Mr. Magazine

Luke Magerko was a consistent contributor to my blog in 2013. Luke has partnered with MagNet to provide retail analytics for the publishing industry. Today, we pick up our conversation from two two weeks ago and, going forward, MagNet will provide me with an interview with Luke every other week highlighting retail analytics.

This week, we focus on increasing sales by changing the checkout status quo, especially for smaller and mid-sized publishers. First, we report on the overall magazine share of market and sales trends based upon price point. This analysis is based on all titles off sale in the previous 12 months ending February 2014.

HOW DID YOU ANALYZE PRICE POINTS?
We segmented our analysis into four price groups and observed four national sales results. The four price groups are:

•$0.00 – $3.49: examples include Women’s World, First for Women, All You
•$3.50 – $5.49: examples include People Magazine, HGTV Magazine, Shape Magazine
•$5.50 – $7.49: examples National Geographic, New Yorker, Country Sampler
•Greater than $7.49: examples include Cuisine at Home SIP, Fine Cooking and Taste of Home Bookazines

We analyzed weighted cover price. Weighted cover price is revenue generated in the United States and Canada divided by total unit sales. For example, Muscle and Fitness magazine has a U.S. retail price of $6.99, however its weighted cover price is greater than $7.00 due to Canadian sales.

The four sales comparisons are:

•Dealer Count = How many stores received a magazine. A monthly title ships to 10,000 dealers an issue. This equates to 120,000 dealers annually.
•Copies Shipped = Share of total copies shipped (“draw”) by price point.
•Unit Sale = Share of total unit sale by price point.
•Retail Sales = Share of total retail sales by price point.

I AM SURPRISED THE $3.50 – $5.49 CATEGORY REPRESENTS NEARLY HALF COPIES SHIPPED AND UNIT SOLD. WHAT ELSE CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS CHART?
$0.00 – $3.49 price points – These titles represent 14% of the dealer count, but 21% of copies shipped and 25% of units sold. These titles have a high penetration at checkout and have a higher sell-through efficiency than national averages. However, these titles generate just 12% of all retail sales.

$3.50 – $5.49 price points – This group represents nearly half of all dealers and units sold; just under half of all units sold, but only 44% percent of all retail sales. Again, these titles are highly represented at checkout, but have a below-average retail sales share.

Combination of both higher price points – These titles represent 38% of the dealer count, but 28% of copies shipped and 25% of units sold. These titles are either part of a checkout pocket rotation (such as BH&G Special Interest Publications) or are relegated to the mainline. These magazines generate 45% of all retail sales revenue and are easily the most profitable group of all price categories.

BUT THE HIGHER PRICE POINT PRODUCT HAS LOWER SELL THROUGH EFFICIENCIES.
Yes, but wholesalers wisely pushed higher price product in spite of the lower sell through because it generates more revenue/profit for the retailer.

WHAT ARE THE SALES TRENDS BY PRICE POINT?
Let’s look at monthly retail sales by the price point grouping in this chart.

The lower priced titles weigh heavily upon the entire category. The $5.50 – $7.49 group, however is declining less dramatically while the greater than $7.50 group sales is increasing.

THE UNDER $5.49 TITLES REPRESENT MOST OF THE CHECKOUT SPACE!
Yes, they do. Retailers are shrinking the magazine footprint in store because retail buyers focus on checkout results and punish categories where sales fall rapidly.

HOW DO WE CHANGE THE STORY AT RETAIL?
I mentioned this in a past interview, but it bears repeating: there has been little change at the checkout in the past 10 years. There is similarity of product at checkout, and the publishing industry needs a new mix of titles to generate life into this industry.

WHICH PUBLISHERS SHOULD PURSUE CHECKOUT SPACE?
We analyzed one publisher which produces high-priced, high-quality special interest publications this week. We determined that this publisher could improve both sales and profit by purchasing checkout space.

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE PROFITABILITY?
For this exercise, we estimate revenue and expense. Our estimates are fairly accurate, but we always prefer to work closely with a publisher to produce exact results.

WHAT DID YOU FIND?
This publisher creates more than 50 releases a year. Although the overall sell-through efficiency of 27% underperforms national averages, this publisher makes over $1.40 per copy sold. This is an excellent profitability number that lends itself well to investing in checkout space.

WHAT STOPS THIS PUBLISHER FROM EXPANDING INTO CHECKOUT?
In my experience, smaller to mid-level publishers believe checkout pockets are too expensive, both in pocket fees and in waste. More than one publisher representative said they would not want to increase the print order to cover the checkout space.

BUT THE TITLE WOULD SELL MORE PRODUCT!
Yes, but what we cannot do is predict the exact increased sale. One senior-level wholesale representative told me a title moving from the mainline to the checkout sees a 5:1 increase in sale. I believe that is too high, but it is reasonable that any title moving from an aisle in the middle of the store to checkout will see increased sale. We need to make publishers more comfortable in this arena so they can test product at checkout and determine if it is right for them.

WHAT ABOUT EXISTING TITLES AT CHECKOUT?
Some of those top-30 titles need to reduce space or be sent to the mainline based on lack of productivity. The publisher we analyzed could credibly walk into many retailers and point out its line of mainline titles already outsell many checkout titles right now.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AT CHECKOUT?
It has been well reported that wholesalers are in financial trouble and retailers compound that trouble by reducing the magazine retail footprint. A more diverse checkout with higher priced product will bring back some consumers and spur sales. Higher-priced product at checkout will help the retailer’s bottom line which is a win for the publishing industry as a whole.

INTERESTING, LUKE. YOU CAN CONTACT LUKE AT LMAGERKO@MARKET-ANALYTICS.COM OR JOSH GARY AT JGARY@MAGNETDATA.NET IF YOU WOULD LIKE AN ANALYSIS OF YOUR OWN TITLES.

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

Women’s Magazines In South Africa Are A Growing Market And When It Comes To How The Industry Has To Function To Keep Them That Way – The General Manager Of Women’s Interest Magazines at Media 24 – Has The Answers – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Liezl de Swardt.

The market for women’s magazines in South Africa may be crowded and it may have undergone drastic changes over the years, but there is one thing for certain when it comes to the country’s readers: they do love their magazines.

