When Print Seems Unhip, Digital Replacement is Not the Answer. The Mr. Magazine™ M.O. Column in Publishing Executive Magazine

Editor’s Note: My column this month in Publishing Executive magazine was accompanied by a short video that appears on your smart phone when you sit down with the magazine and enjoy some quality reading. So enjoy the video first and then read the column. Any and all comments are more than welcomed!

Joint Effort
When print seems unhip, digital replacement is not the answer
In the publishing world you have to stay on top of the latest trends. (Word number one: trends.) And you also need to be as contemporary and innovative as possible. (Words two and three: contemporary and innovative.) Those three words are the only constant in a sea of change.

For some inexplicable reason, the powers-that-be in some publishers’ offices think that in order to be hip­—that is, synonymous with the word-trio trends (trendy), contemporary and innovative—you must accentuate the digital before you mention the print. Think of the many hip-sounding initiatives starting with “digital first.” Or, as has happened on more than one occasion, you may decide to do away with print altogether.

Many of you know that I am not among the followers of that religion. Doing “hip replacement” surgery on your product by taking away the print version and putting in a new digital one is not the answer. Modifying your “hipness” by conjoining the two, on the other hand, is.

With that last statement fermenting in your mind, let me elaborate. Print publishing still brings in the majority of the publishing industry’s revenue. Let me repeat that: print publishing still brings in the majority of the publishing industry’s revenue. Not digital, in any platform. David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, recently announced that the total digital revenues from Hearst’s magazines is a mere 3 percent. That being said, digital has a place in the business. And that place is on the other hip. The left hip, and the first, will always be print (and yes, I am one of those folks who is willing to say ALWAYS and not just in the foreseeable future). The right hip, the other balance point on today’s two-legged creation, is digital.

Combining the two, without replacing either, is the business model of today’s magazine. Our audience-of-one demands and deserves it. Out of sight is proving continuously out of mind.

Print has, is, and always will be as trendy, contemporary and innovative as we make it. Our creative juices must oil the joints of the body of our work. We cannot expect to succeed in either medium without realizing that.

The key is exceeding our customer’s expectations in all areas of the creation, from the content to the design, from the ads to the masthead; the experience must create a community that our audience-of-one desires to be a part of. If that happens, we build communities filled with loyal and returning citizens. Give them that trip filled with adventure, excitement, and, above all, relevance to their wants and requirements, and we will have what we all want: success, and happy customers.

But you must peel the layers back from your print product and get down to the center of it. Is it as creatively written, designed, and endemically ad-placed as it could be? Do you publish a magazine about parenting and have ads for liquor and tobacco in it? Think about it.

Being trendy and hip in today’s market is about more than just placing that glossy, big-paying ad smack in the middle of your publication. You have to think like a reader. Imagine what kind of ad you would like to see between the two articles you actually bought the magazine for in the first place. If you’re reading a cooking magazine and there aren’t any ads for ingredients between those recipes, you’re going to be a bit disappointed and miffed.
It’s creative placement and execution that makes a magazine innovative and keeps it that way. Not just an app.

But if we balance that print body with our other stabilizng factor, digital, we see a well-rounded, secure creation that knows its place in both worlds.

Print and digital together, done well and with an inspired mindset, can make a magazine the hippest of all media out there. Successful magazine media are going to be content curators, solution creators and experience makers, pure and simple! PE

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Mr. Magazine™ Minute: Lewis D’Vorkin, Chief Product Officer of Forbes Media, on the Future of Print and the Role Digital Plays in Helping and Enhancing Print

What is the future of print and how is digital helping and enhancing the printed magazine? Lewis D’Vorkin, the chief product officer of Forbes Media, answers these two questions in this segment of the Mr. Magazine™ Minute. Mr. D’Vorkin was visiting the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. I asked him first about the future of print. Listen to his answer:

My second question to Mr. D’Vorkin was how did digital help the printed edition of Forbes magazine? His answer:

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Gregg Hano to Samir Husni: It Is All About Humans and the Human Brain. The CEO of MAG+ on the Integration of Magazine Media and The Need to Create a New Business Model Based on Building Communities and Creating Memberships. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview.

