News Bytes: Online Magazine Brands, How Men Shop

Posted on | March 3, 2008 |

Where the Boys Are in the Mall? (no, this is not geo-location for teenage girls) the answer… not where you might assume, according to a recent Harris Interactive study commissioned by Men’s Health magazine. Despite the popular cliché, men actually do like to shop.

Perhaps not quite the fashionistas, men are buying fewer suits but they are buying more casual clothes than ever before - at least one new item a month. Men are also buying many of the household grocery items - some 65% of men say they do at least half of the household food shopping. Men’s Health Publisher Jack Essig said there are lessons for marketers in the “mis-perceptions about how men shop — or don’t shop.” For instance, he said, “about 80% of all marketing dollars for food goes to targeting women. That’s a real missed opportunity.” Sadly, the study does not mention the purchase of cleaning products, except the personal kind - like shower gel. Personally, I have been waiting for an ad for any household cleaning product featuring a man doing the cleaning. Go to the article in Advertising Age and click on the image “hotspots” for more details.

Online Magazine Brands: The MPA held its latest digital conference last week in New York where speakers and panelists discussed a range of topics:

Google’s David Eun’s keynote spin telling publishers that “Those who facilitate interaction will win, because readers want it all—they want to be able to mix and match… there’s still a lot of separation between the online and offline worlds which could be one of the most popular features of magazines.”

According to Sarah Fay, President, Isobar “’Amplification’ is the new buzz word this year (and she used the word a lot). Ways where magazines can demonstrate consumers are carrying a message forward is really exciting…”

Susan Lyne of Martha Stewart Omnimedia told the audience “One of the mistakes magazine companies make in trying to move the experience online is not looking at what they can do with this medium that is different. What about this medium will allow us to create a totally different product?”

John Loughlin, EVP Hearst Magazines noted “Magazine websites used to be designed as accessories—and they’re still short of being true equal partners with the magazine. As we move forward, publishers need to go through the closet and find all the assets stored there—some of which really have a very long shelf-life. Put these to use.”

In her opening speech Nina Link, President and CEO, MPA was enthusiastic about the creativity in the industries online adaptations: “MPA tracked more than 150 digital initiatives that were announced by consumer magazines in 2006. Our members have created online film festivals, interactive dating blogs, down-loadable sports tickers, bridal sites with virtual fitting rooms and much more…. But the picture is clear. We’re witnessing an unprecedented burst of creative energy in our industry.”

However, the picture is not so clear for the sites’ advertising potential. In Titles Have to Face up to the Scale of the Competition If They Expect Larger Share of Digital Ad Revenue in this week’s Advertising Age, its noted, now that most magazine publishers are online, many are finding themselves nobodies in the new neighborhood, overshadowed by digital brands like Yahoo, MySpace and Huffington Post. So how much of the internet’s growth can magazine brands grab for themselves?

Consumer magazine sites attracted 67.5 million monthly unique visitors in the fourth quarter last year. That’s great if publishers only want digital companions for their core print properties, to recruit subscribers and provide a little inventory for integrated ad buys. If they also want to leverage their magazine brands to get meaningful online ad revenue, however, they have to face up to the scale of the competition. YouTube draws at least 67.5 million unique visitors all by itself, according to Nielsen Online (source of table below).

The most popular magazine-brand websites are becoming real businesses because they have scale and, therefore, the inventory to offer advertisers. Brands like Sports Illustrated, Time, People, each with unique visitors in the neighborhood of 6m.

So according to magazine publishing executives, creativity combined with an understanding of the new medium is the key to engage customers. To compete for advertisers, one needs scale and inventory - (and a TV channel at your disposal).

But what about sites brought together around consumer interests to build scale - the vertical network? Reading all this, I have to think of the example led by Glam Media - 44m global unique monthly visitors (comScore MediaMetrix). With its flagship site, Glam.com (which never had the advantage of offline brand equity in the sector), and its publishing network of 450 popular and influential lifestyle websites, blogs and magazines. The distributed media model is a model I did not hear discussed at the conference…but rather picked up in the Wall Street Journal, shows Wall Street is indeed listening.

[tags] Glam Media, Magazine Publishers Association, men’s shopping, Men’s Health [/tags]

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