Liezl de Swardt is the general manager for Media 24’s Women Interest Magazines in South Africa and is the one with her fingers on the pulse of the women’s market there more than anyone else. On a recent trip to the country, I chatted with her about the market, print versus digital and a host of other topics that are important to their audience, plus the future of women’s publishing in the country and what she’s doing to keep women’s magazines growing there.

So sit back and be prepared to enjoy the informative and eye-opening Mr. Magazine™ interview with Liezl de Swardt, General Manager, Media 24…

But first the sound-bites:

On the women’s market itself in South Africa: We have a very crowded market, but also a very long history of excellent magazines.

On print versus digital in the country: While all of our developing titles also have mobile sites and they’re very successful, it’s not like Time Magazine, ours are something you might read while you’re sitting in a taxi having a quick look, but the print magazine is the big currency.

On the future of women’s magazines in South Africa: I’m a half full type of girl, so I always say the glass is half full. But our biggest challenge is to rethink the way we’ve always done business.

On the major stumbling block she has faced: Our biggest stumbling block would probably be we think the advertisers will come back or the readers will come back. Nothing will just come back.

On her most pleasant surprise: The biggest excitement for me is unlocking niches. There are still areas of incredible excitement and interest. And we have an ability to get quickly in there.

On what keeps her up at night: The immense responsibility that I feel about the legacy brands that we have and how to sustain them in the future.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ Interview with Liezl de Swardt, General Manager, Women’s Interest Magazines, Media 24…

Samir Husni: Can you tell me a little bit about the women’s magazine market in South Africa?

Liezl de Swardt: We have a very crowded market, but also a very long history of excellent magazines. And the traditional population that loves their magazines read a lot. But over the last 10 years the market has changed dramatically. Our general interest women’s glossies that were always the very big ones have declined in circulation. There was a lot of new interest in the market, mostly licensed. They came in about 10 years ago and a lot of them have now exited the market.

So over the last two years the market has contracted quite tremendously to the point where we are now left with a few traditional mass market glossies at the top, a sprinkling of licensed titles that have contracted a lot and the only area where we are seeing some really exciting growth is right at the lower end, so nothing glossy. Only the very practical, very direct and very focused magazines on, not niche in terms of small, but niche in terms of a very tight focus on very specific groups, for example we have Kuier, which is a bi-weekly magazine aimed at a mixed race audience, it’s quite a tight focus and our fastest growing title.

On the other end of the spectrum, focusing on black women, we used to have, or we still have, True Love, which is a big iconic title and it is contracted whereas Move! is much cheaper and it’s weekly, very practical, very salacious and growing rapidly.

Samir Husni: A lot of people think print is something from the past and digital is becoming the mainstay, but you’re telling me something different…

Liezl de Swardt: South Africa is a developing country and we basically have three countries in one. At the top end, we have a large penetration of digital devices and we also have a large population who’s not necessarily becoming first-time readers, but first-time magazine buyers.

Whereas the developing market has moved on from the top magazines that we worked on when we came into the industry about 20 years ago, those magazines are very useful for a whole lot of new readers.

And while all of our developing titles also have mobile sites and they’re very successful, it’s not like Time Magazine, ours are something you might read while you’re sitting in a taxi having a quick look, but the print magazine is the big currency.

Samir Husni: How do you view the future of women’s magazines in South Africa? As one of the top publishers in the country; if someone asks you – is the glass half full or half empty?

Liezl de Swardt: I’m a half full type of girl, so I always say the glass is half full. But our biggest challenge is to rethink the way we’ve always done business. On the glossy side, while the African market is much more balanced in terms of circulation versus advertising income, the glossy magazine market is definitely funded by advertising income and circulation income was secondary to that. With tremendous pressure on advertising income, we have to cut our cloth accordingly to put into what we can attain through circulation income, which means being more cautious of our spending, in terms of what we spend I production, also sometimes contracting our market by putting cover price up.

So I think the future for us is more expensive, luxurious titles for the top end, whereas we have a title like Ideas which is focused on people who love doing crafts and creative things, we don’t get advertising for the magazine, well, we do, but very, very slight, it’s very expensive editorial to produce because it’s original crafts and we nearly doubled the cover price, but we lost in circulation. And I think that’s the kind of thing we’ll have to do in the future.

About five years ago we were doing a lot of things to satisfy advertisers and not necessarily the readers. The future of magazines is to satisfy the readers’ very specific needs and if we satisfy them, they’ll either pay for it or advertisers will want to get to those readers.

And the same principle applies to the bottom end of the market because if we do things there that advertisers want, then it’s not right for the market. If we do things right for the readers, there’ll be loads of them, and then advertisers can’t ignore them.

Samir Husni: So what do you think is the major stumbling block in this strategy?

Liezl de Swardt: The stumbling block for us is to be incredibly sober about titles, the brands and practices, meaning the way we’ve always done things and to ask: is this the right way for the future, because not all of the brands that we’ve had are always sustainable for the future. Or the way that we’ve done it has always been sustainable for the future.

In some instances it would be about the general interest glossies, but I don’t think just general interest is ever going to work anymore. In order to capture people’s attention we just have to be much, much stronger on the bottom end in terms of exactly what we deliver.

So if we think it will never be business as usual, we cannot think, but oh, it used to work in the past. Our biggest stumbling block would probably be we think the advertisers will come back or the readers will come back. Nothing will just come back.

But the move is definitely just not to digital, the move is to people thinking: I don’t have time for someone or something, meaning a magazine, which doesn’t understand me or bring me something that is really useful.

Samir Husni: And what has been your most pleasant surprise during this transitional period?

Liezl de Swardt: The biggest excitement for me is unlocking niches. There are still areas of incredible excitement and interest. And we have an ability to get quickly in there. We’ve been in the industry for a long time and we used to think: oh, we plan something and we recruit an editor and we plan that maybe in six months’ time we’ll put out a magazine, for example, Lose It! was an idea and less than 60 days later, we had our first issue out on the street. No extra team, nothing; it was just get it out there. And I think our success will be about using our existing expertise in teams and acting very quickly on what could been seen as fads or trends, but things now have to be done immediately. You can’t set a goal for three years from now. If it’s good, it’ll work immediately. If it’s not good, it’s not going to work anyway.

