Following on from its recent decision to join the IAB and last week’s launch of FQ.co.nz, Bauer has now announced a slew of other changes to its online media properties. And to promote these revamped publications, the media company will be investing $1.2 million in a marketing campaign with the aim of driving traffic to the sites.
The Pew Research Center in the United States has released its 12th edition of the annual State of the News Media report, which examines the landscape of American journalism and tracks trends related to readership, revenue and device usage. And while the publication doesn’t include a Kiwi perspective, it does provide an in-depth glimpse at many of the changes and challenges that the local media also faces due to digital disruption. One of the most telling findings from the study was that 39 of the top 50 news sites now receive more traffic to their sites on mobile phones than from desktops.
Last week, Bauer’s head of digital Michael Fuyala told StopPress that the publisher would over the next few months be making some significant moves in the digital space following the decision to join the IAB. And last night, the company kicked off the first phase of its new digital strategy—which has been in the pipeline for some time—by announcing a digital extension for Fashion Quarterly called FQ.co.nz.
The buzz phrase ‘programmatic ad buying’ has been picking up momentum in recent months, and is now commonly heard in discussions on the state of modern media. And despite the frequency with which the word is used, it still carries enough uncertainty to motivate ad tech company Chango to recently run a sponsored web series on Adweek explaining key concepts to the US market. Similarly to the US, New Zealand is also coming to grips with programmatic ad buying. And to find out a bit more, StopPress recently chatted to Zane Furtado, the programmatic director at Acquire Online.
This morning, those in the industry were reminded that print isn’t as slow as slow as what everyone suggests it is. Before any online publications released any information on the Axis Awards, the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) had a specially printed magazine delivered to all the agencies that were in attendance. And, as an added bonus, the delivery also inlcuded a much-needed Red Bull.
The radio industry isn’t alone in this bid to provide more accurate information to clients. Recently, the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA) announced the launch of a new Nielsen-provided methodology that quantifies the total audience potential (TAP) of a magazine by incorporating pick-ups into magazine reach and frequency schedules.
Every time the quarterly figures are released and again show the downward trend of the magazine industry, it’s difficult to be optimistic, but looking at the journalism that pervades the pages of many of the publications in circulation in New Zealand today serves as reminder that the current generation of journalists still has the quality required to carry the canon of journalistic writing forward. That being said, the continued fragmentation of media has seen readers not relying solely magazines or newspapers to read the articles that interest them—and this has of course led to decline in the readership and circulation figures provided by Nielsen and ABC, respectively.
Back in 2009, ACP, now Bauer, took the opportunity to rub Fairfax’s nose in the sand when NZ Life & Leisure featured an image on its cover that Kia Ora had used on one of its earlier editions. And late last year, Woman’s Day and New Idea both featured the same image of Pippa Middleton (although very different words were used alongside). And Mindfood has pointed out that Next magazine can add its name to that list after it used a cover image of Angelina Jolie for a recent issue that had been used back in 2011.
When it comes to magazine readership, some titles have pass on rates in the teens, meaning that one copy of, for example, Woman’s Day, is read by multiple people. The ‘reading-it-in-the-waiting-room’ factor is often talked about as a major reason for that, and even if they’re reading an older issue, which they often are, it still counts. But why are waiting rooms filled with crappy old magazines? Thankfully, a team of Auckland researchers have discovered the reason: thieving patients.
NZ Retail magazine has been serving the local retail sector for almost 70 years and it’s set to be relaunched as a fatter, much savvier bi-monthly magazine in February next year. Plus, it will also deliver a long-awaited online extension, TheRegister.co.nz, a daily news service for the Kiwi retail sector, with news, features, jobs and case studies delivered in a mobile-friendly website.
New insights from Nielsen on New Zealand’s business decision makers indicates that reading a magazine is one of the movers and shakers’ favourite ways to consume media.
One particular magazine cover has been generating plenty of discussion and plenty of entertaining responses (Homer Kimpson takes the win) in recent days. Not surprisingly, Kim Kardashian’s effort for Paper caught the eye of Coverjunkie, a website that celebrates “creative covers and their ace designers”. And a few local efforts from Next, Metro, North & South and Threaded, have also been featured recently.
