Mr. Magazine

Americans depend on newsstands. While that might seem like a ridiculous statement considering the number of establishments that are threatening to close or already have; it’s nonetheless true. Nowhere is the social impact of magazines developed and realized more thoroughly than on the newsstands.

And while yes, for the majority of ink on paper publications the newsstands only represent 10% of their revenues, newsstands have never proven themselves to be more essential and more important than they are right now in the scheme of all print media, even in this digital age.

Why are they so important? Because of one fact that not even the most staunch digital supporter can deny: they’re in-your-face bold and they never apologize for their intrusiveness. Nor should they.

You’re at the newsstands, walking slowly and perusing some of your favorite titles. Suddenly, you see a cover that fairly leaps from its spot on the stand and almost attacks you with its social importance and vibrancy. D-Day: a 70th Anniversary issue that quickly brings the World War II battle to the forefront of your mind. Nothing can pierce that moment in time between you and that magazine cover, nothing. Not the people chattering around you in the background, nor the sounds of cars honking as they go by. It’s just you and that infinite juncture in time where your gaze and your mind connected with a magazine cover that caused a reaction no news broadcast or digital pop-up notification ever could.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in California, Mississippi or Colorado; when you walk into your local Wal-Mart or grocery store and see all the special niche publications on D-Day or whatever event or happening is important to the American Canvas when it comes to that particular time, the newsstands help you to remember that epoch without you even trying. No Google, no Yahoo Search can ever compare to the in-your-face response a magazine cover can generate without even leaving its slot on the stand.

Newsstands are also a great barometer for the demographics and psychographics of any given neighborhood or community. Nowhere else on earth can the inhabitants and their beliefs, practices and habitual ideals be more prominently displayed than in the contents of neighborhood newsstands. It’s a given that what the people of the area like and want will be on display there and the measurements of those details duly noted.

So the next time someone asks you why are newsstands still an important part of the media world; maybe you can just say that when it comes to the fabric of our American canvas, newsstands keep it stitched together with the taut strings of relevance and impact.

Long live the newsstand!

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved.
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Rights to excerpts and links to the blog are hereby permitted with proper credit. Copying the entire blog is NOT permitted and is a violation of the copyright laws.

Until 2013, Cosmopolitan has been the number one selling magazine on the nation’s stands. (It was dethroned last year by Woman’s World). And as many big selling titles on the newsstands, the magazine followed a very standard format in its covers and cover lines. So it was surprising to see a major departure in its June cover in the copies sold at Wal-Mart compared to the rest of the stores where the traditional cover was the one for sale…

The cover with Ms. Teigen standing straight with a pink background (the traditional design for Cosmo) is being sold at most of the nation’s stands. The cover with her leaning over with a yellow background is the one sold at Wal-Mart.

Both issues have Chrissy Teigen adorning the cover, albeit missing some clothing items and the cover line, “When He Makes You Crazy…P. 184” together with the obligatory one page number on the cover… but the Wal-Mart cover is a real deviation from the norm for Cosmopolitan and bend-over-show-some-cleavage sexy. Is there a reason the one sold at the largest retail store in the country is more provocative? And does having a choice between two tantalizing covers even make a difference to the Cosmo reader? Will loyal Cosmo girls like the tried and true of tradition or something new and different?

Judge for yourself.
© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Marshall McLuhan said it best: “The medium is the message.” We live in a digital age, that is a fact. However, that statement is as true now as it was when McLuhan first said it in 1964, as it applies to both digital and print.

McLuhan’s statement is as valid today as it was 50 years ago. The medium cannot be separated from the message. So when it comes to print, I firmly believe that in order for print to survive, magazines and newspapers have to create something that eliminates the disposability factor. Print cannot afford to be expendable the way it used to be. Newspapers can’t lose their engagement with their audience in 10 or 15 minutes. They have to have an inherited engagement for at least 24 hours of their existence before the new issue comes out.

Weeklies have to do the same thing. They can’t just be a momentary read; they must engage readers with in-depth articles, concise reporting, analyses, editorials and opinions.

Monthlies must have the feel of a coffee table magazine and provide that high-gloss quality of a quarterly magazine.

Daily newspapers must become weeklies on a daily basis. Weekly magazines and newspapers must become monthlies on a weekly basis and monthly magazines must become coffee table publications.

However, the industry is preaching one thing and practicing another by cutting staff, trimming page sizes, choking production costs and any other integral part of the publishing business that it deems disposable. Magazines and newspapers are using cutting as a means for profitability. The bare bones will begin to poke through and eventually will leave a hole in the industry’s side too big to fix. Cutting is not a strategy to profitability.