So we have to be a bit tougher on ourselves and less tough on the market.

Samir Husni: How many titles do you oversee?

Liezl de Swardt: 40 brands, which is about 26 magazines.

Samir Husni: And my typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Liezl de Swardt: The immense responsibility that I feel about the legacy brands that we have and how to sustain them in the future. Because we have extraordinary brands that have been around for many years and the world’s magazine archives are full of iconic brands that died or were phased out. And I don’t want to be that one who messes up one of our archive brands.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014 All Rights Reserved.
Truth in Reporting: Media 24 Magazines in South Africa, is a media company that I consult for. This interview is not related to my consulting role, but rather giving my readers a better understanding of the magazine and magazine media marketplace in South Africa. This is the third of four interviews.

Kuier Translates To The Word Visit In English And Never Has A Print Product Been So Apropos Of Its Name – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Kay Karriem – Editor-In-Chief – Kuier Magazine…

“Because our philosophy is we don’t want to be the best magazine in South Africa, if you are looking for the best magazine in South Africa, Kuier is not it. We do not want to be it, nor do we aspire to be it. We want to be your favorite magazine.”… Kay Karriem

Cape Town, South Africa: First of its kind in South Africa, Kuier Magazine exists to give readers practical and realistic advice on everyday things like finance, careers, relationships, parenting and health. Affordable and relevant is their mantra.

Kay Karriem is Editor-In-Chief and believes so strongly in the down-to-earth approachability of her community-based print product; she has no doubt about its continuing growth. Today it is the fifth most popular magazine in the country. But by tomorrow, who knows! If its Editor-In-Chief’s enthusiasm is any indicator, the magazine will surpass its current placement very quickly.

On a recent trip to South Africa, I spoke with Kay about Kuier magazine, and learned a tremendous amount about loyalty to the audience and a cluster community of readership unlike anything most of us have ever known.

So sit back and enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with the Editor-In-Chief of Kuier Magazine, Kay Karriem…

But first the sound-bites…

On why she believes the magazine is growing with readers so quickly: You know Kuier in itself is a mission. It’s not just a magazine, it’s a statement about South Africa and it’s not just for enjoyment, it means something, because Kuier is the first of its kind.

On keeping her finger on the pulse of the magazine’s audience: I don’t want to sound like it’s simple, but in a way it is simple, because the kind of woman that I write this magazine for; she is my mother, she is my grandmother or my aunt because they all need it and they all have something to say about it.

On whether she believes the magazine’s popularity has grown due to its message or the lack of that message up until Kuier: Definitely it’s a combination. Once you’re fulfilling the message and the gap, people start to look at the other products out there that they have been buying and ask: why haven’t you been talking to me?

On her stance about the digital side of the magazine: So we said goodbye website and we launched a mobile site instead where we, in our philosophy, take Kuier the brand to the platforms, not content.

On the biggest stumbling block she’s faced: I would say the advertising sales department because as much as I believe in this market and the size of this market, our target market, they are not very attractive to advertisers because in the country’s history it is a true wisdom of economic power; where does the money lie?

On her most pleasant surprise: To have people come up to me and ask: do you know what a difference this has made in my life? Just to know Kuier has made that difference in their lives is wonderful.

On what keeps her up at night: It’s my team. I worry for them. Because they believe in the vision and the work we do and why we do it, so I worry about them.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Kay Karriem – Editor-In-Chief – Kuier Magazine…

Samir Husni: You’re the editor of one of the fastest growing magazines in South Africa; could you tell me a little about it and tell me why you think the printed magazine is growing so fast?

Kay Karriem: You know Kuier in itself is a mission. It’s not just a magazine, it’s a statement about South Africa and it’s not just for enjoyment, it means something, because Kuier is the first of its kind. It came into being at an opportune time in the history of South Africa; there was nothing like it before in the community and people adopted it because it made them feel like there was finally something for them. So it immediately changed the media landscape. And the community, which was the target market it was for, they took ownership of it immediately as well. We did no marketing, per se, of the magazine to sell it to the community. Once they took it up, they were the marketers and they sold the magazine. They would tell their neighbor: did you see this? And that’s how the magazine became so popular, by word of mouth.

It went from a nothing magazine, to number five in the country through the people who read it. All our events, our Mother’s Day event is coming up, the tickets sold out within an hour and people called and complained by saying why couldn’t I get a ticket and why are the events so small, because it is very important for them to be at our events, due to the fact that they are geared specifically for them. Everything in the magazine is for them. They get that feeling and it’s their magazine. We didn’t have to sell that message, we didn’t have to sell this is for them, they can see for themselves that the recipes and fashions are for them and the stories are about them and they could feel that and it became their mission with us to make it a go.

Samir Husni: You’re so passionate about this magazine and your passion is reflected on the pages of the magazine. How do you keep your finger on the pulse of that audience who thinks this is their magazine and they are the ones promoting it?

Kay Karriem: I don’t want to sound like it’s simple, but in a way it is simple, because the kind of woman that I write this magazine for; she is my mother, she is my grandmother or my aunt because they all need it and they all have something to say about it. And what they should do next.

Every time I go home they come with the magazine and they tell me that was a good story or they ask me, why did you do this? And they even comment on my lead-ins, because sometimes I write about my family and they will ask, why did you say this? Your grandmother never did this. They comment and stay so involved in it.

So I know what’s going on their lives and their struggles and I reflect that in the magazine. So in a way it is easy, because we talk about what’s happening right now in their lives and communities. And that’s how I knew what was missing for so long, because no one ever took the time to say this is a valuable community and it is a community that needs to be served. Their voices need to be heard and their stories need to be told in the magazine, because they were ignored for so long.

That’s why our team always talks about the service we offer everybody, we are in the service industry, how can the consumer feel valued, when they’ve never been valued before. So we take time to listen. Customer service is very big. Even though we ourselves are not directly involved in customer service, we have a team that takes care of that, we do answer them on Facebook to service the needs of our customers. We feel that they need to be heard and they’ve never had that kind of service before. So that is the cornerstone of Kuier.

