The Benefits of Being a Multichannel Magazine
Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 12:59 PM
A publishing concept that will allow your publication to thrive in
this period of transition and well into the future.
By
William Dunkerley
Is your publication print or digital?
That's a question a lot of us hear these days. And typically our answer
will be: "print," "digital," or "both."
Lately,
it has become fashionable to be something other than just print. Print
is old.
But, if you think about it, plain digital is old, too.
The ways in which consumers are now receiving information are increasing
almost exponentially. Something new is coming along all the time.
Starting
with the traditional website, now there's also the digital publication.
Some of those are in HTML format. Others come as PDFs or the page-flip
variant. Some information is text with the usual photos and
illustrations. Then there're videos, podcasts, and even databases. Not
to forget blogs, RSS feeds, text messages, email blasts, and tweets.
Google
recently announced "Google TV." It is a platform that will merge the
Internet with conventional TV. With it, viewers could seamlessly go from
watching, say, a CNN news story about a Mediterranean resort, to reading
a Traveler magazine article about it, to zooming in on the
satellite photo on Bing maps. All on a single household TV.
Things
are diverging and converging at the same time!
With all that
going on, why are we still print, digital, or both?
Discordant
Channels
Actually, a growing number of publications are using
a lot of channels today. But typically, each channel takes on an
identity of its own to some extent.
Rarely do the channels appear
to be part of a unified whole, however. Often it is difficult to figure
out what the relationship is between the print product and the digital
presence. Sometimes one channel appears to be competing with another.
Seldom do the consumers have the impression that what they're getting
from the publisher is a coordinated array of information, provided via
the most convenient and effective channel.
There's little synergy
going on here.
What should be done? The idea isn't that
you just use all these various channels in some way. It is that you use
them synergistically. It is that you use the channels in a way
that gives the subscriber a sense that she is getting a unified product.
It is that you use them in a way that takes best advantage of each
channel to convey the kind of information that is best suited to it.
The
Difference Between Brand and Channel
While commenting on
Google TV, Broadcast Engineering magazine recently editorialized,
"Today's viewers don't know or care whether the programs come from
satellite, cable, over the air, Internet or by water pipe. What viewers
want is to be able to easily find the desired content and then view it
in a comfortable environment."
Today's publishers would do
well to have a similar perspective regarding their readers. Yet, too
many publishers tend to view themselves through the prism of the channel
or channels that they favor. They think of themselves as basically
print or basically digital.
A few years ago, I was a
speaker at the World Congress of the World Association of Newspapers.
There I heard some of my fellow speakers, publishers of many of the most
well-respected newspapers in the world, proclaim steadfastly, "Make no
mistake about it, we are in the print business."
Think of
where the beverage Coca-Cola would be today if the company's 1950s-era
leaders insisted, "We are in the glass bottle business."
Today,
you can get the product in a can, a plastic bottle, or a paper or
plastic cup. You can buy it in a supermarket, a convenience store, at a
restaurant, or from a vending machine.
The brand is the contents.
The container is like the channel.
Coca-Cola carries its brand to
its consumers via various channels.
It also differentiates the
identity of its brand from the container used to deliver it. There's no
product called "Bottled Coke" or "Coke à la Can" or "Coke in a Cup."
Regardless of where you buy the beverage or what kind of container it
comes in, a Coke is still a Coke.
The brand is not wedded to the
channel. In fact, it is independent of it.
Those newspaper
publishers at the World Congress were confused over the difference
between their branded information and the channel used to deliver it,
the printed page. As a result, they have been leading their publications
into greater and greater irrelevancy as reader preferences have evolved.
And so have a lot of magazine publishers.
It's Time for a
Change
The time has come to adopt a new paradigm for magazine
publishing. The objective is to decouple the channel from the brand.
It
is also time to begin employing the power of the range of channels now
available to magazine publishers. Coca-Cola has benefited from being a
multichannel brand. And so can you.
Change doesn't mean simply
going over to digital. For many publications there is still strong role
for print. A lot of talk has claimed that readers are abandoning print
for online. Advertisers, too. But what they're abandoning is the
inappropriate use of print when publishers try to keep it as the be-all
of a publication.
