Magazines are dead. Really? It’s all too easy to bemoan the overall circulation decline across the consumer magazine industry as a portent of an industry in perennial decline. The truth is more complex. The reality of the situation also happens to be more positive than some of the doom-sayers would have you believe.
Don’t believe me? Well, there are plenty of encouraging facts and trends. Despite a relatively small population, Australia remains the third-largest consumer magazine market in Asia Pacific after Japan and China. Niche titles are going gang-busters. Frankie was one of the star performers in the last Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) audit. Turn to page 22 in today's magazine for our Australian Magazine Awards (AMA) lift-out, which features scores of outstanding magazine brands.
Australia’s aging population is a clusterfuck for government agencies, health services, pension schemes and all the other cogs which keep the wheels of society turning. But it’s a goldmine for the magazine industry.
Australia’s baby boomers will keep savvy publishers in vino for many years, with their insatiable appetite for health, well-being and fitness, only matched by their desire for hip replacements and rusty sex (see Dr Rebecca Huntley's Caxtons seminar round-up in this week's magazine).
There are many fast facts like this that offer soothing words of encouragement for embattled publishers, but I offer up an anecdote from this week as further evidence. While using my local gym one evening after work, I noticed a woman completely and utterly engrossed in the latest issue of Famous, while riding an exercise bike.
As the woman got her Angelina Jolie fix, a man in the heavy weights corner was using his iPad men’s health magazine app to guide his workout, carefully following the exercise instructions and illustrations. While leaving the gym, a woman next to me paused in front of a stack of magazines and stuffed a copy of the gym’s custom magazine in her handbag, no doubt to read at home later that evening.
Despite being time poor and actively engaged in a physical pursuit, here were three gym users interacting with magazines in different formats. It’s not an audience problem. It’s a revenue model problem. Why do we talk about magazines in terms of physical sales? Seven Network doesn’t negotiate with advertisers on the basis of how many televisions have been shifted in Harvey Norman.
It’s only right that a new reporting system, which will aggregate sales across print and digital products, is in the pipeline for calendar 2012. For the first time, publishers will be able to sell collective eyeballs. Last year was a good year for the AMA winners, but next year is shaping up to be a turning point for the entire magazine industry.
One final note: it’s time to start the countdown to the annual AdNews Agency of the Year Awards. Three categories are new to 2012. Ad of the Year and Digital Campaign of the Year need little explanation. The Game Changer Award recognises technology and campaigns which reinterpret or rewrite the rules of business.
A Game Changer could be a piece of disruptive technology in web, mobile, tablet or print form, a new advertising format, or a big idea. Hell yeah, it could be GQ’s Belvedere vodka campaign, which played the Usher soundtrack as the reader turned the pages. Who said magazines were dead? Best of luck to all the entrants.
This editorial column originally appeared in the November 4 edition of AdNews. Click here to subscribe.
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