Samir Husni: Because of the growth of the magazine and in reaching the number five spot; do you think that mainly happened because of the message or the lack of the message for years and now people are hungry for it?

Kay Karriem: Definitely it’s a combination. Once you’re fulfilling the message and the gap, people start to look at the other products out there that they have been buying and ask: why haven’t you been talking to me? I’ve been buying you and have been loyal to you, so why aren’t you talking to me in my language about the topics that matter to me? I have been buying your excuses for years, but now someone else is printing that I am number one. At Kuier, we treat our target market like they are the main dish, where others treat them like a side dish. And people see that.

And also now in the economic times that we’re all in, we contribute through the middle class market, while everyone else is into the upscale market. They want to be glossier and aspire more; no one wants to look cheap. And I always say there’s a big difference between cheap and affordable. And we want to be affordable. We want to talk to people on that level.

Kuier has two points in the market: the cultural point, which is the mixed race market and the economic point; all of a sudden there are areas in five or six middle class that have become your attractive markets and then there is the other market, which is upwardly mobile, and they’re going to become yours as they move, so we want them now and for them to become loyal to us.

And they need affordability. And they can’t afford these products that are going higher and higher by the day because they are chasing profit margins. So, whoever is very unattractive to everybody else is very attractive to us. Because our philosophy is we don’t want to be the best magazine in South Africa, if you are looking for the best magazine in South Africa, Kuier is not it. We do not want to be it, nor do we aspire to be it. We want to be your favorite magazine. Because that’s the one you keep coming back to.

Samir Husni: Are you afraid of the digital side of the business?

Kay Karriem: Absolutely not. At Kuier we were the first, because we are so budget conscious and in tune with our market, we never had money and we would put a website on and we would get knocked down because everybody believed our market did not have access to the Internet. And with the cost, we just didn’t have money for a website.

So we had to come up with a solution on whether we wanted digital in our spectrum. So we said we do not want a website, cancel the website.

We decided that the technology our market has the most access to, and yes, they do have Internet, but a website isn’t the best solution, our market has their cell phones everywhere. The first digital option shouldn’t be mobile, as in an iPad tablet, it should be mobile as in a phone.

So we said goodbye website and we launched a mobile site instead where we, in our philosophy, take Kuier the brand to the platforms, not content. So you don’t have the same content on the mobile site that you have in the magazine and on Facebook, but the brand values are the same across all the platforms.

So for example we would have, and we call it Mini-Kuier because you take it everywhere with you, these questions, like: how has the mobile phone changed our physical behavior and we came up with people sitting on trains and doing this and we demonstrate the thumbs and the posture of texting, when they’re not talking on their phones and we wanted to give them something. And we’re not a news source, so we’re not giving them news updates.

But what is our brand about? It’s about people, engagement and community. So we wanted those things to be on the mobile site as well. And our recipes are very popular, so we give them recipes. Something you can pick up on your way to work and make in the same day.

People are creatures of habit. So if you are traveling the train or bus every day, we give you a short story or a chapter of a book to read, so you can do it with us daily and it’s a habitual thing. But that you don’t find on our Facebook or in the magazine, only on our mobile. That’s one thing we don’t do is repeat content. Each platform is its own unique property. So this is where we see the growth of the brand, in the digital format.

Samir Husni: What has been the biggest stumbling block that has faced you in your career with the magazine?

Kay Karriem: I would say the advertising sales department because as much as I believe in this market and the size of this market, our target market, they are not very attractive to advertisers because in the country’s history it is a true wisdom of economic power; where does the money lie? The old money is white, the new money is black African, so somewhere in the middle and not a very attractive proposition, is the mixed race audience and you have to do so much convincing that the mass middle class market is upwardly mobile and that this market can’t go down.

Everything shows that over the past 20 years that market has grown, not just in numbers, but also economically. And they don’t want to be talked to as just a mixed race market, they are saying if you want our money, talk to us in a different way. We are strong economically, so if you want our money talk to us and not just as a part of something else. So convincing advertisers that yes, this is a viable, growing market, can be tough.

Samir Husni: What has been the most pleasant surprise?

Kay Karriem: To have people come up to me and ask: do you know what a difference this has made in my life? Just to know Kuier has made that difference in their lives is wonderful.

And you can ask anyone on the team, they can’t go into stores without people recognizing them as associates of Kuier. They recognize everyone on the team.

And people love sharing their stories with us and we encourage that. Our stories are very personal and people recognize our team because of that sense of community. It extends to the staff and we love it when people come up to us and tell us that we have changed their lives.

Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?

Kay Karriem: It’s my team. I worry for them. Because they believe in the vision and the work we do and why we do it, so I worry about them. We are here to change the South African media, not just set and accomplish goals. It’s never had a Kuier.

We believe so strongly in our magazine that we sometimes call it the Church of Kuier. We’re not just here to draw a paycheck; we have a mission in life. And my team and I are in it together. And that mission is our driving force.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014 All Rights Reserved.
Truth in Reporting: Kuier magazine is published by Media 24 in South Africa, a media company that I consult for. This interview is not related to my consulting role, but rather giving my readers a better understanding of the magazine and magazine media marketplace in South Africa. This is the second of four interviews.

A Niche of Niches: The Guns/Knives Category. While overall magazine retail sales plummet, this category claims year-over-year sales increases.

An ongoing series of Mr. Magazine™ exclusive interviews with MagNet’s Luke Magerko.

Luke Magerko was a consistent contributor to my blog in 2013. Luke has partnered with MagNet to provide retail analytics for the publishing industry. Today, we pick up our conversation from two two weeks ago and, going forward, MagNet will provide me with an interview with Luke every other week highlighting retail analytics.

This week, we focus on preventing sales loss by better understanding general consumer shopping habits. Here, we report on the niche category of Guns/Knives for March 2014 and April 2014 issues.

HOW IS THIS CATEGORY PERFORMING COMPARED TO THE INDUSTRY?
While overall magazine retail sales plummet, this category claims year-over-year sales increases. For 12 months ending February 2014 (based on off-sale dates), unit sales increased by two percent and retail dollars increased eight percent.

