Why multichannel content is still king

With brands using their own stories as a resource to communicate with consumers, the customer magazine industry is holding up well during the recession, according to the latest National Readership Survey (NRS) figures.

Slimming World, Xbox, Tesco and WeightWatchers magazines have all seen uplifts in readership between April 2010 and March 2011. Tesco magazine has an average readership of 6.6 million, which far outstrips What’s On TV the most-read consumer magazine which has 3.4 million readers.

NRS statistics also show that readers of own-brand titles are 17% more likely to be in the upper social grade AB.

Rather than being solely a branding vehicle, customer magazines also have a tactical purpose. In the May/June issue of Boots Health & Beauty there were eight offers and nine cut-out discount vouchers.

Andrew Hirsch, chief executive of John Brown, which publishes John Lewis Edition, says that products featured in magazines have a big impact on sales.

“If you go back five years, the question was what the magazines did for the brand,” he recalls. “Now it’s what does it do for sales? With a retailer such as John Lewis, if we feature a handbag in the magazine, then the sales of that product will shoot up 300% or 400%.”

Response rates are very important in this area. Sainsbury’s created its baby and toddler club Little Ones with publisher Seven. Rachel Leonard, direct marketing executive at Sainsbury’s, explains: “Little Ones members are very responsive and the success of the club is due to its integrated and targeted approach. We see significant responses when the website, magazines and emails work in tandem.”

Advertising revenue is also a significant measure of a customer magazine’s success. “I thought 2011 would be a difficult year for advertising but it hasn’t proved to be the case,” claims Hirsch.

Mark Jones, editorial director at Cedar, which produces Tesco magazine which is now expanding into China and its new offshoot Kids’ Book Club, agrees that things are looking rosy. “The recession is not affecting us. We had good growth last year and we are growing internationally so I don’t feel too bad about the recession any more.”

But elsewhere in the children’s market, customer publishers are less buoyant. Egmont publishes titles such as Dora the Explorer, Fireman Sam and Barbie on a licensed basis.

“I think we are right in the middle of the recession,” says customer publishing director Helen Stables. “Things are OK, not fantastic.” The books division is doing better, where Egmont produces titles to go with a particular promotion to act as a sales incentive, such as a deal between The Mirror newspaper and Mr Men books.

These days, rather than approaching a publisher and saying “we want to do a magazine”, many brands are saying they want to communicate better with customers and asking for the best way of doing so.

Keith Grainger, chief executive of Redwood which publishes magazines for La Redoute, Barclays and Land Rover, explains: “New clients are saying that they know their customers are online and mobile, and they need to provide a seamless experience. Those that create digital content as well as print are in a stronger place.”

The lines are blurring between advertising and bespoke content, Grainger claims: “Is an ad created as a viral branded content? Our editors are thinking about whether they should do a video or another type of communication, how we measure it and what is best for the brand.”

Jayne Caple, managing director of FuturePlus, which publishes BT Vision, O2 Blue and PC World magazines among others, says that brands need to be braver with their customer publishing content. They should not be afraid to produce content that doesn’t appear to be branded, even at the risk of customers going elsewhere to buy products not available from that company.

Such an approach is being taken by online fashion brand Asos, which often features products not sold on its website in the brand’s print magazine, in order to contribute to its independent high-fashion brand positioning.

Caple says: “Sometimes you might be looking at customer communications without knowing that you are actually doing so. The pinnacle of customer magazines is to get to a place where you don’t know you are being sold to. With the way that communications are shifting, that is exactly where we are going but it is a very subtle line.”

Other customer titles are more overt about the brand’s role. Grainger at Redwood says that its website for Boots not only sells products but also provides users with health and beauty information, giving the brand a role as an adviser or expert.

“For example, part of the website is about sun preparations. It allows people to put in their skin type and where they are going and the site will recommend products. The company does want you to see a product and that is part of the deal, but that is not a problem as long as you have provided something useful and relevant.”

Boots director of loyalty Ruth Spencer explains that the company often reviews how it delivers branded content. “Consumers’ consumption is evolving, so we continually review the way we deliver rich content. For example, we developed BootsWebMD.com in 2009 to provide health information to customers and the site now has more than 1.5 million visitors a month.”

Grainger also points to Procter & Gamble’s new ezine Beauty Recommended, which features make-up and beauty looks using P&G’s brands such as Olay, Max Factor and Wella. Users can flick the pages online and read it in a similar way to a printed product. Crucially, customers can click to buy from a partner retailer, which is as close as P&G gets to direct selling.

However, the website is “brought to you by supersavvyme”, a broader unbranded vehicle from P&G which features articles on planning school fetes, gardening and picnics. The latter is particularly interesting given that P&G recently sold its last food brand Pringles to Diamond Foods, owner of Kettle Chips, so in theory has no commercial interest in producing a website about food.

Grainger comments that brands producing content that might be useful for consumers and then advertising their own products against this is where the industry might see more growth.

“FMCG brands, including P&G and Unilever, are starting to talk about the growing importance of content. I think these companies will see that customer publishers can help provide online content to build their brands,” he adds.

For Financial Management, the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the audience it talks to is also broader than those which interact directly with its brand. “The magazine is really of interest to most senior people in business,” says head of communications Victor Smart.

Publisher Seven has helped the magazine become more edgy and develop a bigger personality, claims Smart, who adds that this strategy has included recruiting FT journalist Gillian Tett as a columnist.

Caple at FuturePlus says that growth for customer publishing will soon come in the retail sector and technology arena. “It’s about localised content where someone might be able to go into a store and get an offer on their mobile phone. Customers now expect a seamless transfer from one channel into a local area to provide something that is branded and engaging.”