When you find out that the iPad is having its 3rd birthday, you’ll probably have to shake your head a bit in an effort to add a few more numbers to the age of the apple of Apple’s eye. Has it only been three years since the heavenly scroller was created?

Yes, 3 years old today. But three years in the life of technology today, would compare to a century in years past. Technology is advancing so swiftly and at a speed that you can’t even imagine, much less realize, it confirms what I’ve been teaching and preaching lately: it is much more essential today to invest in human technology – customer, audience, viewer or user, because in this digital age humans are outlasting the technology.

Gregg Hano is CEO of Mag+, the touchscreen publishing pioneer. It is his job to stay one step ahead of this fast-paced beguiler we call technology. The following is the Mr. Magazine™ interview with a 30-year veteran of magazine media who comes face-to-face with obsolete on a daily basis and has learned to smile and move on to the newer version. He is a man with a passion and an excitement for the industry, the business of software development and especially for the technology he admits he’s still learning about.

So sit back, grab your iPad and sing it a chorus or two of Happy 3rd Birthday and enjoy Mr. Magazine’s™ interview with Gregg Hano, CEO of Mag+.

But first the sound-bites.

The Sound-Bites:

On how the audience is adapting to this rapidly-changing technology: What we’re seeing is an evolving human being. While it took some time to get to this place and we saw the same thing with the web from 1995 to 2007, 2008 and 2009, I think the same sort of migration or evolution is what’s happening right now with humans, and not with just content consumption, but with the way that they run their lives.

On why some publications that killed their ink on paper versions couldn’t survive as digital-only, even with all the creative enhancements: I think that the answer is in really building out communities and a membership model that includes all of the different types of content consumption devices. So I think that a premium print publication is extremely important to how brand content gets out, that a dynamic website, an html-type website, is extremely important and clearly apps are one of the content strategies, both apps that come out on a monthly basis or special interest pubs that we used to call SIPs.

On whether Mag+ believes ink on paper print limits creativity: We believe very, very strongly that a beautiful, rich print product that comes into your home, that sits on your coffee table, that you read in a relaxed moment and that says something about who you are is absolutely for many people one of the core parts of the brand.

On where the business model is moving in terms of teaching people to pay for apps or using apps as just an enhancement for the print subscription? I think the bundling of the content and thinking about the consumers as tribes or as communities that want to consume that content is the first step. You have to really think about how you’re going to deliver a bundle of content to the consumers. And I think that one of the core issues is that this is the moment to reset the consumer marketing pay model.

And now for the lightly edited transcript for the Mr. Magazine™ Interview with Gregg Hano, CEO of Mag+.

Samir Husni: It’s hard to believe that the iPad is only three years old. It seems that it’s been around for much longer. Where humans used to outlive technology, nowadays it would seem technology is outliving humans. The growth span of just three short years compares to yesterday’s century when you think about how fast technology is advancing. How do you think human beings, our customers, our audience is adapting to all this changing technology?

Gregg Hano: What we’re seeing is an evolving human being. As Moore’s Law continues at that same pace the reason why it’s moving so quickly, of course, is because of the speed of the processors and what used to be a huge main frame from the 60s and 70s is now the size of a handheld iPhone. While it took some time to get to this place and we saw the same thing with the web from 1995 to 2007, 2008 and 2009, I think the same sort of migration or evolution is what’s happening right now with humans, and not with just content consumption, but with the way that they run their lives. I always say to people when I start a presentation; I graduated from college in 1982 without ever having touched a computer. And here I am now the CEO of a software development company. And I think that what happens is you get introduced to a technology, see how much of it works for you, integrate some of that into your life and then you take the next step. I remember when people were afraid of buying things online and today there’s just as much bought online as in brick and mortar stores. And banking is another area. So I think in the area that we’re so in love with, content consumption, we’re seeing this evolution that only started three years ago and people are beginning to embrace different parts of it, the parts that work for them in their lives, and I think that that’s just going to continue for as long as we’re around.

Samir Husni: With all this new technology, why is it that some print publications that killed their ink on paper editions, couldn’t survive on a digital-only platform? Going as far back as 2006, there were many magazines that went digital-only that couldn’t make it for more than one or two years. Yet your publication, Popular Science, did do well digitally. But can it continue to thrive if you kill the print edition?