SEASONAL PERFORMANCE INDEX RESULTS: WHO WON THE MONTH?
Overall, March issues were soft with Combat Handguns performing slightly above average while April issues are stronger with Guns and Ammo estimated to win the month.


I SEE SOME VERY STRONG AND SOME VERY WEAK ISSUES. THERE SEEMS TO BE MORE VARIETY IN THE PERFORMANCE INDEX FOR THIS CATEGORY.
Correct and this is a larger point: niche titles sustain significant performance index variance because of their audience. Consumers of these products are called “enthusiasts” for a reason: when editors communicate a desired message, these consumers reward the publication with strong sales. When the product misses the mark, consumers reprimand the magazine through reduced sales.

CAN YOU DETERMINE WHAT WORKS ON A NICHE COVER?
Not exactly. MagNet looks at historical sales data and provides an outline of the enthusiast consumer. We also determine if a specific issue followed that outline. The editor and the consumer marketer drive the brand; we provide newsstand results and guidance.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THE GUN ENTHUSIASTS’ MAGAZINES?
MagNet analyzed one of the five gun magazines (“Magazine X”) to determine consumer habits. We identified one issue (on sale in May 2013) which significantly underperformed and attempted to identify the cause of the sales decline. MagNet’s looked at different slices of the data and determined why this issue underperformed. To do this, we first analyzed sales for one year’s worth of issues. The results became our baseline and the comparative data for the issue analysis.

DID THE COVER REACH THE INTENDED AUDIENCE?
The cover message (image and/or text) did not reach Magazine X’s core audience. We designed a composite sketch of consumer attributes to shed light on why this issue underperformed.

DATA MINING: SOME OBSERVATIONS
MagNet implemented a sequence of analyses to determine a cause for the weak sales. Let’s look at four analyses of this poor-performing issue:
First, we analyzed issue sales by class of trade (“COT”) and by geographic region. We found that supermarkets, mass merchants and all other classes of trade underperformed equally in every region of the country. CONCLUSION: These two categories were not the cause of sales declines.

We then studied county information. The baseline data identified the rural “D” counties and the exurban “C” counties as traditionally strong. However, these counties underperformed much more than the more urban A and B counties. CONCLUSION: This cover was a significant miss with a large and important part of the audience.

Finally, we used A.C. Nielsen PRIZM clusters to look at the demographic make-up of the stores. A.C. Nielsen provides 66 individual demographic clusters identifying patterns at the most granular level. Here is an example of one cluster:

FAST-TRACK FAMILIES (From A.C. Nielsen)
Upscale Middle Age w/ Kids
With upscale incomes, numerous children, and spacious homes, Fast-Track Families are in their prime acquisition years. These middle-aged parents have the disposable income and educated sensibility to want the best for their children. They buy the latest technology with impunity: new computers, DVD players, home theater systems, and video games. They take advantage of rustic locales by camping, boating, and fishing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claritas_Prizm

Our research indicated the best performing baseline clusters SOLD MORE COPIES of the worst performing issue of the year while poorer performing clusters sold significantly less. CONCLUSION: The most reliable readers of Magazine X appreciated this issue, but all others demographic categories did not. This issue targeted the “niche of niches.”

WHAT IS THE NICHE OF “NICHES?”
In politics, this is “speaking to the base;” providing a campaign that excites the motivated partisans while ignoring the moderate parts of the party. This issue communicated to a narrow audience: those who are at the highest end of the enthusiast category. While those shoppers purchased more copies than before, their increased sale could not make up for losses in the larger core of the readership.

WHAT DO PUBLISHERS DO WITH THIS INFORMATION?
Publishers must determine a magazine’s core audience by analyzing newsstand, consumer marketing, and survey data. Once they define a clear picture of the core reader, then each cover should reflect the needs of that reader.

Rodale epitomizes this philosophy with Men’s Health Magazine. The basic format of a Men’s Health has stayed the same for a generation: red logo, white background, a physically strong model (yes, a shirt was added to the models, but that is a small adjustment) and the word “abs” on the cover.

I do not recommend this strict cover formula for each magazine, but it is a good place to start when deciding how to build an issue. This will not ensure increased sales, but should help mitigate the damage of a poor performing cover.

© Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 2014. All Rights Reserved.
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While some leading media companies are going digital first and in some cases, digital only – ESPN has proven that you don’t have to annihilate your parent platform when you bring digital into the picture. With ESPN’s multiple screens, audiences have never been more catered to and pampered, as they should be. Whether on television, in print or on the tablets and mobile ESPN is there. (Photo by Mallory Bailey)

Rob King is Senior Vice President, SportsCenter and News at ESPN and is very strong-willed when it comes to the media company’s fans and the ESPN brand itself. Serving the audience in the most interactive and compelling way possible, while keeping the brand moving forward is a simultaneous strategy that King firmly believes in. And he knows his business when it comes to content and advertising too.

So summon up your team spirit and get ready to enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Rob King, that took place during his visit to The University of Mississippi last month. Mr. King was the keynote speaker at the first Ole Miss New Media conference at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. The conversation took place in front of a standing-room only session with Mr. King at the School of Journalism.

But first the sound-bites…

Sound-bites:

On the fans and focusing on audience first: A lot of it also is just paying attention to what the numbers tell us. We get ratings every fifteen minutes and we know how and when people are engaged and when they’re not.

On how they handle the competition: We just set out to do things very differently. And we often say that the core business is not TV or dot.com or is not just the magazine; the core business is the ESPN promise to fans, the brand promise, to serve fans anywhere and anytime.

On ESPN’s second and third screen additions: And it’s just natural. We don’t really talk about second screen honestly. We talk about best available screen. And for many people the best available screen may be the smallest screen, the one in your pocket.

On the most pleasant surprise during ESPN’s journey: Clearly WatchESPN has changed everything. WatchESPN has enabled me to at all times have one eye on what I’m supposed to be responsible for.

On his expectations for ESPN three years from now: We’re redesigning the website and I think the thing that’s going to be most impactful in the next three years is our ability to create a channel of content that is not only personalized, but is very much about now.
On the audience keeping up with all the changes: All I know is our audiences are very accustomed when they start Twitter not for it to be something that they have to get around curation. They’ve already done the curation.

