Captivating Connections.

is content bad for your budget?

There's something about seamlessly buying and downloading content like music, movies, and books that makes you forget you're actually spending (real) money on it. I used to be a major offender of, um, filesharing music, and now I can't stop buying random songs from iTunes. It all seems pretty harmless - a song here, a song there - until I get my bill and I realize just how much I racked up.

For some reason, until I get the bill, I forget I'm actually spending money on the content, and probably don't need all these songs I won't listen to after a week. Part of me thinks "meh, it's less than 1 or 2 dollars," while another part of me thinks "isn't that how people ruin their budgets? By minor purchases here and there?"

I'm not the only one concerned about this. According to AICPA, "more than 40% of Americans download and pay for digital content, and they’re spending more money on them than they ever have."

But do they have this money to spend? Jordin Amin, chair of the AICPA’s national CPA financial literacy, says it best when he says, “one of the concerns we have is that it’s very easy to make these purchases without a budget or an overall financial plan.”

It's true. Do people not 'count' content they download as a real purchase because it's not in tangible DVD, book, or CD form? One could argue that it's cheaper to buy a song vs. an album, or a digital version of a book than a physical paperback, but do we justify more purchases when they are only a tap or swpire away?

What do you think?

are QR codes finding a home?

Are magazines a safehaven for QR codes as they (continue to) fight for relevance?

"A survey of the top 100 U.S. magazines by circulation found the number of 'mobile action codes' climbed from 352 in the first- quarter issues to 1,899 in the fourth quarter, for a record total of 4,468 in 2011," meaning that advertisers are pushing for QR code growth and popularity.

This point underscores that: "In January 2011 there were seven advertising codes for each editorial one, and by September, that ratio had jumped to 25:1. The number of magazine titles with at least one action code hit 90% in May for the first time, and rose to 96% in July."

Here's what's really important - how are these codes being used? If consumers don't find immediate value in them, they're not going to use them...

"The study found that advertisers and editors are no longer creating codes that send readers to a desktop site. Instead, the goal is to engage users with branding campaigns and product demos, m-commerce initiatives, social media and sweepstakes for building customer databases. 

More than half (54%) of action codes featured video for showcasing products, offering behind-the-scenes footage or how-to guides. Nearly a third (30%) of codes were used for list-building, 23% enabled sharing a video or product information via social properties, like Facebook and Twitter, and 19% linked to an e-commerce store.

When it came to ad categories, the study showed nearly 40% of the action codes used in magazine advertising came from companies in three industries: beauty, home and fashion. Companies in these segments also led the way in codes placed in retail stores. In the fourth quarter, electronics vendors, such as Bose and Intel, joined the list of top 10 brands in terms of code usage."

crowdsourcing goes wild.

Looking to get their audience more invovled (and hoping to get a younger audience), Ladies' Home Journal is doing something pretty cool in the crowdsourcing space...

"Starting with the March issue, LHJ editors will cull much of the magazine's material from posts on DivineCaroline.com, a sibling at Meredith Corp. that lets consumers upload their own stories, as well as from the magazine's website, its Facebook page and other digital channels."

Of course, it's not a free for all, since "the magazine will still use fact-checkers and include experts in fields such as medicine and beauty, but it will start with consumers where it can."

This is really cool and seems to be a part of a larger renovation. Looking forward to seeing how this issue turns out, and I'm not even a reader!

magazines as the latest eCommerce sites.

There's an interesting trend forming, as magazines begin to sell the very things that they write about and photograph...

"While the glossies have long had a reputation for accommodating the designers they cover, sometimes guaranteeing coverage to those who advertise in their pages, a wave of new ventures and partnerships suggests they are willing to go even further by selling the designers’ clothes.

It is a move that is raising some eyebrows in the industry, as magazines like Vogue, GQ and Esquire, struggling to survive in an online world, could potentially become competitors to stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York.

'There are no boundaries anymore,' said Howard Socol, the former chief executive of Barneys and now a consultant. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores that once looked at magazines as a way to sell to affluent customers could now look at them as threats.

'There’s competition for everything,' Mr. Socol said. 'But it is kind of interesting if you are a store, because you’re advertising in a magazine that is competing with you.'