Gregg Hano: I think that the answer is in really building out communities and a membership model that includes all of the different types of content consumption devices. So I think that a premium print publication is extremely important to how brand content gets out, that a dynamic website, an html-type website, is extremely important and clearly apps are one of the content strategies, both apps that come out on a monthly basis or special interest pubs that we used to call SIPs. I think that breaking news in the subject areas of a brand, or perhaps events, webinars, are all extremely important parts of a way that a brand and gets its message out, but more importantly, connects with its consumers. You need all of the parts. I was over at Outside Magazine recently, which is one of our great customers, and they have an extremely large television/video portfolio, another extremely important part of all of this. Our friends over at New York Magazine, who earlier this week launched their new app, have really integrated web and what we would have called print, and now tablet content, into one app. So I think the answer to the question is it’s really a lot of different avenues, a lot of different media that will give the brand the best chance of success. And I think that print is one of the very strong areas, issue-based print, but that is just one of a series of areas that content owners need to consider as they’re delivering their content to consumers who want to pay for it.

Samir Husni: I want to ask you about a quote from a press release for Mag+ made by Mike Haney, to paraphrase, “Paper dinosaurs limit creativity.” Then it basically reads but what you are offering at Mag+ instead enhances that creativity. What would you say to a critic that would ask you if you thought Shakespeare was limited in his creativity because he only had ink on paper?

Gregg Hano: Mike Haney is one of the biggest supporters of printed media and believes strongly in curated content, issue-based curated content. We at Mag+ are all aligned in the fact that publishers that are creative, forward-thinking, that are looking at new ways to engage audiences and have them pay, simply enhances the brand’s equity and good will with those consumers. And we believe very, very strongly that a beautiful, rich print product that comes into your home, that sits on your coffee table, that you read in a relaxed moment and that says something about who you are is absolutely for many people one of the core parts of the brand. Along with that there are so many other ways now for brand owners and content owners to connect with consumers willing to pay for the content and I think that’s really the key – stick to really great curated, issue-based content. But think about how you can reimagine both the “issue” and how you distribute your content to those customers so that they can consume it in whatever format, on whatever devices and at whatever time suits them.

Samir Husni: I noticed that a lot of your clients, whether it is WebMD, Toyota, Outside, Shape, are aimed at, not the digital natives, but the digital immigrants. Do you think the digital natives are leaning more toward the digital-only platform and the digital immigrants are still enjoying a mix, or are the digital immigrants as platform savvy as the digital natives?

Gregg Hano: Many of the digital natives do like the tablet editions or websites, but I think there are also an awful lot of them who appreciate the rich feel of a print product. A lot of my friends like The New York Times web app, but also happen to love stretching out and reading the entire Sunday New York Times. I think that the digital natives, the ones who’ve been with it for quite a while, are interested in both the print and the digital enhancements that come. I think that the digital immigrants who are migrating there now clearly still have a somewhat stronger feel for the print products. I’m thinking in this scenario about my wife who absolutely loves her print brands and is now migrating over and finding the enhancements that come with the digital product. But I think it’s all part of this evolution that we human beings are going through right now as we have so many more options in ways to consume content. Both groups like both products, I think. It’s just when the right time is to consume it and in what format.

Samir Husni: You were able to, through Mag+ and the development of the software, move some of what I call “The Welfare Information Society” that media folks created for the web, where we give everything for free and we hope that advertisers will foot the bill, with the apps, you were able to move to a point where consumer revenue was generated. So how do you see this changing business model – when you have a company like Condè Nast, where you subscribe to GQ or Vogue and you get the whole thing, or a company like Hearst, where you subscribe to Good Housekeeping and you get the print edition only? If you want the digital, you have to pay for it. Where do you see this business model moving in terms of teaching people to pay for apps or using apps as just an enhancement for the print subscription?