On mixing advertising and editorial in the digital realms: So I see a lot of articles from people in content groups who do not have anything to do with the business wringing their hands over the scary, infiltrating native ads, but that’s not how we do it at ESPN.

On methods to grow ESPN business: (a): a great experience for our fans, (b): not intrusive when we’re trying to drive great content and (c): be a great experience for advertisers.
On what keeps him up at night: The one o’clock SportsCenter.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Rob King, Senior Vice President, SportsCenter and News at ESPN…

Samir Husni: You have said that the very first point is embracing service, the fans and focusing on the audience first. How do you actually put that into practice at ESPN?

Rob King: First of all, we are fans. There’s generally a lot of excitement everyday about what we’re covering. Probably the unfair advantage at ESPN or that any sports network has is most of our stuff sits on a schedule. So we generate excitement about things weeks out. And our fans do too. At the start of baseball season, if you’re a Red Sox fan, you know the series against the Yankees is coming.

So we have an opportunity to get out in front and think about things and think about how we can get our fans fired up. We know when the pro days are scheduled, so we know things like today was Johnny Manziel’s day to throw.

But a lot of it also is just paying attention to what the numbers tell us. We get ratings every fifteen minutes and we know how and when people are engaged and when they’re not. We know the average minute audience on our digital platforms.

So we can tell when there’s a lot of engagement with our stuff, like tonight at 7:15 when the tournament games start, the average minute audience will just take off.

We know that people are downloading our apps and how much time they’re spending with them. So there’s a lot of data that’s helping us understand what excites our fans. We know enough about our fans to know they’re early adopters of technology. That gives us permission to plan the app space.

From its very beginning ESPN started as a fan site, Bill Rasmussen was a Connecticut sports fan. So he bought some land and got some satellite time and he got some trucks and started this network that he was most interested in watching.

So it’s kind of in our core to be our fans and behave like our fans. When we got into the magazine business, we knew that we had fans who enjoyed longer stories and a different way of looking at things, maybe not a magazine that was a weekly that was off the news, but a magazine that could anticipate the news and tell different kinds of stories, which is why ESPN the magazine publishes biweekly instead of weekly. It doesn’t seek to be right off the headlines; it seeks to get out in front. So even now our magazine strategy is reflective of our audience. Our audience really wants to know what’s going to happen. It’s not just what happened or how did it happen; but what’s next?

We have this whole strategy around the magazine that’s built on looking at the sports calendar and saying, OK, people will be thinking about baseball this week, so we’ll have a baseball preview and people will also be thinking about the World Cup, maybe about analytics because there’s a big MIT sports analytics conference coming up, so we should think about that issue.

We’re getting ready to do an amazing issue called “One Day, One Game,” which really is about, not just about the magazine publishing cool pictures and stories, it’s also about people liking this notion of touching live games, so we actually publish a live photo gallery the night of the game. And then we create a magazine a few weeks later that is based on all the other things that happened around that live photo gallery, because photos are a real communication device.

People like the human form so we do the body issue, but we do it in a very different and very specific way, which is designed to celebrate shapes and sizes of all kinds and men and women. By the way, seven women primarily put that issue together. So that’s one of the reasons it doesn’t feel or read like our competitor who has an issue built around the human form.

Our approach has really always been to reflect as broad an audience as possible and do it with the sense of urgency that the audience expects.

Samir Husni: How did you manage to capture that audience today? Was there a systematic approach that you used to beat the competition or simply forget about it or did you just decide to do something different and let the audience decide? (photo by Mallory Bailey)

Rob King: We set out to do something very specific and very different, which is we started out as a television network and we were getting as many sports rights as possible and letting you see these sports and athletes as much as possible for longer stretches of the day. And as we got into digital publishing, we launched our website 19 years ago, when we started getting into mobile publishing and even when we started the magazine almost 16 years ago, our point of view was really about how do we take this volume of stuff that we’re doing and find places to go deeper with it? And when we do that; how is that really reflective of how audiences are actually spending time thinking about sports?

Because there is a community of sports fans that very few people will talk about but who are driving a ton of activity and that’s gamblers. And there’s another community, fantasy, that’s driving a new language around sports consumption. And we wanted that to be part of what we were doing in a way that was really and truly integrated and not just hanging off the edges.

So we just set out to do things very differently. And we often say that the core business is not TV or dot.com or is not just the magazine; the core business is the ESPN promise to fans, the brand promise, to serve fans anywhere and anytime. That’s our core business. So we’re not in the magazine business or the ESPN business and I think our competitors start off in different places, some are TV networks, and some are magazines.

For almost 13 years, we’ve been very clear we are a multimedia company and we create an ESPN experience for people no matter where they are. So it’s really a kind of apples to oranges comparison.

Samir Husni: Can you talk about how you created a second, third and even a fourth screen? Someone at ESPN told me that 19 out of 20 sports programs that are not aired on ESPN are being interacted with an ESPN second or third screen. Can you explain a little about that?

Rob King: Yes, I will, but first here’s the thing; you have to think about it a little differently. The way we look at it: the first social media was fantasy football. You chose your own community, looked at things in very different ways; you looked at the news of the day through a very different prism; so fantasy was our first social network.

To be in the fantasy space it was very important for us to learn about community and learn about how folks interacted with each other when they have to create their own communities.

We actually had a whole community group where we had our own ESPN social place where you could log in, rearrange the site to make it look like yours and connect with other folks. It’s just from paying attention to what people are doing. And then it comes from being a sports fan. And in some cases being a sports fan is apparent or it’s a sports fan who has another life and can be at so many events, other events outside of a sporting event, a concert and you want to know the score, or be in a library and want to know who’s winning or you want to catch a highlight and that drove us to want to make stuff to solve that problem. It’s just really thinking about the problems that sports fans have.

And then by being aggressive, getting out with our distribution partners like cable companies and saying, listen we think we can make something that people haven’t seen before and will actually pay money for. Or people just want to see live games and there are a whole lot of live games out there that aren’t getting broadcast because there are only so many hours. How do we make that available to people?

