Posts tagged ‘Magazine Publishing’

Gourmet: The Newest Zombie Media Brand

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Earlier this week there was a bit of hubub around Gourmet magazine, the beloved foodie bible tossed out with the fish guts last year by its cost-chopping publisher, Conde Nast, under the guidance of its knife-sharpener McKinsey. Yesterday morning, Ruth Reichl, the Gourmet editor at the time of its demise, used her Twitter account to turn the heat off any talk that Gourmet was coming back in print form.

“Thanks Tweeps,” she wrote, “you’ve really made my day, week, month with all your support. Re: Gourmet; they’re reviving the brand, not the magazine.Pity.”

Thanks Tweeps, you’ve really made my day, week, month with all your support. Re: Gourmet; they’re reviving the brand, not the magazine.Pity.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckruthreichl
ruthreichl

Distinguishing between channel of distribution and brand is nothing new, especially for print media companies as they try to reinvent their business models. For years, the purveyors of glossy magazines have thought of their titles as having intimate connections with carefully aggregated, loyal, engaged and, to advertisers, highly desirable audiences that will follow a Vogue or a Vanity Fair or a Wired anywhere they might go. Online, events, TV — wherever. It’s a rightly-placed belief that it’s the editorial voice and sensibility that matters, not whether that voice is being distributed on dead trees or in pixels.

As magazine-cum-brand success stories go, Gourmet would seem to have been a classic case study. That’s why so many very vocal readers mourned its end and it’s why Conde Nast feels comfortable with the reincarnation it’s now ordered up, which will come in the form of a free iPad app called Gourmet Live. There’s still brand equity and possibly revenue in them thar hills; how do we suck it dry?

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Magazine Apps for iPads Need Work. Here Are Five Ways They Can Improve

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I’ve spent a bit of time recently with the iPad, looking at some apps that were developed for magazine brands. It’s an experiment I assumed would be like of the those YouTube videos in which a cat, against all rules of nature, takes to nurturing a bunny or a baby squirrel: cute, compelling and somewhat dread-inducing, because you know this moment of cross-species nurturing won’t last forever.

My conclusion, after looking at 10 or so apps, is that the iPad teat won’t yield much for troubled magazine publishers if they don’t sort out some big problems with both content and commercialization.  You can already find more than a few examples of print titles trying force into the iPad content and design conventions that were honed over print’s long history. That is not a good thing, considered in the light of most print mag’s past attempts to go digital. The development of your average consumer magazine website, with its unpredictable content mix and garish, often Flash-heavy design, makes for a generally clunky experience.

On one hand, the missteps are are acceptable—it is early days after all. On the other, it’s scary, especially if you care about how these businesses will succeed in the future. The good news, of course, is that it’s far from too late to fix what’s wrong. Here are five ways to do it.

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A Fashion Magazine That’s Taking Digital Seriously. Seriously.

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I’m a fashion person. So I don’t read Glamour Magazine for style inspiration. For that, I read Paris Vogue and Purple and V. But you know what? None of that matters, because a significant number of smart, capable women do read Glamour. And they’ve made it the most popular–and arguably the most influential–women’s magazine in the US. A big part of that influence stems from the fact that, unlike a lot of style books, Glamour has adapted with the times. Rather than sit back and let their lunch get eaten by smart blogs like ours, Glamour is taking the web seriously.

No doubt some industry insiders were shocked when the 71-year-old publication won Magazine of the Year at last week’s National Magazine Awards.  The magazine was the only glossy nominated for the new award, which according to the American Society of Magazine Editors website “honors publications that successfully use both print and digital media in fulfilling the editorial mission.” And it represented a victory for hair removal and sundresses over the far weightier issues covered in the likes of  The Atlantic, Fast Company, Men’s Health and New York. (Well, maybe count Men’s Health out of the weighty class.)

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