Gregg Hano: I think the bundling of the content and thinking about the consumers as tribes or as communities that want to consume that content is the first step. You have to really think about how you’re going to deliver a bundle of content to the consumers. And I think that one of the core issues is that this is the moment to reset the consumer marketing pay model. And I urge anyone who cares to listen to strongly consider how they can make consumers pay by bundling their print, digital and other special items: breaking news, webinars, I’m not just focusing here on print and tablet. All forms of content into one membership or super-subscription. Should there be a silver, gold and platinum type of subscription or membership to this community that have like-minded people who share the vision. Both for the content and, quite frankly, for the advertising which is content in special interest publications. I like what Hearst has done. I think that they have been very successful. John Loughlin said the other day they have 900,000 paid digital subscribers and I think that’s a very exciting start. And I think it proves that people are willing to pay for content. And our customers from Popular Science and Popular Photography on have proven that when you have brand equity and good will with consumers and you deliver great content in formats that the consumers want to consume that content in, they will be willing to pay. So this is the moment to reset that pay model and I think that we all should take advantage of that.

Samir Husni: Why are the advertisers not following the consumers lead; why are they paying pennies on the dollar for digital ads compared to print?

Gregg Hano: There’s digital web and there’s digital tablets. As I said earlier, I was with some of my friends at Outside Magazine recently and they were sharing with me the ad model that they use, which is selling category-exclusive sponsorships to many of the advertisers that are in that space. And they’re doing very, very well with that effort. Popular Science, Wired and several other brands have seen really good ad creative. And I think that we’re going to see more and more as the agencies become better-versed in how to create this ad. We’ve seen a Kashi ad, for example, in Shape Magazine that’s really great, the digital belly band that Pop-Sci is doing with BASF and the Avis ad that we’ve seen, and the Shake Me ad that came out of Publicist, all really good creative. And I think that two of the most important things that we need to see happen to increase the ad is that we need to continue to see engagement rise, and we are seeing engagement move in the right direction, and we need to get some consistent metrics across platforms and devices to share with our advertising agency partners to prove that the people are seeing the ads. And I think the work that’s being done, both by the MPA with the tablet metrics taskforce and to a great degree by the AAM in auditing that is a great first start. So we, as publishers, prove that these ads are engaging, the people are seeing them, I think you’re going to see an increase in the number of ads and the quality of the ads that are being placed on tablets and smartphone publications.

Samir Husni: How would you describe the current status of the industry today? Are we in interesting times, intriguing times, pleasant times, or doom and gloom times?

Gregg Hano: I think that we’re in the most exciting times we could possibly be in for brand owners that have quality products that have great brand equity and good will with consumers. Right now is an incubator moment. When publishers and content owners can rethink ways to enhance their brand message, get their beautiful, curated content into the hands of interested consumers, and identify new consumers for the brand, which is clearly one of the things that the tablet is doing, it’s bringing new consumers into the brands, and finding smart ways to monetize it, both with consumer marketing and advertising. And having spent 30 years in the traditional magazines and then web media and now to find myself in this position of working with publishers and helping enable them to create and sell great content, I just couldn’t think of a more exciting moment to be in the industry that we’re all in. It’s not easy. And it’s early days for digital publishing, but it simply couldn’t be a more thrilling and exhilarating time to be doing what we’re doing.

Samir Husni: What keeps you up at night?

Gregg Hano: One of the things that keep me up at night is finding ways to help our clients grow their business and I think that app discovery and marketing is still an area of real education and learning. I think it’s something that we collectively as an industry should think about and try to find ways to share ideas and help with discovery and marketing. The fact that technology moves so quickly, I mean, back in the day we were asked to write three year plans. To sit down right now and to try to write a three year plan for Mag+ or for any brand would be a very challenging exercise. Who knows where it’s going? In my world, where development is everything and having to keep up with, not just our friends at Apple and IOS, but all the different platforms that are coming out and all the different products that are coming out on Android, now with Windows 8 and other platforms, it is the fragmentation of the devices, the screen sizes and then the speed with which these products will become obsolete and then we move on to version 3.0 or 4.0 and so on of the tablet and smartphone means that we have to be ahead of it and write code to support those. And that is a whole new way of thinking. It never ends. It’s constant evolution. It’s constantly being on the front end looking out ahead and making intelligent bets on which platforms to put resources behind when. And I think those are two huge issues: app marketing and just the constant evolution of the technology and with our organization here at Mag + trying to stay ahead of it. Those are the things that keep me up at night.

Samir Husni: Technically, we just came full circle, back to the human technology.

