Where do magazines fit in the media mix?
Magazine brands are working to overcome the misconception they only function at the top of the purchase funnel while educating the future agency leaders about the possibilities of the medium.
The shift from stand-alone print publications to magazine brands in recent years has given publishers the power to push consumers through the purchase funnel more effectively than ever before. However, the perception remains that magazines operate primarily at the top of the funnel.
Bauer promotes the Melbourne Cup Carnival
“The greatest misconception is that we’re not seen as an active participant in the marketing funnel; that we don’t go beyond the role of brand positioning and awareness where, in fact, we drive brand consideration, purchase, and lead people in-store,” says Nick Smith, prestige and lifestyle director at News Corp.
While print magazines remain a potent approach for positioning, awareness and education, Smith says the other channels magazine brands span across means they can do much more.
“Magazine brands have become ecosystems themselves,” he adds. “In print, we can go deep through editorial or advertorial. On the other hand, the immediacy of social and digital really allows us to be reactive and responsive.”
Nicole Bence, commercial strategy and solutions director at Pacific Magazines, likens this ecosystem to a dinner party. She says: “If you think about it like a dinner party, immediate response platforms like social are similar to a doorstop conversation, attention-grabbing and inviting, led by our brand connections. Digital engagement can be compared with inviting people in for an in-depth conversation at cocktail hour. However, it’s the intimacy of print that’s just like sitting down to dinner with your friends.”
This view shapes campaign strategies for Pacific as more agencies and marketers look to publishers for holistic solutions that extend well beyond the printed product.
“No one just comes to us for double page spreads,” says Smith. “They want activation in terms of print, digital, social and experiential.”
Fiorella Di Santo
Fiorella Di Santo, GM publishing – fashion, luxury, food and home, at Bauer Media says: “The days of, ‘Here’s a magazine brief’ or ‘We just want to buy a magazine schedule’ are over. Invariably, more and more now, agencies come to us with a client problem. They need to drive trial, they need to improve advocacy. For us, it starts with a client strategy and then we think about the brands and the channels that are going to best resolve the issue. It’s much more interesting now.”
Smith concurs. “We’re seeing some pretty sophisticated campaigns come out that don’t just rely on awareness. We provide brand health tracking surveys or work with brands to drive purchase consideration or social engagement.”
From an agency perspective, Sam Tedesco, Melbourne investment director at GroupM media agency WaveMaker, says magazine media definitely has a place within the media mix. It’s simply a case of looking at the brand’s objectives and how they intersect with the consumer journey. “We work out where are they on their purchase journey and then find the right channels for that,” Tedesco says.
“With magazines, it’s about looking at the campaign and whether it lends itself to being in a contextual environment for magazines.”
Still, Tedesco says the two key areas he would call on magazines for are awareness and research highlighting the fact that there’s work to be done to educate the market on the ability of magazine brands to do more.
The 2016 Passion Response Study commissioned by industry body Magazine Networks supported the notion that magazine media does a great job in helping brands with discovery but the study also found the medium over-indexed for brand advocacy and familiarity in addition to performing well in intrigue, desire and commitment to purchase. In fact, the study found 65% of magazine consumers have been influenced by recommended or featured products while 59% admit to being influenced by magazine ads.
Much more than simply awareness
For Jo King, head of brand, marketing and customer experience at the Victorian Racing Club (VRC), magazine media offers much more than awareness.
“Magazines sit at the top of the funnel for awareness, absolutely, but we’ve used them a little bit differently. Awareness in the first instance, but then as a continued and extended go-to resource along the customer lifecycle. It’s a resource that you go back to time and time again,” she said.
This year the VRC forged an extensive partnership with Bauer Media calling on a number of brands including Cosmo, Elle, Gourmet Traveller and The Australian Women’s Weekly to promote the Melbourne Cup Carnival. In previous years, the VRC hadn’t worked with magazine brands. “They’d forgotten about the power of them,” King says.
The partnership extended from the print and online offerings of Bauer’s signature brands to experiential activations on-site at the event including an Elle lounge which acted as a corporate hospitality area. There was also a Cosmo ‘Glam Pit’ where racegoers could go for hair and makeup touchups. These live elements were used to create content which was then fed back through social and digital channels.
King is more than pleased with the results of the partnership which she says could not have been delivered by any other medium. “A billboard is never going to do it. You can never have multiple messages, multiple moments or multiple intersections in a TVC. A trusted masthead with a really strong print and digital platform is absolutely right for us and a very good partner,” she says.
Extensions of magazine brands have come into their own in recent years, becoming a significant part of the media mix, particularly in the experiential and events space.
Women’s Health’s Big Night Out
Pacific Magazines has seen success with Women’s Health Big Night Out which brought the brand to life with a healthy alternative to Friday night at the pub. Sponsors including Toyota and Ocean Spray tapped into the event to reach Millennial women.
