A room full of publishing talent and their supporters gathered at the Q Theatre in Auckland for the refreshed Magazine Awards tonight and it was Woman’s Day, Idealog, North & South, NZ Life & Leisure, Oh! Baby and NZ Rugby World that took the major wins.
The Magazine Publishers Association has selected the finalists for this year’s Magazine Awards from 240 entries, up from 228 last year. Fairfax, Bauer Media Group and Tangible Media are well represented with 39, 36 and 30 finalist nods respectively.
After a six month review of the Magazine Awards, The Magazine Publishers Association has pushed go on its call for entries. And it will probably be getting a whole heap more this year because Bauer Media, which publishes 20 magazines, has ended its five year embargo and will get back onboard this year.
Naked’s loss is Y&R’s gain, Jeanette Paine leaves school, VW’s Denise Goodwin swaps cars for floors, Will Radford gets a fresh pair and the MPA welcomes two new board members.
The inaugural Glossies Magazine Advertising Awards kicked off last night to smoke, meat and unfurling banners. Ecostore, Special Group and Naked Communications take top prize.
As the tide of digital has washed over this industry in recent years (the Ad Contrarian calls it The Triumph of Disinformation), blowing the trumpet of traditional media has been fairly tough going. But as part of the magazine industry’s renewed zeal to grow advertising market share and convince clients it is an effective advertising medium—and in an effort to inspire some optimism among those selling magazine ads and show how magazines are evolving—the Magazine Publishers Association is putting on a conference featuring big brained magazine supporters such as Y&R’s James Hurman, Fisher & Paykel’s Sonya Aitken, Pacific Magazine’s Peter Zavecz and Contagion’s Richard Thompson.
There is little value in reminding agency folk that magazines are well targeted and engaging, says MPA’s commercial director Katrina Horton, as a recent survey shows everyone’s pretty much in agreement there. But there is value in talking about why magazines are well targeted, how readers are engaged and what this means for advertisers.
The final instalment of The Glossies for this year had one of the biggest responses yet, with over 800 votes. And it was Trilogy and Special Group’s all-natural campaign in Woman’s Day that came out on top, beating out Taste magazine’s Homebrand takeover by Progressive and Ogilvy and DB Export and Colenso BBDO’s The Wine List in Metro.
Back in the heady days of the early ’80s, invoice scams were thought to be one of the reasons for the creation of the Magazine Publisher’s Association—and the implementation of a more robust approach to measuring circulation of titles. But despite these measures, such scams are still occurring today, as evidenced by Operation Edit, a major joint enforcement agency operation led by the Serious Fraud Office that has led to six arrests.
Ah The Glossies. How we’ve missed you. But you’ll be overjoyed to know we’ve saved the best for last with a bumper double edition to round out this year’s competition. So peruse the entries, marvel at their quality and cast your vote.
The Magazine Publishers Association has set some fairly bold targets for the industry and hopes to increase its share of ad revenue by around $30 million over the next two years, going from around 10 percent of the total ad market to 11.5 percent. It’s certainly a big ask, but Nielsen’s more in-depth Consumer and Media Insights research, mostly positive readership and circulation results in the last batch of numbers, and now, the appointment of Katrina Horton to the newly created role of commercial director with the MPA, all seem to have given the industry some extra confidence that it can reach those goals.
The flappers were flapping, the pin stripes were thick, the feather boas were ticklish and the awards were plentiful at the Great Gatsby-themed Magazine Awards at The Pullman last night, especially for the big winners Good and Cuisine. And don’t you word and picture lovers scrub up nicely. Photos by Simon Watts from Getty.
It’s the night the magazine industry comes together to, as ACP head honcho Paul Dykzeul might say, indulge in a bit of gratuitous back patting. Or, as the MPA might say, reward the publications, publishers, editors, designers, sales folk and contributors who toil away on their various titles. And it was Good and Cuisine’s Sarah Nicholson that reigned supreme on the night, winning the top magazine and editor of the year prizes respectively.
A total of 225 entries were received across 13 categories for the 2012 edition of the Magazine Awards. And after the judges had their wicked way with them all, they ended up choosing 144 finalists. Some category finalists will be announced at the Gala Awards Dinner on June 28.