Gregg Hano: Yes, at the end of the day it’s all the brains of the people who are doing the work that make it happen and again, it’s part of the exciting world we’re in. I’ve learned more from the developers and guys like Mike Haney and our Chief Product Officer, Peter Vincent, than I ever thought I would learn at this stage of my career. It makes you feel like you need to go back to school and in a way what I’m doing is going back to school and learning a whole new business. But it’s simply thrilling.

Samir Husni: Any final thoughts?

Gregg Hano: I think that one of the most exciting things that we’re seeing is publishers working very, very hard to get consumers to come back to their app day after day and time after time and solve what I call “the other 28 day problem.” And I think what New York Magazine has done by releasing on our platform their new product which launched April 1 and integrating both web and tablet print is really exciting because they did an awful lot of smart research. They saw that there was a real increase in the usage of their website between 5-10 p.m. And they really wanted to integrate the content into their “magazine.” I think what they’ve done is used our SDK (Software Development Kit) to find a way to marry these two really important content areas: web and digital print. And I think that what they’re going to prove is that people will be willing to come back and use an app day in and day, over and over, and it’s going to make the print digital edition, the weekly or the monthly issue, be read more. It will have a longer duration of time-spent with the app itself, and I think it’s going to be a very, very interesting new product on the market. And I think that what they’ve done and other publishers like our friends over at August Home are doing in parsing out content on a more regular basis is really exciting. And rethinking, reimagining what their business can look like, both as far as the issue is concerned and then the enhancements around the issue is also exciting.

Samir Husni: Thank you.
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Save the Date: Nov. 5 to 7, 2013
Don’t Let Digital Scare You: The Power of PRINT Integrated!

Randall Lane, Editor of Forbes, Believes Ink on Paper Can Do for Digital What Spinach Did for Popeye… The Mr. Magazine™ Interview

Randall Lane is very clear when it comes to print and digital integration in Forbes magazine: “We put all our magazine stories online, all of them.”

“There’s no paywall,” Lane adds. “And what’s been amazing to watch is to see how these Forbes stories, when they’re put online, do so well.”

Lane attributes part of this on line success to the fact that the stories are in the magazine too. The stories on line are identified as stories that are from the X issue of Forbes magazine.

Lane makes many interesting and valid points, but the aforementioned, this idea that print complements and validates their digital venue because the stories are in the magazine as well, is an enlightening and exciting one.

Using print and digital together, making one platform define the diamond in the ring, while the other is the elegant finger it rests upon, is the intelligent and obvious answer to this condition the industry has created called the either/or syndrome. In the 21st century and with the technology and creative stimuli we enjoy today, there is no reason anything has to be either/or really, especially the magazine media experience.

Randall Lane realizes this and revels in the entire package that is the Forbes magazine experience.

When you walk into the Forbes building on 60 Fifth Avenue in New York City, you are welcomed by a series of paintings, drawings, and portraits that offer a sense of the majestic and historical days gone by, of people who have occupied those offices over the years. Randall Lane, wearing his “trademark” hat that he wears inside and outside his Fifth Avenue office, arrives in the historic library lined with bookshelves and filled with (ink on paper) books from floor to ceiling.

The irony isn’t misplaced, nor is it ignored. We learn and grow from our past and we use those experiences to increase our futures. And the packaging that the editor of Forbes describes is one that encompasses all the platforms – print – digital – live events, the total experience for the reader, the right medium for the right story. Each and every one is necessary, sufficient and relevant.

Click here to read the entire Mr. Magazine’s™ interview with the always “spinach energized Popeye” Randall Lane, Editor of Forbes magazine – a man who treasures the traditions of the Forbes brand, but recognizes the potential of a joint venture in today’s digital realms.

Mr. Magazine™ Minute: Rex Hammock, Founder & CEO, Hammock Inc., on the Future of Print and the Difference Between the Know and the Flow.

You can call Rex Hammock, the founder and chief executive officer of the Nashville-based Hammock Inc., any name you want, except that of a Luddite. Rex bought his first Apple Mac in 1984, and has been tempted by the Apple ever since. On Twitter he is simply known as @R. He is all over the web, the digital sphere and more.

