Mr. Magazine

I just came back from London after attending the 37th FIPP World Magazine Congress. Here are the 37 good things I have learned from the conference. You will notice that I have focused on the positive things, since media reporters and pundits alike chose to focus on every negative statement that was made in the Congress. Take those 37 positive statements and compare them with you’ve read and heard from the rest of the media world, and I can assure you that you will see, as I do, the cup as half full and not have empty.
All of the following 37 statements come directly from the different speeches and panel discussions that were held during the two-day event in London on May 5 and 6:

1. It is important to adapt a long-term perspective and to accept the short-term decline.
2. Magazine companies will continue to acquire publications and will emerge leaner but better able to compete in the years ahead.
3. The magazine industry may find a new role after one or two false starts
4. By the 4th quarter of 2009 the advertising issues will hit bottom; by 2010 it will be flat.
5. Journalism is an extremely expensive business.
6. The music has suddenly stopped and now we are having a cold shower. In the magazine world the problem is the economy.
7. The digital model (we have now) is a dumb model: putting dollars to chase cents.
8. Increasing traffic to your site is not a trade off: you can’t monetize traffic.
9. The web is a great enabler.
10. Continue to make sure that you are producing quality content (and not just content) and enduring brand. Keep the brand relevant.
11. Continue to invest in valuable editorial content. Content others can’t replicate.
12. If all publishers agree to charge for content, what would Google do?
13. We will still launch new magazines: it is still a very good business.
14. Even newspapers will have longevity.
15. Great magazines are not simply great content; they have a heart and a soul and they will be with us for a long, long time.
16. Magazines have the ability to have an intellectual exchange with the readers.
17. You can’t substitute the magazine experience; it is a treat and is welcomed in your private space.
18. Magazines provide a quality reflective experience and a beautiful thing to have.
19. Do not call the established media traditional media; call it Analog.
20. Do not blame digital and keep in mind it is not yet time for obituaries.
21. Take complete advantage of your brand.
22. Do not stand still.
23. Unlike many sectors, Gucci will see a decrease in luxury online spending.
24. Magazines are still useful, relevant and interesting.
25. Digital and online are like a “successful parasite that does not kill its host.”
26. Google is not a media company; it is a technology company.
27. Magazines are robust and tactical products. The best lifestyle package to sell every issue.
28. Select your best brands and invest in them.
29. The current crisis should help us innovate and find new sources of revenue.
30. The brand DNA should transfer to the web; not the ink on paper magazine.
31. Once you feel safe you should start thinking about the incoming danger.
32. Paper provides emotional engagement and attention: the so called “Did you see moment?”
33. Print is a moment in time. We need to get consumers to value that moment.
34. Content creates conversation; utility creates engagement. Only outstanding content is king and queen.
35. Those who believe that paper and print will disappear, there is only one word to pronounce – nonsense
36. Don’t waste the crisis. Use the time to start thinking. Take advantage of magazines great brands. Magazines have built communities long before the internet started.
37. Ten years from now we will remember the current situation as one of the greatest financial opportunity in the history of our magazine industry.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here you have it in 37 simple aforementioned statements that I hope will push us to innovate and amplify the future of our magazine industry. We are not dead yet, and we will not be for a long, long time.

So is the magazine cup half full or half empty? Well, my friend Jeremy Leslie, the executive creative director of the London-based customer communications agency John Brown and the creator of www.magCulture.com, answered this question unlike any other person I have interviewed so far regarding my video blog series on innovation, print and the future. Jeremy was covering the second day of the 37th FIPP World Magazine Congress in London. In the midst of one of the breaks (thus all the noise in the video) I asked Jeremy if print is dead and if he sees the cup half full or half empty. Hear his one minute plus answer by clicking the video above.

So what does the editor of one of the largest women’s weeklies in the Middle East think about the future of print, magazines and the web. I had the opportunity to ask my two questions to Mohammed Al-Harthi, the editor in chief of Sayidaty and Al-Jamila magazines with offices in Dubai Media City, Beirut and London, and the only Arab magazine editor attending the 37th FIPP World Magazine Congress. Mr. Al-Harthi issues a call for more forward thinking the Arab media and to look at what is happening in Europe and the United States to learn from the current crisis and take lessons for the future. Click on the above video to hear his two minutes answers.

