Consumer Publishers See
the “Media-Neutral” Light
by Karlene Lukovitz
VP, Communications, BPA Worldwide
Virtually every day, we read new articles about U.S. publishing companies racing to become “media neutral” in response to the Internet’s formidable competition for time and dollars.
B-to-B’s are most definitely wrestling with the fundamental changes in structures, cultures and operations needed to pull off such a transformation. With their predominantly controlled-circulation models, these publications were particularly vulnerable to the advertising decline that began during this last recessionary economy, not to mention the growing competition from new media.Their survival required moving fast to broaden their revenue bases.
So, in addition to their traditional brand extensions—the trade shows that have long generated as much or more profit than publications at many companies, for instance—B-to-B’s have diligently developed databases that enable cross-marketing among their brands and media channels. Just as important, over time, they’ve become better at avoiding the human minefields that surround integration issues (resistance to change, territoriality, etc.)
But making the media-neutral leap is just as imperative on the consumer magazine publishing side—and the process there could be even tougher, at least for some types of publishers.
Why? For one thing, after being burned by investing in hugely expensive but largely unsuccessful portals back in the 90’s, big consumer publishers were slow to get back into the game when the Net rebounded. Therefore, their learning curves are going to be compressed.
Also, within consumer publishing, cross-marketing among products has generally been more important to special interest, circulation-driven publishers than to the big, highly advertising-dependent companies. In the bigger operations, functions and media still tend to be decentralized and “siloed” by brand, which could make the elimination of boundaries and the deployment of talent across media a struggle.
But there’s good reason to make it all work. As Jon Friedman recently pointed out in MarketWatch.com, “Stunningly, magazine industry executives now suggest that the Internet represents a greater prospect for stable advertising-revenue growth than the pages of a publication. As recently as a few years ago, when the Internet business was mired in a post-2000 slump, this thought would have been regarded as far-fetched.”
The 2005 edition of the Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Forecast certainly seems to support this conversion in thinking. VSS reports that “new media”—defined as consumer Internet, cable and satellite TV, satellite radio, B-to-B e-media, movie screens and video games—accounted for 16.7% of all U.S. ad spending this last year, and will jump by 17% per year for the next five years, to reach 26.3%. VSS also predicts that consumer time spent with traditional media will drop from 64% to 54% over the next five years, while time spent with subscription- and fee-based media will rise to 46%.
Little wonder that consumer publishers are becoming more infused with media-neutral missionary zeal with each passing day. Publishers—and even editors—are being quoted about the need for magazine and Net staffs to operate as single, seamless entities—and some companies (Conde Nast, for one) are already implementing this philosophy
Just as B-to-B circulators (who now frequently have the more appropriate title “audience developers) have done within their companies, consumer marketers will play a critically important role in enabling consumer publishers to reach out to existing and new customers through new channels.
Here are a few examples of experimentation along these lines:
- Through a through a partnership with London-based Flytxt Ltd., Time Inc. is offering mobile text messaging services to subscribers, with the goal of “reaching its readers wherever they are and forming interactive relationships with them,” according to their announcement. The programs are starting with People and Teen People (the “Teen People Mobile Club” offers news, contests and horoscopes), but Time Inc. will not limit them to titles geared to younger audiences.
- Hearst has its own wireless partner, and one of its first offerings is a branded CosmoGirl! text messaging daily horoscope service (fee: $1.99 per month).
- TV Guide is offering short video clips on its Web site and a VOD format for Comcast, Time Warner digital and TiVO subscribers.
- The Economist offers loyalty-building free e-newsletters, RSS feeds and weekly email article alerts by subject matter, a mobile edition ($3.95 per month for print subscribers, $7.95 per month for non-subscribers) available in both rich-media and text-only formats, and pay-for premium content access (site access free with print subscription).
- Maxim has partnered with MSN Video to stream free videos—viewable in return for sitting through 15- or 30-second commercial videos.
- Sports Illustrated is enhancing the value of its print edition by giving subscribers access to SI.com streaming videos that are add-ons to the week’s featured articles.
Exciting stuff. And with all of the magazine circulation challenges, branching out into other media may be looking more appealing than ever to consumer marketers.