So when Rex came to speak to my magazine students at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media yesterday, I seized the opportunity to ask him two questions, after he completed his presentation to the students.

The first question had to do with the future of print in this digital age. Click on the video below to hear the surprising answer from this multimedia chief executive officer:

My second question to Rex was about his dual concept of “Flow and Know” in defining the role of content in magazine media. His second “minute” answer is as surprising as the first. Click the video below to listen:

Reimagining The Women’s Magazine: The Redbook Way. Jill Herzig and Mary Morgan Reinvent Redbook for 21st Century Women

In the magazine media industry, listening to your customer – that audience of one – is vital. You have to have large ears and an open mind. There’s no other way to approach success for your publication without the people who occupy the head offices of the magazine having the previously described features.

That being said – Jill Herzig and Mary Morgan, editor in chief and publisher/chief revenue officer respectively, of Redbook Magazine, redefine those characteristics as they embarked on the latest “reimagined” magazine.

Herzig and Morgan have researched and surveyed their audience and discovered what they want: a down-to-earth, reality-based magazine that is a handbook for fashion and style for today’s busy woman. So they’re giving it to them, reinforcing the belief that if you give them what they want, they’ll find what they need.

I had the opportunity to meet Jill and Mary at the offices of Redbook magazine, at the Hearst Tower in New York City. The new Redbook just arrived. The April issue (on the newsstands today) ushers a brand new magazine, reinvented and reimagined. The new cover design and approach scream at you, wow you and stop you in your tracks. A job very well done, and it shows.

I started my stream of questions and the answers were dashing back in stereo, in unison.

Investing in this new print version in a digital age was never a quandary for the two visionary’s at Redbook’s helm, recognizing the progression of crossover high-fashion into retail marketing as their key to the door of the consumer’s fantasy-turned-reality. And ascertaining that print magazines are still the rainbows that lead to that particular pot of gold as no other medium does. It’s a relevant concept, with relevant content, for a relevant customer, something that must be in place when you reinvent any entity for the buying public. Herzig and Morgan recognize that fact.

Redbook’s new face belongs to any age group of women, but as Herzig said, “I would say that she’s a woman in her 30s and 40s and she can be from any town in America.”

Knowing their audience and marketing that percentile is very important to her. It’s the foundation for Redbook’s new structure and it has to be a sturdy and felicitous one for all involved.

While they know the print reinvention is paramount to the success of their venture, they also recognize that print and digital must coexist in today’s world. It’s an absolute.

Enter a new mobile app that makes shopping from your smart phone simple: the technology of Eye Capture. With Eye Capture you can take a picture of the entire activated page and are offered a screen full of images and magazine-approved links of content that’s directly related to what’s on that page. Every page and not just a few selected pages in the magazine are digitally integrated. Herzig and Morgan are very excited about the simultaneous debut of both the app and the new Redbook Magazine. To them, this is how print and digital can work together to bring the reader the most enjoyable and memorable experience ever. And after all, isn’t that what magazines are here to do?

In the scheme of things, what Redbook is doing is very important to the magazine media industry today. They are paving the way for other publications to realize the potential of making a niche for your magazine. Targeting and redefining your audience and then pairing the results up with a digital package that goes hand-in-hand with your print entity is the answer to a lot of questions out there today about how to make magazines more successful and relevant for the reader.

No matter how old your magazine is, creativity and good leadership are always essential to keeping the brand alive and going. I left my interview with Herzig and Morgan reassured that there are some leaders in the magazine media industry who are still full of passion, emotion and yes, gutsy moves based on some solid connectivity with the customers.

To read my entire interview with Jill Herzig, editor in chief, and Mary Morgan, publisher and chief revenue officer, of Redbook, click here.

Mr. Magazine™ Minute: Michael Rooney, Chief Revenue Officer, The Wall Street Journal, on the Launch of WSJ’s New Print Magazine & The Power of Print in a Digital Age

The Wall Street Journal is launching a new quarterly magazine called WSJ.MONEY on Saturday. I asked Michael Rooney, the Journal’s chief revenue officer about why the Journal is launching a new print title just a few months after killing Smart Money magazine? His answer, and his take on the power of print in a digital age are in this Mr. Magazine™ Minute:

Mr. Magazine™ Minute: Mary Berner Identifies the Place of Print in Magazine Media

When Mary Berner was named president and chief executive officer of MPA – The Association of Magazine Media last September, one of her first edicts was to ensure that the word “media” followed the word “magazine” every time it was used. I asked Ms. Berner about the place of print in the magazine media mix. Her answer appears below in the Mr. Magazine™ Minute. Enjoy.

