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Brands with cover-star ambition

It’s great to read such a positive story about customer publishing. The ASDA statistics clearly demonstrate the value you can create by communicating with customers using an engaging editorial approach. But it’s this editorial approach that must be stressed. It is vital that content of this kind is written by specialised editors who can generate content that encapsulates the personality and messaging of the brand while engaging audiences successfully, as opposed to advertising copywriters. However, it’s puzzling to see such a great focus on the ABC figures. Surely this is the incorrect measure to be used to identify the top magazines in the industry? The NRS figures are the currency of the magazine medium, and are essentially a far more relevant measure for free distribution media. In reality, if we consider these figures, the power of the top 10 in fact shifts. By looking at the NRS stats for Women’s Bimonthly Periodicals for instance, five of the top 8 are customer publications (achieving a joint readership of 14m), which includes Boots Health & Beauty and Your M&S (missing in the ABCs), some of the leading established titles in the market which dominate the women’s sectors. Therefore, how is it fair to mark the efforts of customer publishers on industry figures that miss a huge slice of the market’s offering? I’m also not entirely sure why Brigg felt the need to comment that there’s no need to invest in technology such as the ipad. With predictions of 28 million ipads in circulation next year, this is one of the best ways for brands to continue to be relevant – communicating with customers on their terms, when and where they want. Therefore brands certainly do need to consider iPads and other tablets in the comms mix if they are to avoid missing out on a massive audience of consumers.

Fri, 24 Sep 2010

2:47 pm