While readers and advertisers are not personally affected by the size of the staff, they are when it comes to end product. The best example of this, as of late, is the weight of the paper. Certain magazines are now being printed and published on paper that is thinner than tissue paper. And because it is apropos of the context of that statement, tissue paper is not made to last; it’s made to be thrown away.

When I receive a magazine that has the feel of tissue paper, my thoughts are that this is a disposable item and there is no value in it… even before I read a single word of the content.

Frank Luther Mott, the author of A History of American Magazines, and the founding Dean of the Missouri School of Journalism (for the record, my Ph.D. is from Missouri School of Journalism) wrote in the first volume of his book that the definition of a magazine is much more than just content or a storehouse of information. It’s the form of the magazine, being printed, bound and stapled, etc. That is what the magazine is: the actual physical, tangible component of the product.

Therefore, when we send those publications to our audience, whether on the newsstands or via subscriptions, the first impression they are going to get, after looking at the cover, is the feel and the weight of that magazine in their hand.

I recently received my subscription copy of Men’s Fitness magazine and as always I went to the newsstand and bought the same issue just to compare the different cover designs. And guess what? Aside from the different cover designs, the newsstand copy is almost double the weight of the subscription copy. Why? (The red logo is the newsstands copy and the silver one is the subscribers… guess which one of the two is standing tall?”)

The answer for the most part, I’m sure, would be: we are saving on paper because that ultimately saves on postage, along with a multitude of other generic excuses that we hear from publishers of magazines. Yes, I used the word “excuses.” (As a side-bar, I wonder which of the two copies advertisers and ad agencies receive?)

Why do magazines punish their valued subscriber who trusts them and order and pay for an entire subscription year with a product as inferior as a couple of sheets of tissue paper? Does that make any sense to anyone out there? It certainly doesn’t to me.

Those magazines available on newsstands are misleading the future subscribers by giving them a far superior product when they make a single copy purchase. Again, does that make sense to anyone? And again, not to me.

Another example of this sad situation is when I received my Sports Illustrated magazine this week. While I know that issue is only 64 pages, it felt more like a pamphlet than a magazine. The paper is so thin you can see through it to the articles on the next page. It doesn’t have the feel that I’m appreciated as a subscriber.

What I’m trying to say with this Mr. Magazine™ Musing is that if you decide that you’re going to continue to be in print, you have to invest in your print product. It isn’t an option. You must invest in quality print and quality paper.

As Marshall McLuhan said: the medium is the message. That first impression is going to determine whether the audience engages with the publication. The feel, the touch, as well as the smell are essential.

Some might say that I’m preaching to feed the eye instead of the brain; but that’s what being human is all about. We are visual animals and a visual society. Remember, sight and feel are what it’s all about for the first impression. Your value is delivered at the same time your product is: when the customer first sees and touches it.

If you are like me and believe that the medium is the message, my message to you is invest in print. Because the future of digital starts with print.

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014. All Rights Reserved.
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“As the Magazine is published mainly for the purpose of furnishing information that is usually kept from the public, and which should be known by everybody, I ask those who believe in the work to aid in giving it circulation.”

Charles A. Lindbergh, Little Falls, Minnesota. Editor, Real Needs magazine, First issue, March 1916.

Those were the days, you may say? But reaching into my vault of first editions, I reached for Real Needs’ first issue from March 1916 that was edited by Charles Lindbergh. The name alone was the perfect setting for my musing and his letter from the editor was the perfect lead of this column.

Audience first – is it as important as it sounds? Well, of course it is, especially in this digital age. Audience first is the right thing for any media outlet, but most definitely for magazines.

Some of the major magazines and newspapers were started based on the premise that they were needed. That concept was never more important than in the early days of publishing. People needed their information and they needed to get it from the magazines and the newspapers that were around at the time. For them printed media was the equivalent of our Internet. So the need was there and that need became strong enough years later to even bolster many ad-free models.

For example, DeWitt Wallace’s Reader’s Digest was established with no ads. Roy Reiman’s Country, Taste of Home and a host of other magazines were published for years with no advertising but rather depended on circulation to survive. Highlights, Consumer Reports and many others also still depend solely on their audience for revenue.

The question today is what has changed? And the answer is very simple – with the flurry of platforms and outlets available, publishers of magazines and newspapers are no longer in the business of satisfying a need, because there are tons of ways to fulfill a person’s requirements these days.

