The future of the glossy magazine industry

Elske Joustra

Researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands

335887ej@eur.nl, +31-(0)642 23 1656

Proposal presented at Sophie Spindler’s creative direction company

January 2010

Index

1. Preface

2. Summary

3. Introduction

4. Theory

4.1 Economic crisis

4.2 The content doesn’t change

4.3 The technological and social possibilities of new

media

4.4 Social media

4.5 Social network sites

4.6 Women and social network sites

5. Literal-review

6. Answer to the central question

7. Proposal

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Strategy

7.3 Financial-table

8. Literature

1 Preface

This business proposal is written in order of Sophie Spindler’s

creative direction company to research if new media have

influenced the traditional format of the glossy magazines. This

paper was presented to the board on January 15th 2010 by Elske

Joustra researcher at Erasmus University.

2 Summary

The glossy magazine industry is facing some problems nowadays,

caused by the economic crisis, the unsatisfied readers of the glossy

magazines and the rise of new media. The economic crisis leads to

a decline in the volume of ad pages, which lead to smaller edition

sizes. The reason the readers are no longer pleased with the

content of the glossy magazines is, because the glossy magazine

industry hasn’t changed the content of the magazines for years and

doesn’t know what kind of subject the readers want to read about.

Because of the rise of the new media there came a lot of new forms

of media, like social media. Social media give people the ability to

talk, cooperate and exchange information with each other

throughout online tooling, like social network sites. Social network

sites are also very popular among the readers of glossy magazines

witch share their interests with each other on the social network

sites. If the glossy magazines want to reconnect with their readers,

sell more magazines and attract there cosmetics-advertisers,

glossy magazine companies have to use the social network site

Facebook.

3 Introduction

With a market share of 27 percent the women magazines are,

beside radio- and television- magazines the most popular segment

of magazines in the Netherlands.

Women magazines exist in different forms and shapes. There are a

lot more women magazines than there are magazines for men.

From commercial view this is logical, because women read more

and are a very attractive and profitable target group for

advertisers. The market of the women’s magazines can be divined

in two types of magazines; the women’s weekly magazines and the

women’s monthly magazines.

The market of the women’s weekly magazines exists of “the general

interest magazines” and “the gossip magazines”. The market of the

women’s monthly magazines can be divined in the subcategories;

“glossy magazines” and “ special interest magazines”.

This paper presents a research about the market of the glossy

magazines. So for this reason there will be only taken a closer look

at the subcategory of the women’s monthly magazines; glossy

magazines.

Glossy magazines are a type of women magazines that is mostly

focused on subjects that are related to the appearance of the

women. Glossy magazines became more popular in the nineties.

The reason of the release of this new segment was because during

this period there was a period of economic prosperity. Women got a

higher education level, had more money to spend and for this

reason were more interested in glossy and luxury goods. This made

them a very attractive target-group for cosmetics- advertisers, the

biggest source of income for this type of magazine. The reason

glossy magazines become popular among their female readers was

because of the huge success of the releases of the magazines;

“Cosmopolitan” (from the America publisher Hearst) and “Elle”

(from the France publisher Hachette).

Through the years the women’s magazines have made some mature

changes. For example nowadays there are no taboos anymore and

the cover as well as the inside looks are more colorful than before.

(http://vrouwentijdschriften.nl/). Other factors that have changed

the form, production, distribution and consumption of the

magazine have been caused by the rise of new media. The new

media will also influence the future glossy magazines.

The way new media will influence the structure of the classic

magazine format of the glossy magazine will be answered during

this research. In order to do so the following central question is

addressed in this paper:

“Have new media influenced and pushed and reinvented the

structure of the classic magazine format of the glossy magazine?”

To answer this question first there will be addressed to the

different developments in the glossy magazine industry existing of

the economic crisis, the unsatisfied readers and the influence of

new media. After the question is theoretically framed another

literature –reviews about this subject will be discussed. After this

the first answer to the central question will be given and a business

proposal for Sophie Spindler creative direction company will be

presented.

4. Theory

4.1 Economic crisis

After finding out more information about glossy magazines there

are a couple of developments witch have influenced the glossy

magazine industry. The first development is the actual economic

crisis. Because of the economic crisis publishers have to cut back

on pagination and make smaller edition sizes, because of the

decline of the volume of ad pages from there cosmetics-advertisers.

Although referring to the following quotes not everybody wants to

admit the position of the glossy magazine industry, caused by the

economic crisis is become unstable.

