News

Reach the checkout of any supermarket today and where there once was a raft of confectionery, you will now find magazines.

These magazines are often the latest women’s glossies and, ever increasingly, the store’s own customer magazine. According to research by Mintel commissioned by the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) this sector has risen by 127% since 1995. With this market now worth an estimated £680m, these magazines are fast becoming retailers’ marketing tool of choice.

This research takes into account not only supermarket magazines, but extends to many areas of retail, travel and services. These magazines used to be part of direct mail campaigns and sent out to selected customers with editorial content focusing mainly on promotions. Now paginations are rising, as is the editorial quality and they are fast becoming considerable rivals in popularity to newsstand publications.

Ian Sewell is the commercial director of the Redwood Group who worked with one of the early adopters of the customer magazine, Marks & Spencer in 1987. Redwood now produces magazines for the likes of Boots, Volvo, Harvey Nichols and BT. “These publications are a fair and effective marketing tool,” says Sewell. “A customer will buy an M&S magazine in the knowledge that they will be getting marketing messages relating to the store, but in return will receive an entertaining, good looking magazine that will offer advice and discounts to the reader.”

Online synergies
Many offers in these magazines will also direct readers to online services. “Websites and customer magazines are extremely complementary,” notes Sewell. “Online, there is the chance for interaction but customers look to magazines for their plane or train journeys for example and will spend more time digesting the content.” The online store ASOS.com launched its first customer magazine last September through Square One Publishing. The 68pp monthly magazine had an initial print run of 100,000 and will be mailed to a section of the firm’s 800,000-strong database.

River Publishing managing director Nicola Murphy thinks that many people are moving to customer magazines as it is easier to measure success and therefore, if external advertisers are used, it is easier to sell them into the publication. “With the introductions of response cards to some publications and leads to text messaging and websites, there is lots of data available as to how many people are reading and responding to the magazines,” Murphy explains. “It is also leading people to spend more money on certain products or at certain shops.”

By selling their magazines in-store, retailers are able to increase print runs, paginations and magazine quality. “Where magazines used to be sent to certain sections of a company’s database, they are now also or exclusively in-store,” says Mur­phy. “This eliminates postage costs so the publication itself can be as full and glossy as possible.”

With this in mind, most retailers outsource their magazines to be produced by specialist magazine publishers. Sky, which used to produce one customer magazine for all its subscribers, has now channelled its publishing into three separate magazines aimed at different sections of its customer base. The movies, sports and women’s magazines are being produced by Future Pub­lishing, Haymarket Media and News International respectively. Having more than one publisher in charge of its magazines is quite a strategic move by Sky.

High production values
The content of customer magazines is becoming more important and the biggest publishers in the industry are being called on to make sure that the production values, editorial and targeting of the magazines are as high as possible.

The meeting of such big brands and traditional publishers can raise substantial challenges when it comes to the magazines’ production. There needs to be constant communication between the publisher and the brand to make sure that the correct message is being conveyed throughout the magazine. The chosen publisher must adhere to any environmental and colour considerations that a company has.

Redwood’s Ian Sewell says that the printers it chooses need to have an extra level of flexibility when it comes to making these publications. “Unlike their consumer counterparts, there is a greater chance of
last-minute changes to a price or product featured in a customer title that can occur very close to press times. This means that in particular the more high-end customer titles are facing an extra challenge, while still aiming for the same high quality production specification of consumer titles.”

Predictions from Mintel claim that the UK market for customer magazines could be worth up to £1bn by 2011. It will certainly be interesting to watch what seems to be the unstoppable rise of customer publications, an area where print is continuing to challenge other media formats as a leader in measured, sophisticated and successful marketing techniques.

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HOTLINE
Publisher River Publishing
Client Virgin Trains
Launched 2002
Frequency Quarterly
Pagination 72 plus covers
Run length 200,000



Hotline was launched to coincide with Virgin’s new Voyager trains and has been produced by River Publishing for the past four years. River was approached by client Virgin last year to change the paper it was using. To keep in line with its environmental policy, River presented various recycled paper options and decided on a stock from Leipa in Germany that was made from 100% post-consumer waste. After trialling the paper, the next issue of the magazine will now be printed, including the cover, on recycled paper by Leicester-based Artisan Press. Production director at River Nigel Mackay says: “We wanted to deliver Virgin a magazine that was in line with its environmental policy that also looked good and was economically viable.”

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CROWN COLOUR MAGAZINE
Publisher Reel
Client Azko Nobel Decorative Coatings
Launched 2000
Frequency Twice yearly
Pagination 80 plus covers
Run length 185,000



There were many challenges when producing this magazine. Not only did the colour accuracy have to be extremely high, but the magazine is published by London firm Reel in several different languages. The fonts therefore had to be appropriate to all the languages, including Turkish, which has some accents that by default are left out in some fonts. The client had previously used litho printing techniques and printing up to 16 colour variations on colour cards. Reel had to find the most economical way to produce the highest possible colour standards using traditional four-colour magazine printing processes. Zebra handles the repro and St Ives Web prints it.

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BOOTS HEALTH CLUB
Publisher Redwood
Client Boots
Launched 2006
Frequency continuous
Pagination A5 16pp
Run length 800,000



The challenge that Redwood faced with this magazine was to deliver a complex marketing brief which enabled the Health Club subscribers to select three topics of choice from eight and these topics are mailed along with personalised messages and offers. Selective enclosing is carried out online, to maximise postage discounts so production can run to hundreds of different permutations. It took the firm around five months from conception the launch the publication. Redwood gained FSC accreditation this year as part of the agency’s environmental policy. Redwood also carries out its own annual environmental audit on its paper suppliers which covers wood procurement, percentages of certificated wood fibres in each brand and determines EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Score) statements for the mills.

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SOURCE
Publisher The John Brown Group
Client John Lewis Partnership
Launched 2006
Frequency Bi-monthly
Pagination 100 pp
Run length 650,000



The launch of Source last October came the day after the John Lewis Partnership launched its new direct services company Greenbee. The magazine covers the arts and travel and reflects the one-click shopping service that is now on offer to customers. Claiming to have the same editorial standard as newsstand publications, it is aimed squarely at customers within the 40-70 age range. John Brown had to ensure that the John Lewis brand was properly reflected with high production standards. Staff press-pass every section as well as attending the binding pass and ensure its print suppliers adhere to strict quality control criteria.