The table. Pretty much every office has one. And they’re generally not the most exciting of objects. But the table that sits in the offices of Assignment Group—and the table that features on the front cover of the November/December issue of NZ Marketing—is surprisingly interesting and has become a rather fitting symbol of how the agency began and how it still likes to work.
The final instalment of The Glossies for this year had one of the biggest responses yet, with over 800 votes. And it was Trilogy and Special Group’s all-natural campaign in Woman’s Day that came out on top, beating out Taste magazine’s Homebrand takeover by Progressive and Ogilvy and DB Export and Colenso BBDO’s The Wine List in Metro.
The quarterly number fest that is the Nielsen CMI Readership and Audit Bureau of Circulation data has been released, and while only a few magazine titles bucked the general downward trend in paid circulation, a majority of titles experienced readership increases, making it the third consecutive survey showing an improvement in total readership.
Back in the heady days of the early ’80s, invoice scams were thought to be one of the reasons for the creation of the Magazine Publisher’s Association—and the implementation of a more robust approach to measuring circulation of titles. But despite these measures, such scams are still occurring today, as evidenced by Operation Edit, a major joint enforcement agency operation led by the Serious Fraud Office that has led to six arrests.
The Maggies judges have spoken and the covers they have deemed to be the country’s best will now fight it out for top honours in their respective categories, plus the coveted overall cover of the year award, as they go up for a public vote over the next five weeks at www.themaggies.co.nz.
Ah The Glossies. How we’ve missed you. But you’ll be overjoyed to know we’ve saved the best for last with a bumper double edition to round out this year’s competition. So peruse the entries, marvel at their quality and cast your vote.
The cut-off looms for this year’s Maggies, a competition that lets the great unwashed decide on New Zealand’s best magazine covers. So, esteemed publishers, editors and minions, enter your covers immediately.
New Zealand Weddings claims to be the country’s most stylish bridal magazine. And it backed up what it says on the tin last week—and showed that magazines can and should be much bigger than the paper they’re printed on—by putting on two shows for eight designers at New Zealand Fashion Week, with each show drawing upwards of 1000 people.
Ze Germans are coming. Nine Entertainment Network has sold ACP Media to privately-owned German publishing house Bauer for a reported $500 million.
Over the past few months, discussions around the future of the media have come to a head, thanks in part to a couple of big announcements from the other side of the Tasman and a big one here in New Zealand too. This has brought about loads of discussion within the New Zealand industry about the role of media in society and changing trends in how consumers select and consume news. Worryingly, lots of commentators have been all too willing to eulogise New Zealand’s robust newspaper market. So I’m putting my hand up to remind you all that newspapers and magazines are alive and well in New Zealand.
In 2011, Good’s cover featuring a handmade pohutukawa wreath was crowned winner of the second edition of The Maggies. And it went on to win the supreme magazine title at this year’s magazine awards. Coincidence? We think not. So get your nominations in for this year’s edition of The Maggies, a national poll to recognise and celebrate the best New Zealand magazine covers of the past year.
It’s a rather interesting period in the history of magazines and, despite the prevailing belief that shiny new digital toys are killing off paper, the latest readership and circulation numbers have once again showed the market is still in fairly good health in New Zealand.
Readers of New Zealand building industry magazine Build can look forward to a new contemporary design in October as part of enhancements that will soon include digital delivery and better access to back articles. And island lovers have also got something to look forward to with the launch of the inaugural Island Destinations annual.
We’re big fans of passive aggressive notes here at StopPress and, as such, we also enjoy www.passiveaggressivenotes.com, which showcases “funny (if not necessarily ‘passive-aggressive’) notes from pissed-off people”. So what a treat it was to spy a tweet from Home NZ magazine today about some strange goings on in the ACP towers.
New Zealanders love it when foreigners stroke our ego, heap praise upon us and seek out our talents. And a fairly surprising example of this phenomenon occurred recently when Critic, the student magazine of the Otago University Student Association and the country’s longest-running student newspaper, completed a project with Newsweek magazine to produce the cover of its latest issue.