Traveling through-out Europe last week, I came back with tens of newspapers and magazines celebrating the inauguration of President Obama. It was a complete celebration. You would have thought that President Obama has been elected president in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Spain, and even as far as Finland. However, one magazine stopped me in my tracks: the Italian newsweekly Panorama. Their cover read George W. Obama and the picture is one of the best photo-shopped images that I have witnessed on a magazine cover in a long time. Judge it for yourself and let me know whether you agree with me or not. It pays to be different (sometimes)…

I know it is the season to give, but I am going to write today about selling rather than giving. For starters, I am amazed by the size of the so called news weeklies in Europe. Every time I am on an overseas trip I pick up some of the weeklies, regardless whether I can read them or not, and I am shocked how thick and heavy they are. Case in point the three weeklies I picked up in Paris. L’Express (with a supplement), Le Point and Paris Match. Each is a least 140 pages with one reaching the 200 page count. Paris is not unique, Rome is the same (some issues of Panorama hit the 350+ pages). Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Madrid and other European cities still are producing hefty-sized printed weeklies. So why them and not us? Why are our news weeklies limited to 68 to 80 pages most of the times? One thing I know for sure, it is NOT the size of the staff. Our magazines have at least double if not triple the staff of their European counterparts. So, is it the publishing model or is it the audience? Or is it as one of my colleagues at the University of Mississippi said, “My theory is that our society’s and culture’s anti-intellectualism is partly responsible.”
My theory has more to do with our publishing model. Few points to consider. Point number one, our publishing model is bloated. We SPEND much MORE to CREATE LESS content than our European counter parts. (Did you notice that even with all the cuts in our media industry there were no change in the size of the publications? Whether it is a magazine or a newspaper operating with a slimmer staff, a much slimmer staff, the publications are still the same size. Makes you wonder what were all these people doing!)
Point number two, the publishing model overseas still charges readers/customers for the content of the magazine. We give it away. The publishing model overseas still offers readers/customers content they can’t find in any other medium. We are losing our uniqueness in print. The publishing model overseas is adapting to the changing media consumptions of its audience ONLY when it is needed. Here we are talking a lot about change, we are changing for change sake, but in reality we are doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results every time; the Chinese define that as INSANITY.
Point number three: I know change is hard to come by. Yet, I also know that if we do not change we are going to die. We have to start catering to our Most Valuable Person. Our MVP is our reader turned customer. Our MVP is expecting us to Meet and exceed his or her expectations when in comes to content; Validate his or her expectations; and Preview what is coming in the days ahead. It is all about the content and the price of that content. I will feel much better if a magazine offers its selected readers/customers free subscriptions because they meet the criteria of “customers who count” than asking anyone to send $5 or $10 dollars for a one year subscription. Customers who count will be looking for “content that counts” and not just for any content delivered to any customer.
Drop your shotguns, and sharpen your lasers… The light at the end of the tunnel should not be the train coming.

Here is an e mail I received earlier today from The Netherlands regarding the presidential elections and magazine covers.

Hello Mr Magazine,

As i read your blog i wanted to give some attention on a special split-run-cover about Obama; beautiful artwork.
Printed BEFORE the result of the election, so this is a big gamble for the magazine from the Netherlands, Europe.

Cheers Jaap Biemans

Thank you Jaap.

Reader-generated content is becoming something of the present. Before the web (BTW) magazines like Country and Taste of Home depended on the postal service to deliver bags of mail to create the reader- generated content that was the corner stone of the Reiman Publications’ empire before selling it to Reader’s Digest Association. After the web (ATW) JPG magazine and its publishing company 8020 pioneered the use of the internet to create printed reader-generated content magazines. Budget Travel magazine and This Old House both created magazines written completely by readers. In fact This Old House altered the name of the magazine to Your Old House to reflect the nature of the content.

Now in this ATW age, comes Greece magazine from the United Kingdom. Merricks Media’s John Weir tells me that the November issue of Greece magazine will be their first reader-generated issue and they too altered the name of the magazine from Greece to Your Greece.

I asked John about this ATW experiment with Greece magazine and the input he received from the readers.

He responded, “We had more than 500 entries to the reader issue. The really pleasing thing is the quality of both written submissions and picture entries -in many cases the quality and selection of pictures were better than the photo libraries!!”

And as to who had the final say in the selections of the articles and pictures, John said, “The editor and the editorial team did the selection of both articles and pictures and then contacted the readers who were successful in submitting the material.”

As for the major benefit from this experiment John told me that “In all cases, the major benefit to the magazine was the detail on the “undiscovered” Greece – all the tavernas, restaurants, tourist sights and antiquities that are both off the beaten track and real finds for tourists. They are exactly the sorts of things that one journalist cannot find but that thousands of readers can.”

Will he do it again? “We’ll definitely do it again – already we’ve seen a 30% rise in subscription applications and the emails have started coming asking when the next issue containing reader content will be put together,” he said.

John added, “If anything, it has exceeded expectations, and has encouraged us to get a more regular conversation going with readers.”
http://www.merricksmedia.co.uk