In this, the 21st century, we are in the “want” business. I truly believe no one needs a magazine (yes, I will go on record saying this time and time again) or a newspaper today. But there are millions of people who want magazines and magazine publishers need to work to meet those wants.

So what does that mean?

It means, again very simply, the audience must and should come first. Audience-first thinking will drive up revenues and all things good for magazines and magazine media. You must captivate with dazzling content that is necessary (feeding the want), sufficient (satisfying the want) and relevant (meeting the addiction) to your targeted audience. You have to deliver an experience that is memorable, addictive, and exciting.

If that sounds easy or virtually impossible – you’re right on both counts. There is a simplicity to it and at the same time it can be as complex as a Rubik’s Cube to figure out.

We have to reach the right audiences with our content via the relevant platform. That platform may be print or digital or an integration of the two – but regardless, we have to have an entry point to the audience that means something to them.

The WIIIFM Factor?

What is in it for me – the ultimate question for our customer and one that must be answered completely and satisfyingly if there is any hope of keeping them first when it comes to the content and the product. Because if there isn’t an investment for them, rest assured they may buy your magazine once, but there won’t be a return visit.

Building that connection with the audience is what publishers want and is vital to the life of their magazines. For without that kindred alliance, you’re just putting words on a page or pixels on a screen without any real hope of getting anything back.

Audience first? Always!

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

I have been thinking about the day I bought my first Panasonic personal DVD player recently. It had a five-inch screen and I paid more than $1,000 for it. And guess what? Today it’s sitting useless in my pile of electronic junk at home due to the fact that I cannot find a replacement battery since the player is now considered a dinosaur.

Of course, as the wheels in my mind began turning, I realized another intriguing point. I used to be able to buy a print edition of TIME Magazine for $2.95 twenty years ago and today a copy will cost you $4.99.

So it would appear that all things digital start out at an astronomically high price when they are fresh off the assembly line, but only decrease in value as the years go by. While print seems to increase in value with the passing of time – no pun intended.

I started working at the University of Mississippi in 1984 when I received a $30,000 grant from the Meredith Corp. to begin the service journalism program. I was able to buy four Mac Plus computers and a laser printer to set up the first desktop publishing lab in the state of Mississippi. And that was the end of that first grant money.

The same thing can be said for my first Walkman, my own first personal computer, my first cell phone and my first TV. All of these digital accoutrements cost a pretty penny when they were introduced to the buying public and within a few years they were not only obsolete after spending that huge chunk of cash, they were also worth nothing due to their antiquation.

You might be wondering why I am telling you all this. And I might answer for one simple reason: the future value of anything, anything at all. But for the purpose of context we shall stick with the topic…the value of digital versus the value of print.

I was looking on eBay recently and noticed some of the prices for first edition printed books and magazines and what really struck me was the prices are going for higher than the ink on paper items sold for originally.

For example, a copy of the first issue of Action Comics, in which Superman was unveiled to the world, sold in an online auction for a record $2.16 million. It cost 10 cents when it was published in 1938. Needless to try to calculate how many times more that issue’s price multiplied since its inception.

And here’s another example: Playboy magazine – Issue 1, which had a cover price of 50 cents is selling for $4,000.00 on eBay today and another first issue of the magazine sold for a $7,040 winning bid . That’s another magazine selling for almost 8,000 to 15,000 times the original price. Granted it is a first edition, but the point is still the same and the aforementioned are only two of many many examples. Print platforms increase their value, while digital platforms do not. (By the way, a replica of the first issue of Playboy is currently on sale at the newsstands for $9.99, that too is many times the original cover price.)

So, what do you think you would get for a first edition e-magazine a few years from now? The word nada comes to mind.

Late last year, the Bay Psalm Book sold at auction for $14,165,000. It’s a rare book printed in the 17th century… and it’s definitely print. No digital or e-books in 1640. Can you imagine over $14 million dollars for a copy of a virtual book generations down the road? The odds of said book even existing hundreds of years from now are very slim. Who are we kidding? Hundreds of years from now digital may have morphed into something totally unrecognizable from what we know today.

The moral of this story is not to discount digital at all, but to highlight the facets of print which sometimes go unnoticed in this virtual age of cyberspace reality.

Because rest assured it might take an act of God to wipe out a 500 plus-year-old book, but your computer or tablet can be erased with a click or an introduction of a new model.

Print’s value reigns on…

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014. All Rights Reserved.
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Want more news, interviews and views from Mr. Magazine™? Be sure to subscribe to the new Mr. Magazine™ Monday Morning newsletter. It is free and it is delivered to your in-box every Monday morning. Click here to subscribe.