And American Baby draws more than a quarter million expectant parents to their events every year to see and try new products for infants.
These extensions of magazines brought new,relevant experiences to their readers while at the same time introducing their brands,and their magazines,to a new audience.
Topic 4:Advertising
At AMC,we explored the vital topic of advertising,especially as it relates to accountability and engagement.These two words are at the center of publishing discourse in the U.S.and they are quickly becoming the lingua franca around the rest of the world.They will be on the international tongue,no matter what the language
Engagement refers to the complex and rich relationship between the consumers and magazines and the ways to measure this encounter.Accountability means insuring that advertising performance achieves results and delivers a return on investment for advertisers.
Engagement and Accountability must become bookends to the magazine publishing business model.MPA has conducted ground-breaking research in this area,even though we are not the only organization seeking to universalize these concepts.Large agencies and packaged goods companies such as P&G are puttingconsiderable money and muscle behind these ideas.
On a panel devoted to magazine accountability research,we released the results of a comprehensive research analysis prepared for MPA by Marketing Evolution,an independent market research firm.
In the U.S.,marketers are very focused on the“purchase funnel”,which illustrates the consumer's purchase decision process.
Historically,television,not magazines,was thought to be the primary contributor to“brand awareness”,which is early in the purchase decision-making process.But our ground-breaking new research debunks that myth:magazines were the most consistent performer throughout the purchase funnel out of all the other media studied.
This means that magazines consistently delivered both brand awareness,near the top of the funnel,and purchase intent,which is at the very bottom of the purchase funnel…which is the most important metric to any marketer.
In addition,Marketing Evolution analyzed 19 studies across a number of categories including automotive,pharmaceutical and packaged goods,and found that when it comes to purchase intent,magazines are the most effective medium for advertisers across the categories.
Topic 5:Digital
Without question,we have never had an annual conference where so much time and discussion was focused on digital.Undoubtedly this is a reflection on the increased important this subject has with U.S.publishers.
MPA Chair Jack Kliger said our industry sees digital more as an opportunity now and less of a threat.I couldn't agree more.Time Inc.Chairman and CEO Ann Moore said that we can sit in a corner and whine about digital or we can roll up or sleeves.Well,I did not hear any whining at our conference.One of the reasons was that the news about digital opportunities we heard was encouraging.
For instance,we invited leading executives from Google and Yahoo to speak.The message they delivered was quite clear:they need us.They asserted that branded content is the key to growth.Yahoo's Rosensweig stated that his company loves magazines because they can partner with them to attract traffic and sell ads.Google's Tim Armstrong maintained that search engines can help close the gaps between magazine brands and their web traffic.And he told us not to worry about getting bulldozed by his company.And I'm quoting here:“Google is notgreat at creating content.It's not something we talk about.”
We also heard from Dr.Jeffrey Cole,the director of the Center for the Digital Future at a leading American university.While he sounded pessimistic about the possibilities of young adults and teenagers developing into hard copy newspaper readers,he was much more encouraging about the magazine industry.He stated quite clearly that magazines in print will always have an appeal.“Some magazines will last forever,”Dr.Cole predicted.He did not say which ones,although I did notice many publishers dashing eagerly to meet him after his fascinating presentation.
But some of the most exciting digital developments at the conference were examples of what magazines are doing on the digital front.At least,they were the most entertaining part of the AMC.That's why we featured a panel focusing on video on magazine digital platforms.We put together a rather eclectic group of publications for the discussion that included Newsweek,Time Out New York,Sports Illustrated and Ehlert Publishing,which publishes 15 power sports and boating magazines.
A few themes emerged from the panel.One is to keep the videos short-that means less than four minutes unless you're showing swimsuit models like Sport Illustrated does.Another was to try to limit the amount and length of advertising at the front of your online videos-less than 15 seconds if possible.
Newsweek is giving its reporters video cameras.And they are producing videos at very low prices:literally for just a few hundred dollars a video.Time Out explained that one of the reasons the magazine made the push to video was that readers wanted to meet the writers behind the bylines.Steve Hedlund from Ehlert Publishing said his company originally was producing content for cable TV outlets but they decided a few months ago that broadband was a better use of their assets.The company hires professional TV talent to host some of its online efforts.And Sports Illustrated is one of the few magazines that is producing video content for both the Internet and mobile platforms.Star columnist Rick Reilly is featured on both platforms.