromise honest critique for the sake of “sponsorship,” and that can be difficult for partnering organizations to understand.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
~Tamia