Mr. Magazine

A Mr. Magazine™ Musing…

Growing up, I always believed that magazines were magical, from the contents inside the pages to the “secret” locations where they were created. To my childlike wonder, these sweet spots where all things magically magazine were maintained, was like the Land of Oz. It had its heroes; it had its villains; and it had its spies (what did you think those Flying Monkeys were doing for the Wicked Witch anyway?).

That being said, when two magazines from two entirely different “Wizards” comes around with very similar covers, contents, or names, my thoughts are always traveling down that path of least resistance: my childhood imaginations of how magazines worked.

Take, for example, when back in the last century, Family Circle shows up on the newsstands with a beautiful cover showcasing a delicious-looking pasta dish and then days later, Woman’s Day is sitting there next to it with basically the same cover. Or there is no major news story or catastrophe going on in the free world and TIME magazine and Newsweek are sporting the same cover story.

Well, bearing that in mind, Mr. Magazine™ would like to present to you two premiere issues of two new titles that will definitely cause you to do two double takes(regardless of the subject matter of both magazines): FMG Publications’ DIY Guns  and F+W’s Guns DIY. And no, those are not typos.

DIY Guns is for the gun enthusiast who likes to tinker with their own firearms. From the American Handgunner brand, this title covers handguns heavily, but also touches on some long-gun endeavors that will surely keep the rifle, shotgun-lover busy as well.

Guns DIY stresses in its first editor’s letter: America’s DIY Firearm Heritage Lives! Customization and modification are the two mainstays of this new title and offers readers the opportunity to make these firearm transformations at home.

So, basically, two different “Wizards” have created two different magazines with titles that are hauntingly similar and content that, in some ways, could be considered very familiar to each other.

This caused Mr. Magazine™ to ask himself what’s in a name in the world of magazines anyway? As long as there is room on newsstands for both of these titles (or any others out there already or coming up) new magazines are the life’s blood of this industry. And these two new titles from long-time publishing companies may or may not have known about each other, but obviously, it’s a given; great minds think alike… that, or one of them left the windows open and the Flying Monkeys had a field day.

Until the next time…

See you at the newsstands….

A Mr. Magazine™ Musing…

As I was doing some research for my upcoming presentation at The Sixth Floor (JFK) Museum in Dallas, Texas on the power of the magazine cover, I stumbled upon an article in a January 25-31, 1964 edition of TV Guide where they devoted a major section of the magazine, including an introduction by President Lyndon B. Johnson, to the four days following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Leading into that special section, the magazine editors created a wonderful one-page comparison between television and print back then and the power of each medium, noting the speed in which television could present something as tragic and moving as JFK’s funeral.

It’s amazing to me that what was true in 1964 is still true today, only using a different medium rather than television. Television in the 1960s was a powerful unification tool for the United States and the world, when 180 million people watched the funeral of President Kennedy on the then three TV networks, before the fragmentation of cable television wreaked havoc on the communal spirit of television and the United States of America. And after Cable came Satellite Television and then ultimately, the Internet, eliminating the community of television altogether.

The country moved from a melting pot, with those three television networks and the host of magazines that were out there, to what’s now more like a cafeteria style information buffet, where you can find any number of networks that will provide you information that’s not related to the country as a whole, but rather to one’s tiny areas of interest and in most cases areas that support one’s own beliefs and theories. That unifying aspect of television is no longer there.

Some may say the same thing is happening with magazines, with the degree of specializations in many current titles, but yet we continue to see the growth of magazine audiences through all of the many platforms that the brands utilize. Whether it’s the printed magazine or the continuous outreach from the brands through other social media and digital extensions, audience growth for magazines is flourishing. And as I wrote in an article a few years ago and recently republished on my blog: magazines were the original social media and they continue to be the original social media, one that creates community and permanency such as the 1964 TV Guide article referred to when talking about television.

Here are a few points from that editorial that would still hold up today, only with the Internet replacing Television’s role. You be the judge:

• Television’s greatest advantage as a news medium is responsible for its greatest disadvantage. (Substitute Television with the Internet)

• The medium’s (imagine Internet as the medium) speed cannot be beaten, for it can often tell and show its audience what is happening as it happens. There is no need to delay so that reporters can write their stories and photographers can develop their pictures. There is no need to wait so that the many editorial and mechanical tasks can be completed before presses can turn and trucks and trains and men can complete distribution – as they must for newspapers and magazines.

• Thus television (Internet) can report a story just about instantaneously. But the reporting is gone just as fast. It can be repeated by the broadcasters, but the consumer, the viewer, has nothing he can hold in his hand to reread or examine closely at his leisure. This is television’s disadvantage.

• All of us who stayed close to our sets during the tragic weekend last November became part of the drama that unfolded before our eyes. But once the weekend was over, the experience was gone. Newspapers and magazines that related the events in Dallas and Washington in special editions were, quite understandably, interested in reporting the chronology of events, and their meanings. ( Emphasis mine. Proving once again that permanence of print and its collectability aspect).

