There are plenty of harrowing numbers facing the magazine industry at the moment. But, as the proponents say, magazines are more than just paper. And New Zealand Geographic’s Photographer of the Year is a case in point. PLUS: a gallery of the winners.
McHugh Media’s Mindfood is getting set to celebrate its seventh birthday next year and it’s been one of the local publishing industry’s great success stories. Now it’s welcomed its first major brand extension to the family: a bi-annual glossy fashion magazine called Style.
Paul Catmur, the creative managing partner of Barnes, Catmur & Friends, shares his views on life, advertising and other annoyances, such as the unwillingness of the magazine industry to accept the unvarnished truth.
It was officially announced yesterday that Bauer had made some major structural and staff changes. So we had a chat with chief executive Paul Dykzeul and commercial director Paul Gardiner about the thinking behind that strategy.
It’s been a big year for Bauer. The APN titles have been brought in to the building, it’s canned Creme and passed on Little Treasures. And now it’s announced a restructure that will see a host of staff changes and the creation of a new brand solutions division.
After folding Creme magazine recently, Bauer Media has continued to ring the changes and has resigned the publishing contract for Little Treasures magazine, with Tangible Media taking over as the publisher after the September/October issue.
The modern human condition tends to be one of constant connection and, in many cases, slight addiction. But JWT and Sacred Hill are jumping on the mindfulness bandwagon and aiming to inspire a different, more classical version of connection with a beautifully-crafted new print campaign.
For quite some time the doomsday prophets have been predicting the demise of print, but this hasn’t stopped advertisers from having a bit of fun with the medium. Here are two print ads that illustrate that there are still fun and creative ways that print can be employed to relay a brand message.
The ASA’s 2013 ad spend figures showed that while TV continues to reign supreme, its time at the top might be coming to an end as the interactive category continues its trend of strong year-on-year growth. Updated with comments from OMANZ, MediaWorks Radio and NZ post.
Bauer Media has, as most expected, been given Commerce Commission approval to proceed with its purchase of APN magazine titles the NZ Listener, NZ Woman’s Weekly, Simply You, Simply You Living and Creme. Updated with more comments from chief executive Paul Dykzeul.
While the quarterly circulation and readership numbers offer a glimpse at the state of the magazine industry—and specific titles—at a moment in time, the Magazine Publishers’ Association is trying to change the conversation and draw attention to the strength of the medium as an advertising channel. And it’s aiming to do just that by talking to the industry about the results of a recent piece of research.
The worst kept secret in the New Zealand magazine business was confirmed this morning when Bauer announced it had added APN-owned magazines The NZ Listener, NZ Woman’s Weekly, Simply You, Simply You Living and Creme to its roster, subject to Commerce Commission approval.
NZ Rugby World has made significant advancements in the digital space this year, launching its iPad edition, increasing the frequency of its eDm to weekly and growing its Facebook fan base to over 20,000 friends. And its latest promotional piece features one of the sport’s most promising players, Steven Luatua, who encourages viewers to buy a copy—or else.
iSite recently launched its new highly targeted outdoor media planning service. And in an effort to show it off to media agencies and marketing professionals, its new agency The Business took a very literal approach to the concept of shooting an ad.
Following a major shakeup of the senior hierarchy at Fairfax earlier this year, attention has now shifted to the rest of the conglomerate, with more job cuts looking inevitable. Plus: how the changes affect Fairfax Magazines.
There’s a lot of talk these days about modern marketing and advertising offering consumers utility. And that’s mostly what it is: talk. But to promote its range of sun products in Brazil, Nivea has walked that talk with a handy print ad that, with the help of a small solar panel, can charge your phone.
Weekly magazines continue to slip in readership and circulation but there’s signs of life for lifestyle and niche magazines, according to the latest readership and circulation results from Nielsen and the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).
As a chap by the name of Doug Kessler once said, traditional marketing talks at people, but content marketing talks with them. And, like an increasing number of brands, New Zealand Beef & Lamb is combining the two, with its above-the-line Iron Maidens—Sarah Walker, Sophie Pascoe and Lisa Carrington—raising the profile of its meaty wares and the redesigned Meat magazine starring MasterChef winner Chelsea Winter aiming to provide some easily-achievable culinary inspiration.
Not long ago OHbaby! was announcing the launch of its new tablet edition. And now the independent title is celebrating another milestone: its first ever mainstream TV ad.
The launch of a new print product is fairly rare in These Difficult Digital Times, but Tangible Media has just sent a new one into the wild, with NZ Hunting World hitting the shelves today.
Ohbaby becomes the latest magazine publisher to join the digital fray with the launch of its magazine on Apple’s Newsstand platform.
The winner of the annual Glossie Award—and of the $10,000 travel prize from OMD—will be announced at an event next week. But we wanted to know if our dear, opinionated readers felt the same way as our dear, opinionated judges about the country’s best magazine ad. So select your favourite ad (the list is made up of all the winners across the competition plus a few wildcard entries we felt deserved to be in the hunt for the major prize) and then click on the vote button down below.
Over the past year and a bit we’ve been showcasing some of the best magazine advertising in the country through The Glossies. And the time has come to hand out the annual award—and the $10,000 travel prize, which has been provided by the good folk at OMD. We’ll also be handing out the StopPress people’s choice award (a poll will be going up on the site next week so make sure you vote). The event will be taking place on 6 March in the printing hall at Image Centre Group and food and booze will be provided. Invites are going out today, but if you missed out and want to come along, email the MPA’s commercial director Katrina Horton.
Monocle editor, Wallpaper founder, Financial Times columnist and overall media darling Tyler Brûlé was in the country recently to eat oysters at the Oyster Inn on Waiheke Island and speak to a few invited guests as part of Colenso BBDO’s Love This Speaker series. He also recorded a radio show about the state of the local magazine market with John Baker, chair of the MPA and publisher at Tangible Media, and Andy Pickering, editor of Pilot and the Herald’s Spy pages and freelance creative director. So click your thingee to hear what they had to say.
That new ink smell of glossy pages will now be thing of the past for Unlimited magazine because, following in the footsteps of magazines like Newsweek, it’s going fully digital in April.
When tablet computers first arrived on the scene, they were slated as something of a saviour for the ailing magazine industry; a medium that offered the utility of digital technology but actually allowed publishers to make money from it. That certainly hasn’t come to pass in New Zealand yet, and there have been a couple of false starts in that space already. But with impressive download figures and an endorsement from Apple in its best of list at the end of 2012, McHugh Media’s Mindfood iPad app could just be a glimpse into the future.
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.
Mass market weeklies have had a rough time of it in recent years. But ACP has opened an early Christmas present in the form of the recent double issue of Woman’s Day, which clocked in at over 200 pages and took the title as biggest ever issue.
In a world where digital trickery is de rigueur, ‘traditional’ mediums like magazines are often seen as offering fewer creative opportunities. There are restrictions, of course, but great ideas often emanate from restrictions (Steinlager’s ‘We Believe’, for example). And to celebrate its 20th anniversary—and to show the level of engagement it has with its readers—Wired created a brilliant Easter egg hunt.
Humans are into some strange things. Extreme ironing, scrapbooking, My Little Ponies, and slightly masochistic long-distance running, to name but a few. And now New Zealand’s trail runners have their own dedicated publication with the launch of NZ Trail Runner.