At the same time, a lot of digital publications
are missing a bet by not having a print component.
The new
paradigm for a multichannel magazine washes away these channel-specific
fixations.
If the name of your magazine is XYZ, let that be the
name of your brand, not of a particular channel used by you. Let XYZ be
the brand name for the sum total of the experience a reader gets when
subscribing. Market that brand, that sum total experience -- not a
particular channel, not a disparate assortment of channels. Market a
synergistic and unified whole.
What Does a Multichannel
Magazine Look Like?
The multichannel magazine is part print,
part digital. It is the best of both worlds. But, its essence is not in
the channels through which it is expressed. It is in the content. The
multichannel magazine looks like its content.
Let's use a
hypothetical magazine as an example. "Clown Magazine" serves an audience
of professional and advocational clowns. Its typical contents includes:
--A
cover (traditional format)
--Table of contents
--An editorial
--Photo
stories featuring costumes and facial make-up
--Tutorial articles on
tricks and routines
--Short features and news stories of interest to
clowns
(Topics include:)
--Relevant
regulatory and legislative issues
--Laughter therapy
--Getting
respect as a clown
--Clowns in Washington
--Avocational
clowning
--Rent-a-clown business tips
--Circus
update
--Classifieds (help wanted and positions sought)
--Directory
of products and services
--Display advertising
--Archive
Here's
how the contents make use of the various channels:
The tutorial articles are lengthy, and tedious to read on an
electronic display. In addition, some illustrations and diagrams are
large and intricate. They also do not lend themselves to viewing on a
display. Therefore, the tutorial articles appear bi-monthly in print.
The bi-monthly frequency is not problematic because the content is not
time sensitive.
The photo stories involve large photos and
often two-page spreads. Consistency in rendering color is important. The
idiosyncratic color variations among electronic displays are
unacceptable. As for spreads, only the page-flip digital format seems
equipped to do them. And with most current technology, reading a
page-flip publication is like reading small print with a magnifying
glass -- not an attractive feature. As a result, the photo stories
appear bi-monthly in print.
The cover appears as the home
page of the digital destination (which appears weekly). It has a
horizontal format to accommodate display formats. On the first week of
every second month, when the issue includes a print component, the cover
does double duty, appearing on both the digital and print components.
The
table of contents is the first editorial matter to follow the
cover. It lists all contents, print and digital.
The editorial
is a blog, and accommodates reader comments.
The short features
and news stories appear in the digital component. Design for all
digital content is intended to accommodate viewing on iPhone/iPad-type
mobile devices. Breaking news and high interest short features are the
subject of tweets. Email blasts are used occasionally for particularly
compelling items. Email is also used weekly to provide subscribers with
a link to each new issue
Any editorial content is subject to
podcast and video treatment, as warranted.
The archive
contains not only the content of the digital component, but also PDFs of
the print component.
The products and services database is
a full, searchable editorial feature. It also appears in categorized
form. Companies listed may purchase emphasis for their listings, and add
links.
Display advertisements appear in both the print and
digital components. Print ad placement follows typical industry
practice. Digital advertisements are large compared to typical practice
(banners), since the smaller sizes are relatively
ineffectual. The classified advertisements appear in categorized
form.
That's the Blueprint
As publishers, if we
follow this plan, we will better serve our readers and advertisers. And,
we will be more successful in this rapidly-evolving period when reader
preferences are shifting quickly. The plan should be far from static,
however. As technological innovation opens new doors, new channels, it
will be important to embrace any that will be helpful.
If you
believe you're already doing all this, you may be right. But maybe not.
I recommend that you conduct a fairly exhaustive analysis to assess how
integrated your brand really is. What do the readers believe? Do they
think they are receiving the benefit of a synergistic, multichannel
magazine?
Going from a fragmented or confined use of channels to
become a truly multichannel magazine is a big step. It is one that
involves a lot of change. It is a new paradigm. Change is usually
uncomfortable, and frequently resisted. Keep in mind, though: during
this period of rapid changes in reader preferences, a magazine that
fails to adapt will make itself increasingly irrelevant. Don't do that!
William
Dunkerley is publisher of STRAT and principal of William
Dunkerley Publishing Consultants.
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