The MPA has chosen its new board, with Tangible Media’s John Baker replacing Fairfax’s Lynley Belton as chair and ACP’s Paul Dykzeul replacing acting deputy chair Cathy Parker from Adrenalin. And the new heads have some big plans to breathe life into the sector—and, more specifically, promote the unique benefits of the medium to advertisers and eventually increase its share of the revenue pie.
The massive pile of magazines filled with Post-It notes stacked up on the StopPress desks (which are, of course, made of rich mahogany) indicates the April round of The Glossies is now open. And we need your votes. So get in there and choose your favourite.
We’ve searched high, low, near, far and also wide for the best ads and ‘creative executions’ in this month’s crop of local magazines and now you get to decide which one is the best by voting in the March edition of The Glossies. See this month’s entries below. And remember, there’s just one vote per computer.
Nothing endures but change, and the latest newspaper and magazine stats from Nielsen and the Audit Bureau of Circulation are no exception, as the ABC changes both its methodology, and its frequency of audits. The ABC will now be sending out quarterly rolling averages, instead of the six months end-on-end averages it has been doing. The key benefits for marketers and agencies will be receiving more regular data, and the methodology of releasing rolling annual totals is aligned with readership.
The November/December round of voting for The Glossies has come to an end and the creative campaign concocted by ecostore, Special Group, Naked and Salt Interactive that ran in ACP’s Little Treasures and allowed parents to turn their children into cover stars has claimed first place with 22 percent of the 574 votes received, beating out Alt Group’s Fisher & Paykel ad in Cuisine (18 percent) and Tourism Queensland’s multi-page execution (EBOOK_LTQG_2011_LR) in Let’s Travel Golf edition (15 percent).
The times they are a-changin’ in print media land. Display ads are harder to come by and publishers are being forced to come up with creative solutions to help brands spread their gospel. And, to reference the increasing amount of revenue such creative executions contribute to the magazine industry’s coffers, the MPA has agreed to a new protocol that it hopes will capture more of the spend occurring in magazines for Nielsen’s Advertising Information Services.
Voting is now open for the inaugural Glossies. See this month’s entries below and cast your vote for your favourite magazine ad (see multi-page entries in the gallery here). And remember, there’s just one vote per computer.
The double whammee of the recession and the digital revolution means it’s been a pretty tough time in the print industry of late. Geon was bailed out by its bankers not long ago, Benefitz has shifted its focus away from the dwindling offset printing market and the troubled Blue Star Group recently agreed upon a capital restructuring in an effort to trade its way out of $300 million worth of trouble. But Webstar, the specialist web printing division of Blue Star Group New Zealand—and the latest entrant to the local magazine printing sector—is still optimistic and has signed up as a strategic business partner of the Magazine Publishers Association (MPA).
The cover. Proudly sitting there on the newsstand in amongst all the other covers vying for the attention of passersby with enticing images and catchy lines. It’s the art—some might say science—of the tease. And The Maggies, which has once again opened the gates for entries for its second year, aims to celebrate the best examples of this in New Zealand.
When Nielsen launched its pimped out Consumer & Media Insights (CMI) research tool back in April, publishers’ mouths started watering at the prospect of being able to prove New Zealanders who read magazines and newspapers actually spent more, thereby showing print was a good place for brands to be seen. And while the first instalment of the new readership offering had a few teething problems, its new fused data approach has revealed there is “a strong connection between high household expenditure and print media readership”.
With the New Zealand Magazine Awards hangovers now well and truly abated, it’s time to reflect on those who did it best in the realm of magazine design. All up ten Best Cover Design awards and nine Designer of the Year awards were dished out across several categories.
Oliver Driver is one of the go-to guys for MC duties these days. But what many people don’t know is that he is also a publishing luminary, as this short film created for the Magazine Awards shows.
John Baker
If our office is any guide, there are plenty of bleary-eyed, slow-moving, grease-craving media folk today following the mid-winter Christmas party that is the Magazine Awards last night at the Pullman. And, after 56 awards across 14 categories were handed out, it was a night for the ruggers to celebrate, with Tangible Media’s NZ Rugby World taking home the top two awards of the night, supreme editor of the year for Gregor Paul and supreme magazine of the year.
The judges have judged and 140 entries from 42 titles and 22 different companies are in the running for a Magazine Award on 23 June at the Pullman Hotel.