The Magazine Publishers Association has set some fairly bold targets for the industry and hopes to increase its share of ad revenue by around $30 million over the next two years, going from around 10 percent of the total ad market to 11.5 percent. It’s certainly a big ask, but Nielsen’s more in-depth Consumer and Media Insights research, mostly positive readership and circulation results in the last batch of numbers, and now, the appointment of Katrina Horton to the newly created role of commercial director with the MPA, all seem to have given the industry some extra confidence that it can reach those goals.
The Block is going off in Australia at the moment as it reaches the final stages of the current season, and MediaWorks is doing its best to ensure the same thing happens for the first season of the New Zealand version, launching a full-scale marketing assault created by the inhouse team that’s been pretty difficult to miss.
Continuing Tangible Media’s strategy of special issues and brand extensions seen with the likes of NZ Weddings Planner, Everyday Dish and NZ Rugby World’s First XV, next in line is the hunting market.
It’s time to get back to our ABCs. And our Nielsens.
For only the second time, the new magazine circulation methology has spewed its quarterly data, coinciding with the Nielsen Magazine Comparatives Q2 2011 – Q1 2012 readership results.
And the news: it’s all up for most and a …
The StopPress scanner is smeared with greasy fingerprints, but it’s not because we’re submitting files to Scanwiches or Cat Scans. It’s because we’re hitting go on the May round of The Glossies. But we need your vote. So get in there and choose your favourite.
North & South’s My Space hit TVNZ Heartland’s screens last month. And now ACP and TVNZ have announced another broadcast/print media hybrid with a slightly longer name: Entertaining in Style with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Next magazine has recently embarked on a mission to reinvigorate itself after a period of significant circulation decline, and as well as a thorough redesign, a new masthead to give it a more sophisticated feel and a new size, it’s also targeting a younger audience, taking a few more risks and flouting a few well-established commercial publishing rules. And its just launched June issue is maintaining that trend by breaking with more than two decades of tradition and featuring a man—MasterChef judge Josh Emett—on the cover.
The MPA has chosen its new board, with Tangible Media’s John Baker replacing Fairfax’s Lynley Belton as chair and ACP’s Paul Dykzeul replacing acting deputy chair Cathy Parker from Adrenalin. And the new heads have some big plans to breathe life into the sector—and, more specifically, promote the unique benefits of the medium to advertisers and eventually increase its share of the revenue pie.
The massive pile of magazines filled with Post-It notes stacked up on the StopPress desks (which are, of course, made of rich mahogany) indicates the April round of The Glossies is now open. And we need your votes. So get in there and choose your favourite.
Yesterday’s ASA figures showed a $10 million decrease in ad revenue for the mag industry. And fairly tight times are forcing publishers to innovate, whether it be through branded content, new advertorial products, online initiatives or special issues like Tangible Media’s just-launched NZ Rugby World 1st XV and The New Zealand Weddings Planner.
As Tequila\’s creative director Ross Howard wrote in a past issue of NZ Marketing, there’s a fine line between creative theft and creative inspiration. And a recent release from Kimberley-Clark’s Huggies brand about a campaign offering new parents personalised OHBaby! magazines got us wondering about the rather thorny issue of creative IP.
For a time, it seemed as though men—and quite a few ladies—couldn’t get enough of FHM’s tall-tales, humour and glamour shots of well-endowed models. But ACP has made the decision to close the magazine after it lost almost half of its circulation in the last six months of 2011 in Australia. And, as of May, it will also be taken out of the market in New Zealand.
We’ve searched high, low, near, far and also wide for the best ads and ‘creative executions’ in this month’s crop of local magazines and now you get to decide which one is the best by voting in the March edition of The Glossies. See this month’s entries below. And remember, there’s just one vote per computer.
Heather Roy’s Education Freedom of Association amendment act brought an end to compulsory membership to student’s associations at a tertiary level. And while it would be easy to write off the effects of the legislation as minor, the loss of the small payment included with the usual student fees has led to some big changes to Massey’s student publications.
The latest magazine circulation and readership figures came out last week, replete with a few significant changes to the research methodology and mostly downward-trending numbers. But, as ex Saatchi & Saatchi big wig and current Assignment Group don Peter Cullinane discussed at the Nielsen Innovation Seminar this week, magazines still have a very good story to tell because they have higher levels of engagement than other mediums, something a few publishers are trying to tap into with recent changes to their products.