As I’ve said before, there is nothing new under the sun. What goes around comes around, just usually in a different guise. So, where the television of the “50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s unified us as a society, the television of the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond, divided us, along with that ever-reaching, never-ending, all-consuming thing we all call the Internet. Today we are such a fragmented information society that we do not know where or what to turn to, where to actually get, as the late, great Paul Harvey would say, “The Rest of the Story.”

But it’s out there…somewhere…among the fragments.

Until the next time…

See you at the newsstands…

(In 2009, in the summer issue of Content, the magazine of branded content, I wrote a column under the heading of Mr. Custom, that I feel is as valid today as it was ten years ago… I hope you will enjoy).

As we rush to take advantage of the latest digital tools to engage with consumers, let’s not forget that magazines are still a powerful medium for building communities.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MAGAZINES
Began at a very early age. From the first time I picked up a copy of a Superman comic book and could feel the paper and smell the ink, I was grabbed by a passion that shows no signs of letting go. I can also remember how badly I wanted to belong, to have a sense of membership, in the field of magazines. I would beg my neighbor (in Lebanon, my home country) to nominate me for membership in the National Geographic Society, just so I could receive the magazine.

These days, the National Geographic Society (and a lot of other magazine publishers are) the ones doing the begging. And just about every other magazine out there is doing the same. We receive subscription offer cards and mailings that tell us we can get 50%, 75% or even 95% off the cover price. Americans no longer have to dream about becoming part of a club like the National Geographic Society. Now it’s as simple as having a few bucks and an address. We have forgotten that magazines were media’s first social networks, and it’s time for us to remember and reclaim four key ways in which magazines help bring people together.

The first area is community. Magazines have always been great vehicles for not just building community, but being catalysts to community. Social networking today is a series of sites with short, terse status updates and wall posts. These quick bursts are not substantial enough to hold a community together. The 140 characters of a Twitter post might be great for sending someone to your blog or splashing a news headline, but they are far too few to do what magazines have always done well.

Twitter provides snippets or sound bites; you can’t build a brand on sound bites. The passionate relationship that grows the kind of true community we find in the pages of magazines cannot be achieved via social networking sites. Magazines do a much better job of building a community of shared interests.

A second key area wherein magazines thrive is in membership, offering consumers an opportunity to be part of an exclusive growth. Magazines have lost some of their membership cachet over the past decade through their increasing willingness to give away their content for free. It seems the days of waiting for your favorite magazine to arrive in the mail box are over. Now all we do is check the magazine’s site or follow them on Twitter or Facebook, and we instantly have most of their content.

As a result of this process, the information provided by magazines is becoming less unique – more a commodity than a privilege. We have come to feel we deserve unfettered access to free content, so our sense of membership is largely gone.

Third, magazines provide great interactivity. Sure, many naysayers will point out that the Internet provides an easy-to-use forum for immediate reader response and the chance for magazines and the marketers to engage with broader range of consumers, but interactivity isn’t just about speed and reach.

Magazines are an ongoing conversation with readers that begins with a cover and never ends. There have been some terrific magazine covers over the last 12 months that were very powerful in starting conversations, serving as building blocks for interactivity. If you have followed the covers of Esquire, you know what I mean. From their “e-cover” to their window and paneled covers, Esquire has been starting conversations with readers in some of the most effective ways ever.

MAGAZINES ARE MATCHMAKERS IN OUR SOCIETY. THEY BRING FAMILIES OF BRANDS AND CONSUMERS TOGETHER.

A magazine cover’s opening dialogue with readers is very important because it lays the foundation for the rest of the conversation. This conversation begins in print, and can be flashed out with the Internet. I’ve always told my clients the websites and magazines should not stand alone. You need both to survive, and they can not thrive independently. Magazines should send readers to the Web to submit feedback, letters, recipes or whatever applies to that title; in turn, sites should drive readers to the next issue to learn about the winners of an online competition, or which online suggestions the editors used.

The fourth way that magazines bridge social gaps and bring people together is the relationship readers have with the products. Recently I spoke with John Gower, director of custom publisher Future Plus US, and he says it best. “Social networks are good at helping to retain relationships,” Gower says, “but it takes a magazine to acquire those relationships in the first place.”

It may be difficult for some of us to see a light at the end of tunnel right now for magazines. Gower warns that if we look at magazines simply as “nice to have,” then the light is a train coming to hit us. We have to remember that magazines are the original social networks, and continue to nurture consumers’ needs and desires for them. That is the only way the light at the end of tunnel will turn out to be the daylight we’re all hoping is just ahead.

Magazines are matchmakers in our society. They bring families of brands and consumers together. While digital social media tools may help brands reach more people and stay more involved in their daily lives, they can never match the power of a printed magazine that was built on the concept of social networking. Content magazine, Number 6, Summer 2009