The examples of magazines teaming up with e-commerce sites, almost all of them announced within the last several weeks, could practically fill a shopping mall."

Spill it: Is there a magazine you cannot wait to shop?

check out who's #winning in the media ad landscape.

We know that the media landscape has drastically changed over the past years and decades (duh - hello Internet!). But what's interesting is how these changes have impacted the advertising landscape. Using a slew of resources, MediaPost has composed a list of the Winners and Losers of these changes, and why they've earned their rankings...

So, in their own words...

"Winning Like Charlie Sheen: The Internet

Unless they happened to be living under a rock for the last decade, most marketers know that digital advertising has held first place in terms of growth -- still dominated by the Internet, but now growing to include ad-supported media delivered via mobile Web and apps

First Runner-Up: Cable TV

After the Internet, cable TV has enjoyed the biggest expansion among all media in terms of ad revenue and share, jumping from just $58 million in 1980 -- or less than 1% of total ad spending -- to $27.1 billion in 2010, a 17.4% share.

Second Runner-Up: Outdoor

In terms of total revenue, outdoor advertising has grown slowly -- but steadily -- since Universal McCann started tracking advertising spending in the first half of the 20th century. But its share of total ad spending has fluctuated quite a bit over this period: from 2.5% of all ad dollars, the proportion slowly fell to its lowest point at 1.28% of the total in 1999 -- then suddenly rallied to around 4% by 2007, where it remains.

Hanging In There: Broadcast TV

The majority of TV ad revenue continues to come from traditional broadcast advertising, which grew steadily until recent years. Between 1980 and 2007, TV ad revenues increased from $11.5 billion to $47.1 billion. But the recession hit hard and 2010 revenues, at $44 billion, were still below their earlier peak.

Feeling Threatened: Radio

Like broadcast TV, radio was already a mature medium in 1980, with a two-decade lead on its younger broadcast sibling. As a result, its growth in previous years, while steady, was less spectacular -- and it suffered more substantial losses beginning in the middle years of the last decade, as the rise of the Internet combined with the recession to threaten broadcast revenues.

Feeling Threatened: Magazines

Based on the changes in ad spending over the last couple of years, magazines are in a similar situation: like radio, competition from online advertising was already making itself felt before the recession hit, and the economic downturn has only served to accelerate the process.

Under Siege: Newspapers

Magazines are at least faring better than their print cousins in the newspaper industry, which grew alongside other traditional media during the 1980s and 1990s, but then witnessed a breathtaking decline over just the last few years."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

do magazines' iPad editions keep your attention?

Apparently they don't like you may have thought they do.

"Readers have more trouble focusing on magazines' iPad editions than publishers initially predicted, according to the latest study in a growing effort to figure out tablet computers.

'We thought that of course there's a lot of activity going on on an iPad, when there's so many things you can be doing -- between email, Netflix, playing games, reading magazines -- but they're actually bouncing around a lot more than we thought,' said Megan Miller, research and development program director at Bonnier, which publishes titles including Popular Science, Field & Stream, Parenting and Ski.

'If you sit someone down with a magazine, within seconds they're researching the products that they could buy,' Ms. Miller said. 'If they see a snowboard in a snowboarding magazine, they'll bounce over to Amazon to check the prices on it.'"

So, what does this mean?

"It's already apparent that the study has implications for magazines. Publishers have been telling advertisers that their iPad editions combine print's ability to engross readers with digital media's interactivity. The way publishers have been building their apps, however, now seems to have given interactivity the upper hand.

That might be a good thing. People want to use digital magazines as 'exploration springboards' and don't like content that seems like a dead end, the study found. And marketers will obviously be happy if iPad editions trigger a lot of shopping. But it also implies that publishers need to think about their goals for the iPad edition and how to get readers back once they've bounced off to Amazon or elsewhere."

are affluents reading fewer magazines?

According to Ipsos Mendelsohn's affluent survey, yes.

The survey found "that well-heeled readers are reading less as they spend more time on the Internet. However, the June survey of 13,800 heads of households with incomes of at least $100,000 also offers some hope, with data showing steady growth in ownership of e-readers and tablet computers, touted by publishers as new platforms for circulation and advertising.

