A piece on All Things Digital today may give some clue as to why Conde Nast hasn't pursued full, Zinio-style ezine editions for its magazines: Most of Conde's magazines aren't scalable enough to attract the digital advertisers they'd need to support ezine editions.
Interesting point -- and one that reinforces some of the things Howard Robson has discussed on his blog and in his comments responding to my blog on electronic magazines here.
Some good news from Conde in this stuff, too -- no layoffs on the digital side.
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2 comments:
Kal,
Interestingly enough, though, I'm sure Conde is feeling the competition on the print side. It's a well-known fact that, whilst digital volumes can be high, revenue is pitifully low compared to print. I can see why, with a limited circulation and therefore online readership, they cannot compete with the 'elephant gun' style Google, Yahoo et al volumes.
However, there's much more to this. Conde Nast, as with many other consumer publishers, has a number of very strong brands that both the readership and the market identify with. Often these magazines carry more of the 'aspirational' type products, that readers actively have to seek out after reading the printed advertising.
How much better it would be to have a much richer content in the online edition, that not only dynamically engages with the reader, but allows them the opportunity to either find out more information or to buy the product there and then.
A package of print and online within the same brand identity gives the advertiser the best of both worlds, as well as potentially keeping advertising revenue that would have otherwise been lost to the large aggregators.
Until now, the drive has been to generate more online inventory, so that you have more opportunity to sell. Witness all of the Microsoft Live sites and offerings that have appeared. Anyone who thinks that these applications aren't going be advertising supported in the future needs a wake-up call. What I now think is the challenge for print media owners is to show that their inventory, whilst smaller in volume than the big guys, is much higher quality. This will secure better revenues, and help preserve both their brands and their print revenues.
And some of that quality comes from knowing your reader - back to my old topic of readership identification and auditing.
Rumo(u)rs of the death of print are greatly exaggerated, but print publishers need to make greater use of their assets - namely their brands, to secure revenues in the future.
Cheers,
Howard
Great minds think alike...
I've just read an article that says major UK publishers are bringing their online advertising in-house, rather than contracting it out to the major ad networks. This is the right move, IMHO, as they can leverage their brands and improve their revenues. It also means it is easier to sell combined print and online packages. The article is here:
http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/41315/Major+publishers+planning+to+ditch+online+ad+networks.html
And I promise I wrote my original comment BEFORE reading the article ;-)
Howard
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