Digital Heaven or Immortal Hell? Why Print Needs Print to Survive in a Digital Age? The Mr. Magazine™ Webcast…

On Wed. Feb. 27 I gave a webcast on the topic Digital Heaven or Immortal Hell. The webcast via CommPRO.biz was produced by Onstream Media and sponsored by Akamai Technologies.
The webcast in its entirety is posted below. Enjoy and feel free to comment or ask more questions. Click on the link below to watch the webcast.

Don’t Forget to PEG Your Magazine Media: Add Passion, Emotion, and Guts to Your Daily Regimen… And Please Take Your Vitamin Cs… Mr. Magazine™’s Prescription for a New Magazine Media Business Model

When DeWitt Wallace shopped his idea of Reader’s Digest to every major magazine publisher in New York City in 1920 he was faced by one rejection after the other. When Henry Luce launched Sports Illustrated in 1954 he was not disheartened when the magazine lost money for 12 years. Wallace went on to publish Reader’s Digest on his own in 1922 and Luce stuck with Sports Illustrated making it the largest sports weekly magazine in the world.

Both men were passionate about the subject matter, emotional about the content and staunch believers in what their gut told them to do.

This is a far cry from today’s owners of the magazine media, most of whom have no editorial background whatsoever. Luce and Wallace were editor’s first, business folks second. They knew good editorial content when they saw it and they knew the value of such editorial in reaching customers, both readers and advertisers.

Hugh Hefner , Jann Wenner and Marvin Shanken are but three remaining editors/publishers who still act from their emotion, passion and, above all, guts. All three have been overseeing both the business and the editorial side of their respective magazines.

Luce must be turning in his grave hearing the news of the eminent sale of his creation Time Inc. and Wallace has probably flipped completely over by now.

I know history shouldn’t repeat itself, but it was, still is, and will continue to be a great instructor, teaching you to live in the present, but plan for the future.

However, I know that the magazine media today must undergo a transformation if it is to thrive, as well as survive. Because if they can’t make it today, why should they care about tomorrow? It’s as simple as that, and as complex.

The old business model of the passion driven and need-based product is changing into a numbers driven and want-based existence that requires a complete shake-up of the magazine media’s ideas and the very foundations the industry has been built on for the last 150 years. That good-old, complacently-content magazine familiar won’t fly in this digital age, or so they tell us. The bubble has burst. On that, I think we can all agree.

The new model today is synonymous with the statement: If I give you what you want, you will find what you need.

Think about that for a second. Just let it really sink in. If I give you what you want, you will find what you need.

And to empower that declaration into action, you need the mega-boost of some very potent vitamins…and I have them.

The Vitamin Cs for magazine media …the new business model in action.

Customer: From Mass to One…
Content: From Who, What, When, Where, Why and How to What Is In It For Me…
Commerce: From See and Buy, to Produce, Introduce and Buy…
Community: From Melting Pot to Birds of a Feather…

No longer are we, the media in charge. There’s no possible way, with all the choices out there, that as an industry we can possibly believe that we dictate what our customer’s will and will not consume when it comes to their media experiences. No way.
That is foolish thinking and just won’t wash anymore.

There are two types of customers that exist in our world and must be satisfied: the audience of one and the advertiser. Without either of these two, we’re sunk before we leave port.

Both customers: the audience (albeit a reader, viewer, listener, or user) and the advertisers have another 3 Vitamin Cs they enjoy and cherish: control, choice and comfort. Both are now more in control of their destiny than ever before, both have plenty of choices and both are looking for this comfort zone they call their own.

But out of those two, the audience of one is the most important. Why, you might ask? Why, when advertising dollars far surpass any single subscription or cover price of an individual consumer.