But the bad news took center stage, with a 16% decline from 2009-2010 both in the average number of magazines read per year (from 7.0 to 5.9, out of 139 titles covered in the survey) and the number of issues read per year (from 15.8 to 13.3). That compares with other media growing or at least holding steady over this period -- for example, TV viewing was basically flat at 17.6 hours per week, while hours spent on the Internet increased 12% to 25.3 per week.

On the positive side, roughly three million of the 44 million affluents owned tablet computers or e-readers; that's equal to about 1% of the U.S. population, and the proportion is growing, as an equivalent number said they plan to buy a tablet computer or e-reader in the next year.

Interestingly, younger affluent survey subjects appear to be more receptive to magazine advertising: 18- to-34-year-olds were 9% more likely to find magazine ads interesting than older members of the affluent cohort. That's actually relatively low, as the younger group was 28% more likely to have interest in Web site ads, and 47% more likely to have interest in cinema ads, according to Ipsos Mendelsohn."

oprah to sell books via iPad.

"Capitalizing on Oprah Winfrey's huge role recommending books to her fans, the iPad edition of O, The Oprah Magazine, that's expected in the fourth quarter will let users buy e-books and read them within the app itself. The app preserve the basic magazine experience but include visual tags that let users know they can see a video message from Ms. Winfrey or interact in some other way. A module on articles will let users make comments and see other readers' remarks.

Although the Popular Mechanics app debuted at $1.99 -- lower than the $3.99 print cover price because the first iteration doesn't include the print issue's entire contents -- Hearst expects to charge print cover prices or more for its iPad magazine apps.

While some of the magazine iPad editions will hew more closely to printed page than others, Hearst sees a lot more potential in iPad advertising than just reproducing and enhancing print ad pages. Including every element as it appears in print would allow Hearst to count sales toward the paid circulation guarantee it gives print advertisers, but the company has begun to believe that once enough consumers own tablet computers, targeted and tailored advertising will be much more important."

magazines leveraging facebook for sales?

" Synapse, a Time Inc. division that sells subscriptions for many publishers, is collaborating with Alvenda, a company that builds e-commerce applications, to introduce a system letting Facebook users buy print magazine subscriptions without leaving the site or even the Facebook news feed.

The system, which Alvenda expects to make live in July or August, will also allow Facebook users to expand those blurbs of magazine content that are now common in the news feed into full articles, complete with advertising -- again without leaving the news feed, much less Facebook itself.

If you share a magazine article link with your Facebook friends, for example, their news feeds will allow them to expand the item into a full article with ads and an option to subscribe, said Wade Gerten, CEO at Alvenda, which has developed e-commerce Facebook apps for companies including Hallmark and 1-800-Flowers. "It all happens within Facebook," Mr. Gerten said. 

'Consumers don't want to leave where they are on the web, wherever they are,' said Alix Hart, VP for online marketing at Synapse. 'Facebook is a place where we think that over the coming year there are going to be more and more opportunities to present magazine offers in a really relevant way to consumers, as they're starting to share magazine content in a much deeper way than ever before.'"

magazine ad pages experiances a boost.

"Spring is bringing more signs of hope for the magazine business, with monthly magazines enjoying a 3.2% boost in total ad pages in May 2010 compared to the same month last year -- growing to 10,812, according to new figures from the Media Industry Newsletter.

This is the first real increase in many months, coming on the heels of a modest 0.04% decline in April. Overall, ad pages for the year-to-date are still down 1.9%, at 45,889.

The rising tide didn't lift all boats, however. Overall, 91 of the 154 monthly titles tracked by MIN (59%) saw ad pages increase in May. Of these, 28 (18% of the total) experienced single-digit percentage gains, 27 (17.5% of the total) grew 10%-19%, and the remainder (23% of the total) grew 20% or more.

However, 27 titles saw ad pages decline less than 10%, while 13 (8% of the total) suffered declines of 10%-19.9%, and the rest (23 titles, or 15% of the total) dropped 20% or more."