“That’s no longer just about awareness,” Bence says. “That’s actually being able to get the brand into the hands of consumers through a relationship that Women’s Health has created, fostered and delivered on a silver platter to an advertiser. That’s bringing it much further down the purchase funnel closer to conversion.”
Another example that clearly demonstrates this move down the funnel is Vogue Fashion’s Night Out, an event which attracted more than 340,000 people to the Sydney and Melbourne central business districts in 2016 and is, according to Smith, considered to be a bigger economic driver than the Boxing Day sales.
“That is a powerful testament to the way magazine brands have evolved to become more meaningful in the marketing funnel, from awareness to actually driving purchase,” he says.
The benefits of including magazines in the mix
When it comes down to deciding whether to include magazines in the media mix, the VRC’s King understands the challenges marketers are facing. “It’s more difficult for marketers because there are so many options available,” she says.
Still, she believes magazines offer a unique proposition that cannot be ignored.
“We can’t talk about ourselves in a way that a magazine can talk about the event,” says King. “We can’t tell people what to wear in a way that a magazine can. We don’t have the strength or the capacity or even the wherewithal to be that voice of our event. A magazine partner absolutely does.”
Focussing purely on the magazine print offering for a moment, WaveMaker’s Tedesco says: “According to Roy Morgan numbers, there are magazines that are growing. They’re still reaching high numbers. So it’s a great environment to be in when you are still reaching considerable readership.”
He likens the appeal of print magazines to weekend newspapers. “Don’t discount them because they’re actually a good medium. People take their time with them and it’s a similar story with magazines,” he says.
Nicole Bence
Bence is keen to highlight the value of print being a paid medium. She says: “It’s something they’re choosing to spend time with. It’s something they’re choosing to spend their money on, and it’s not disruptive. We’re not running down the street waving a magazine in front of someone and throwing it at them. They’re actively seeking to spend time with that brand and the value it brings to their lives.”
With the average reader spending one hour and 17 minutes with a print edition according to Magazine Networks research, and 82% of readers considering this time a “welcome break”, the relaxed state of mind and the response to ads – 26% of readers pay attention to the ads, higher than any other medium – is not to be discredited.
“With TV, for example, the numbers are high there, but people often use a second screen when they’re watching TV,” Tedesco adds. “So there could be a distraction from TV ads. But if you’re in an environment such as magazines, you’re getting that full attention because people don’t tend to have that second screen.”
Of course, few campaigns today rely on one medium to get their messages across and so print should be considered as part of that broader strategy. Earlier this year, the Magazine Networks Multiplier Effect Study examined how print magazines work with other channels. The study found that brands including print magazines in campaigns saw a 22% uplift in brand trust, a 55% increase in brand favourability and a 29% lift in purchase intent.
WaveMaker’s Tedesco says: “Print magazines are a great support for other media channels because they can reinforce your message.”
Working with agencies
The misconception about where magazine brands fit within the purchase funnel isn’t the only challenge holding the medium back. Publishers need to spend more time with agency staff in order to ensure magazines take their rightful place in the mix.
Bence said: “A lot of the planner buyers we’re dealing with inside agencies are very similar. They all consume media the same way. Their demographics, interests and behaviours are similar.”
The hardest sell, according to Bence, is publications such as New Idea which appeals to an older demographic. “These women live on a household income of $80,000, they’re cooking 75-80% of the meals every week, they’re walking the dog, they’re doing most of the childcare,” Bence says.
“They’ve probably got a job two days a week. Their lifestyle is very, very different to the people we’re talking to inside agencies. How do we get people to step into the shoes of the audiences that we’re trying to reach and therefore help us to justify the role that magazines have in that media mix? Just because you’re not spending five bucks a week on New Idea doesn’t mean millions of women aren’t.”
The other challenge magazines are facing is the belief that Millennials simply don’t connect with magazine brands. “There is a preconceived notion that Millennials don’t buy magazines, as a blanket statement,” Bence says. “And so, off the back of that, there becomes a misconception that Millennials are not engaging with magazine brands.”
However, publisher-side data shows this to be inaccurate. “What we’re seeing through the analysis of the audience is that it’s social and digital platforms bringing younger audiences into the brand,” said Bence.
Bauer’s Di Santo believes the VRC campaign illustrates this point and also served the dual purpose of demonstrating how magazine media is operating to agency staffers. “It was a really interesting way for a young person in an agency to say, ‘Okay, I get how a magazine – how the traditional channel, as well as a magazine brand – can work as part of a broader media campaign.’ That’s a really nice example of bringing it to life,” she says. “That’s the sort of thing we need to put in front of more agencies to get them to reconsider the way that they can work with us.”
WaveMaker’s Tedesco agrees, noting that for magazines to be considered in the media mix, there is work to be done, particularly with younger agency staffers. He says: “There needs to be a bit of a re-education within the market.”
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