The answer is simple: the audience of one is twice the customer. Has the train jumped the track with you in it on that statement? If so, I’ll be happy to explain. The audience of one is our buying public, our reason for existing; they nail down our homes on the newsstands and keep them secure. But they’re also the reason the advertisers exist; they are the glue that sticks their products to the store shelves. Without nails and glue, our products would be free-floating, like a balloon in the sky, floating up, up and away…never to be seen again. And that would not be a good thing.

So we’re selling content to our audience and our advertisers are fishing for those audiences any way they can catch them.

So our second Vitamin C – Content – is vital to the body of our new business model. However our content today is in no way your father’s content. No ledes with journalists’ best friends Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, but rather What Is In It For Me, the WIIIFM factor. Note the three IIIs in the WIIIFM factor. It is all about me, the audience of one. The heart of our being can’t live without content. So it’s got to be the best and most significant information and entertainment that it can be for our customers.
There is no shortage of information out there. Between the social media, the constant e-mail updates, the Tweets and the re-Tweets, our customers are wired and “on” at all times. So the information we supply them must exceed their expectations and define what they’re looking for. That’s why priority number one for media publishers today should be content curation and solution creation.

Remember our job now can be summed up in three things: content curators, solution creators and experience makers.

Commerce is that wonderful buying and selling we call capitalism that we all know and love. But today, with our audience of one in control, it has to be more than that random ad placed on that random page hoping for that random sell. It has to be much more targeted and geared toward that audience of one.

I offer you a sunny-day-at-the-lake scenario for your consideration: The content of our product is the bait, the advertisers are the fishermen bringing their poles, and the audience of one, our top priority, is the fish. So it’s very apparent that the selection of the bait determines the fish we’re going to catch. Therefore it’s up to the fisherman to choose well.

But more than that, media publishers need to realize that we’re in the business of selling to make a profit too. That’s why the new business model proposes divvying up the fish, so that the advertisers aren’t the only fishermen in the boat. We need to share in that common stream of revenue and be creative and interactive with our advertisers and our audience of one. We have to engage in this fishing tournament for the sake of that singular audience member, to ensure we are the ones providing his or her experience from that moment on. Because, folks, the lake is too big for just a few anglers; we’re not just providing the bait anymore, we’re bringing our rod and reels too.

That’s why in our day and age endemic ads make perfect sense. If you’re a children’s magazine, for example, why would you advertise Harley Davidson’s in that publication? It just doesn’t make sense that a fisherman would choose tadpoles, when he or she would catch more fish with worms.

Relevant message to a relevant audience via the relevant medium… just pure common sense.

Community is our 4th vitamin in the bottle. In this age of Infinite Transcended Media, we are no longer one big happy family who excludes outsiders and panders to the egos of our own kind. ‘Our own kind’ simply doesn’t exist anymore. Today we are clusters of communities; the melting pot has become a melting vat instead. And the ultimate goal of any person within that huge vat is to belong to a community. We have to treat our customers like members of our community. Birds of a feather flock together. It isn’t just an old, outdated saying. If you live New York City, but actually reside in one of the suburbs, say…Brooklyn; when someone asks you where you live, you’re going to respond, Brooklyn. That’s because you feel more connected to that smaller enclave, your community, than you do to the entire city. It’s the same with the clusters of media communities. Our customers are flocking together and we have to be there with the Welcome Wagon when then move in.

And the cushion of all of this is creativity. There must be more to us than just surface banter. We have to achieve depths and allow our customers to discover the layers one at a time. Then we give them what they really want, comfort. Choice, control and comfort are the priorities our customers are demanding today. And the sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll be.

If we take these Vitamin Cs of the new business model and swallow them down with the MVP approach: Meet and exceed the expectations of our customers – Validate for them, everything that is out there – Preview the near future so they know what to expect tomorrow – then we begin to see the effects the Cs have on our new business model. Subsequently, we have new strength and have acquired immunity to the bugs out there that threaten to put us in our sickbed.

Our cheeks are rosy and we finally have the good health we have been seeking for so long. Bring back the passion, add a dash of emotion and have the guts to let your heart lead the way, because I know there is no other way for the magazine media to thrive in this numbers-driven, statistics-shackled age. So start spreading the news, change, the right change, is the only constant in the magazine media business and both Change and Constant start with C.