And then we wanted to figure out if there were games and events of a global nature that we couldn’t even appreciate what kind of audience they could generate. Last football season there was an LSU/Kentucky game exclusive to ESPN 3 that we put on a Saturday afternoon and their were more people watching a Cricket match directly opposite that LSU/Kentucky game because they had access from a lot of points around the globe that out rated the football game. And then that’s when you start saying; you know we might be onto something.

So then this is just really about meeting a need. If you’re watching a game we can give you a little score panel in the upper left-hand corner that we’re running a bottom line on down here, but you might want to know what the overall box score looks like, stats on innings pitched are. We’ve created these experiences like GameCast that are really rich and have all this data, that can sit right next to your television screen and make you feel as though you’re getting a much richer experience.

We’re doing things like instant polling and asking people to participate with our shows. We did this thing on the Super Bowl where we asked who’s going to win the Super Bowl and people voted and whichever team got the most votes we changed the color of the Empire State Building. So the Empire State Building on that Saturday night for the Super Bowl, the lights were green and blue. We didn’t do that, the audience did that. The audience could have made it any color scheme. (Photo by Margaret Collins)

We covered this Duke/North Carolina game recently and we asked people to send in any of their camera video from the game and we integrated that into the highlights, so some of the key moments from the game, we had our beautiful HD shots and then suddenly these shaky camera shots, but that’s because we invited people to participate and how we actually appreciated their highlights.

And it’s just natural. We don’t really talk about second screen honestly. We talk about best available screen. And for many people the best available screen may be the smallest screen, the one in your pocket. It could be your tablet. And people may take this new screen here and get in front of the other screen and they don’t turn it off, they may sit it over here or there. Maybe they’re looking for texts or some other communication, but the screens stay on. And we want to be really good about that and we want to be mindful of the advances that are going to happen. More and more people are going to care about airplay and spend more time taking content they’re getting from E3 and flipping onto a big screen and then having it resolve to Game Cast so they have multiple experiences.

And this goes beyond just ESPN. I mean, think about it, they put screens in your cars, there are people who walk around with screens clipped to their eyeglasses; it’s all happening. Imagine a world in which the walls in your home don’t have big TV’s sticking out the side with wires, but they actually have screens that are attached to Wi-Fi and you have instant access to information. We’re just trying to make sure that we’re in that conversation.

And we have an audience right now that is very comfortable with technology, so we’re taking full advantage of that. And by exception, we’re teaching others how they can do it.

Samir Husni: So what has been the major stumbling block in all this?

Rob King: So we launched a phone, Mobile ESPN in 2014, and we spent a lot of money on the marketing. Basically the ad campaign was a guy walking along looking at his phone and as he crossed the street an Indy car would zoom by and then he’d open the door and a bunch of mascots would run out of the door and the whole time he’s just looking down at his phone. This incredible and elaborate Mobile ESPN. And then we created a character who was talking about sneaking onto the ESPN campus because he’s just discovered Mobile ESPN. We spent a ton of money.

And then we put all these phones out there, $399 dollars for the phone, plus the data plan and people who had phones were saying I can’t get out of this one, so why would I spend $400 over here? And they just decided not to.

Meanwhile, we had people furiously trying to figure out really cool content to get into the phones and people who had the phones were using the content because the data plans were really going. But people weren’t buying the phones enough to justify the whole thing.

So this told us that we’re not a phone hardware company, we are a content company. So let’s look at the appropriate connection between content and product and what our end is in actually building the product versus our end in figuring out the content piece.

It was one of the most significant learnings that we’ve had because then it freed us up to start thinking about if we’re just focusing on content we don’t care if it’s an android tablet or whether it’s an iPad; we don’t care if it’s this brand of phone and yes, Microsoft’s IOS is different from others and we have to be smarter about that, but we don’t have to go out to people who are making a specific kind of box and tailor everything to them. We’ve got a content solution that actually goes in those places. And that’s one thing that’s changed.

Samir Husni: What was the most pleasant surprise in your journey?

Rob King: Clearly WatchESPN has changed everything. I have three kids and they dominate the television when it’s on and I really don’t want them watching the television all the time. So for me to have Sports ESPN on would make me a hypocrite. So I have a lot of surreptitious viewing.

WatchESPN has enabled me to at all times have one eye on what I’m supposed to be responsible for, but not in a way that says let’s sit on the couch and just watch TV.

Recently we were having this meeting in Burbank and a bunch of us ESPN executives were talking about how WatchESPN had changed everything for us and that it’s the best thing ever.

But the idea that we can make sure that folks can see Sports Center, regardless of where they are is great and we’ve changed and added highlight clips, side by side viewing and we’ve expanded the notion of what Watch is. Watch has also helped, through the Disney Company, and ABC and Disney understand how to connect with people through these devices.

When we first started looking at it, we didn’t know about tablet adoption. We said: what’s tablet adoption going to look like? And now there’s hundreds of millions of tablets in the marketplace and they’re just pre-cursing the screens, they’re going to show up in malls and store kiosks and on phones. And that is just everything.

Samir Husni: If you and I are sitting here three years from now, will you tell me a different story? Such as there’s no need for the printed magazine anymore or no one is watching the TV channel at home. What’s your expectation as an executive for ESPN three years from now? (Photo by Alex Edwards)

Rob King: I don’t think I’ll be saying any of those things. I think people will be watching television and people will be reading magazines, especially our magazine.

I do think over the next three years the ubiquity of screens is going to change the way people publish, so they’re not trying to publish magazines in a digital space that are built exactly like their magazines, but are built more native.

Certainly from our perspective the magazine is a great brand, but what’s also a great brand is storytelling in general. And over the next three years certainly at ESPN we’re going to look at all of our long-form storytelling as experience.

So maybe it carries a great deal of branding, maybe it carries magazine branding or maybe it just carries read ESPN branding, where if you like that kind of experience you can immerse yourself , dip in and out, like WatchESPN.

And we’re redesigning the website and I think the thing that’s going to be most impactful in the next three years is our ability to create a channel of content that is not only personalized, but is very much about now. I think “now” is the concept that eludes media companies more than anything else. The ability to create a place where you just go in and you’re getting nothing but alerts and personalized stuff and social is a niche, an expectation. You’re expectation is to always have an experience that is personalized and relevant to you.