There are plenty of harrowing numbers facing the magazine industry at the moment. But, as the proponents say, magazines are more than just paper. And New Zealand Geographic’s Photographer of the Year is a case in point. PLUS: a gallery of the winners.
McHugh Media’s Mindfood is getting set to celebrate its seventh birthday next year and it’s been one of the local publishing industry’s great success stories. Now it’s welcomed its first major brand extension to the family: a bi-annual glossy fashion magazine called Style.
Paul Catmur, the creative managing partner of Barnes, Catmur & Friends, shares his views on life, advertising and other annoyances, such as the unwillingness of the magazine industry to accept the unvarnished truth.
It was officially announced yesterday that Bauer had made some major structural and staff changes. So we had a chat with chief executive Paul Dykzeul and commercial director Paul Gardiner about the thinking behind that strategy.
It’s been a big year for Bauer. The APN titles have been brought in to the building, it’s canned Creme and passed on Little Treasures. And now it’s announced a restructure that will see a host of staff changes and the creation of a new brand solutions division.
After folding Creme magazine recently, Bauer Media has continued to ring the changes and has resigned the publishing contract for Little Treasures magazine, with Tangible Media taking over as the publisher after the September/October issue.
The quarterly magazine readership and circulation figures have been released by Nielsen and the Audit Bureau of Circulation respectively, and, in what has been a consistent trend over the last few quarters, weekly publications continue to bleed readers while special interest magazines, released less frequently, continue to hold strong.
The Magazine Publishers Association has announced the finalists for the industry’s annual awards with 19 judges making the calls. Bauer has the lion’s share with 43 of its entries making the finals, Fairfax with 21, Tangible with 15, Kowhai Media with nine, as well as a few independent publishers and columnists making the list.
Changes at AUT, Yahoo!, APN, MediaWorks Radio, Food magazine, The Sweet Shop, NBR and Mazda.
Nielsen and ABC have released the latest quarterly results for magazine readership and circulation and, to a large extent, the figures indicate a continuation of trends that have been taking shape over the last few quarters. There was however a shift in the sense that some special interest titles—which have until now have performed well—also showed signs of weakening.
The modern human condition tends to be one of constant connection and, in many cases, slight addiction. But JWT and Sacred Hill are jumping on the mindfulness bandwagon and aiming to inspire a different, more classical version of connection with a beautifully-crafted new print campaign.
There’s a lot of talk about the role the media plays in creating unrealistic expectations around body image (check out this disturbing video to see the lengths some will go to). But, surprisingly, there’s been very little talk about the recent spate of itchy heads among women starring on the covers of magazines and whether they might be creating unrealistic expectations of scalp health.
For quite some time the doomsday prophets have been predicting the demise of print, but this hasn’t stopped advertisers from having a bit of fun with the medium. Here are two print ads that illustrate that there are still fun and creative ways that print can be employed to relay a brand message.
The ASA’s 2013 ad spend figures showed that while TV continues to reign supreme, its time at the top might be coming to an end as the interactive category continues its trend of strong year-on-year growth. Updated with comments from OMANZ, MediaWorks Radio and NZ post.
While Clemenger BBDO’s ‘Blazed’ campaign and Colenso BBDO/Proximity’s Smartphone Line stole much of the attention at last night’s Axis Awards, the magazine category showed that the Kiwi creative streak still extends to print.
Nielsen recently released the readership figures for Q4 2013, and, in spite of all the doomsday prophecies, the statistics showed year-on-year growth (in readership) for 20 of the magazines surveyed.
Bauer Media has, as most expected, been given Commerce Commission approval to proceed with its purchase of APN magazine titles the NZ Listener, NZ Woman’s Weekly, Simply You, Simply You Living and Creme. Updated with more comments from chief executive Paul Dykzeul.
Following on from the success of Meat, the Image Centre publishing group has now launched Toast! magazine in collaboration with Liquorland. The first edition of the quarterly content marketing magazine was released in early January, and over 105,000 issues have already been distributed throughout New Zealand.