And mainstream media publishing starts not just with what’s always relevant to you, but here’s what we have planned for you today. And I think that’s the biggest media paradigm publishing shift, that you’re not waiting for me to tell you what’s important. I have the advantage in that sports generally galvanizes communities so we don’t miss that often.

And we have to maintain a balance. There’s nothing wrong with us telling you stories you haven’t heard before, breaking news and coming up with things that are really important stories so long as we provide an equal balance of you having an easy access to the things you care about first and foremost.

That’s one of the things we’re learning about right now with the Sports InterApp. We created all this personalization within this Sports InterApp and we’re learning every day. We didn’t use to have an inbox in the Sports InterApp when it was ScoreCenter. There wasn’t one place you could go and find all the alerts you missed. That thing is getting like 18 percent of the traffic, a huge percentage of video starts that are starting not from the main news channel of the app, but from the team specific pages, so people are saying no, I’m going to go to my Jets page and that’s where I’ll start most of the video, not from the main section.

So we have a sense of urgency about making that easier for you and I think you’re going to see that in the redesigned website. You’ll see a very clear channel of the top stories, but a very targeted section of here’s what’s happening right now and when you personalize with us, here are the things that you care about the most front and center.

Samir Husni: Do you think the audience is keeping up with all of these changes or are the changes moving way too fast for them?

Rob King: All I know is our audiences are very accustomed when they start Twitter not for it to be something that they have to get around curation. They’ve already done the curation. Your Twitter experience is something you made. Your Facebook experience is something you made. The interruptions of advertising and all these other cutesy things that Facebook is trying to introduce in a race to monetize; that’s interfering with what you’ve already built on Facebook, which is why some folks are leaving. This is why people are spending time on Instagram and other places because this is an experience that they made.

And when we say media companies are getting that; we don’t get that, we’re behind the curve on that, because an entire generation of folks have been raised to believe that the first experience is their own. Nobody goes to Netflix without any idea what to watch and just starts to search it. You go to Netflix for a purpose. And Netflix knows you. If you’ve watched something already, then they know what you’re interested in. And that’s just a core experience.

Samir Husni: You rose to your current position from the editorial ranks; do you have any fear with this mixing of advertising and editorial that’s creeping into the digital world and if you do, how are you avoiding it at ESPN?

Rob King: I’m not going to answer this question the way you expect me to. I’m going to tell you that I don’t have fear of it and I’m going to spin it.

I was in newspapers for 20 years. I was at the Philadelphia Enquirer for my most recent job. So I’ve been in five newsrooms. And in all those newsrooms, we were very careful to separate church and state from the perspective of thinking about the business. I’m not talking about in terms of the way we covered the news, but thinking about the holistic business.

And I was in newsrooms where the business writers were writing stories about Craig’s List. They were writing these long stories about Craig’s List and the business around Craig’s List and none of them went into a classified sales office and said we have a problem. And now you open up a newspaper and no classified. Because the folks who are actually driving content, who knew what was happening on the street had no association with the folks who were trying to drive the classified business and therefore they weren’t aligned in moving the business forward. We had separate conversations.

So we literally at ESPN Media last year made ad innovation one of our five priorities along with growing video and redesign. Ad innovation: we had two hackathons. One was designed around new cool products and experiences, so folks were creating things like the ultimate Breathalyzer and it measured your pulse and it had access to a social network. It was like a party machine where you watched games and your blood alcohol content would show up on the screen next to your pulse. And they built this in 48 hours.

We had this hackathon where all these ideas showed up around content experiences, but then we had an advertising hackathon. And the way we do the hackathons is we get designers and programmers and content people working in teams on projects and we do the same thing with the ad hackathon. We had people in sales and marketing, programmers, designers and content folks go off and say what are some advertising experiences we could create? And you can see some of them online right now. If you go to ESPN.com on certain days, you’ll see some of the modules on the front page flip over and show an ad, then flip back over and show content.

That came out of the ad hackathon where we were coming up with ways to grow our business that is (a): a great experience for our fans, (b): not intrusive when we’re trying to drive great content and (c): be a great experience for advertisers. Because if we didn’t do that somebody would come over here with some ad execution, a content person would harrumph – oh you’re interrupting with my coverage and we wouldn’t be in it together.

Now these hackathons don’t have anything to do with what happens in content. In fact, what we also do is we sit down and look at the sports calendar and we identify 35 sports holidays. So it’s Wimbledon and U.S. Open tennis or golf or the Super Bowl. And we look at those weeks. What are the days where we have on average the most traffic and what hour of the day does this occur? And when do we want to interfere with the sports fan’s experience the least? They just want to get a score or a piece of video; let’s block out those hours and then let’s look at the other hours and figure out when do we have the scale and when do we do something from an ad perspective that is bigger and grander so that an advertiser will say I want to spend time with ESPN.

And I’ll give you a great example. We did this when Prometheus came out on DVD. We had this incredible takeover of ESPN.com. It was like Prometheus on the side and a big trailer started playing and it would resolve and then go back to ESPN.

And I would ask people what was the main story we were covering that day? And nobody remembered. But there’s a reason no one remembered, because there was nothing happening that day. It was a Tuesday and it was really important for that release to be a smash hit. And that’s why we did it.

But that’s a matter of sitting down as a complete team and thinking about the business. So I see a lot of articles from people in content groups who do not have anything to do with the business wringing their hands over the scary, infiltrating native ads, but that’s not how we do it at ESPN. And I feel that those businesses need to change. I’ve noticed where some businesses where a big part of their digital is video starts. So you start an ad, then a piece of video; so people just do video online only to start an ad basically. That’s the only reason they’re in the video business.

So in some news enterprises the video group does not reside in the content team, they reside in the business group. So you’ve got content groups that are entirely in the business, when in fact what they should be doing, which I’m proud to say we do at ESPN, is to have team building exercises. Things like here’s the state of our business, opportunities for fans, here’s content we’re doing unlike anything else; how do we get that on the calendar and deliver it in a way that builds everybody’s business.

Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?

Rob King: The one o’clock SportsCenter.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

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