Peter Phippen, managing director of BBC magazines says about

the economic crisis ;

“It might not be one of the best periods for the industry, but still in

time of recession consumers tend to gravitate toward strong

brands”. Stephen Quinn, publishing director of Vogue agrees with

Phippen by saying; “Consumers will continue buying the top-quality

titles like my own magazine , Elle and other magazines like

Cosmopolitan and Marie-Claire. So we will holding up well despite

off the downturn in the economy” (Clark, 2009).

4.2 The content doesn’t change

Beside the economic crisis there is another problem the glossy

magazine industry is facing. The regular female readers of the

glossy magazines are losing interest in the magazines. This

problem is caused because glossy magazines are out of touch with

the cultural changes that have been brought by social network

sites.

The readers want the content of the glossy magazines to change.

Instead of changing the content of the magazines many glossy

magazines have not evolved there content in years. For example

prominent magazines, like US Vogue have become stale and

repetitive using the same subjects about promising secrets to

thinness and eternal happiness, that women that have been reading

the magazines long enough know aren’t true.

Another example is the way some glossy magazines have handled

the economic crisis. Cover stories like : “simple luxuries”,

“shopping in your own closet” and “how to stop the recession”

makes the magazine seem soulless and without dept. And thereby

not capable to adapt their content to changing value systems,

causes by temporary economic circumstances. So instead of

reading about unrealistically beautiful celebrities in printed glossy

magazines, the readers want to read the truth (Louw,2009).

Another reason of the lost of interest of the readers in glossy

magazines is the rice of the extreme popularity of personal style

blogs and social network sites. Instead of printed glossy magazines,

that present unrealistically beautiful celebrities , blogs and social

network sites discuss issues and cover lines that are realistic and

more inspiring , excising of a mix of high-end and budget fashion.

The popularity of the blogs and social network sites is also caused

by the rise of new media (idem:2009).

4.3 The technological and social possibilities of new media

New media will lead to very big changes in the form, production,

distribution and consumption of future magazines. Instead of

traditional media, which is media that relies primarily upon print

and analog broadcast models , new media is a term meant to point

out the emergence of digital, computerized and communication

technologies, like Internet. (Manovich, 2003: 13-25).

The rise of new media is a result of the evolution of the new media

technologies of electronic media, called globalization. Globalization

means that people can communicate with each other and get

information from all over the world, whenever we want and

without the need of being physical present. (Croteau & Hoynes,

2003:401-410). Thereby, instead of traditional media that offers

one-way communication one of the characteristics of new media is

that it can offer two-way communication called, interactivity. If

the traditional format of the magazine will be compared with the

format of the magazine, influenced by the possibilities of digital

interactive media, differences are noticed in the way new media

leads to new textual experiences. This new textual experience are

new textual and visual images in which the magazines are

presented. (Lister & Dovey, 2003: 9-44).

At last, one of the biggest trends of new media is the fact that

consumers are becoming producers/creators. Until the twentieth

century publishers of media products had the power over the

distribution of media products. Because of the emergence of the

new media group of users they don’t control de distribution

anaymore. People can produce there own media, the so-called

“user generated content”(UGC).This “self produced media” is a

form of social media(Michael Opgenhaffen, 2008).

4.4 Social media

Social media or web 2.0 is a collective term for sharing stories,

knowledge and experiences on online platforms via online media,

that is not controlled by any external authority, but by the users

themselves. Because of the interactivity, online media can offers

people to talk, cooperate and exchange information with each other

throughout online tooling. Types of online tooling are blogs and

social network sites (Lister 2001:200-201).

4.5 Social network sites

A social network site is a webpage that focuses on building and

reflecting social networks or relationships among people who share

the same interest and/or activities. A social network site consists of

visible profiles that display a list of friends that are also users of the

system. Profiles are unique pages were each user can show texts,

pictures and other things they are interested in or want to share

with there friends. (Danah,2007).

After joining a social network site an individual is asked to fill out a

form with a couple of questions about there age, education level,

location, interests and other factors that typically segment society.

The answers on those questions give the users the ability to find

other people who have the same demographic segments. This

demographic information can also be used by companies that want

to advertise on a social network site to reach out to a certain target

group. A type of active users of social network sites are women.

4.6 Woman and social network sites

According to a new study from SheSpeaks there are now 86

percent women that are using social network sites. 50 percent of

the women use the social network sites to purchase products,

because of the information they saw of the brand on the social

network sites. The social network sites women like the most are

Facebook and Twitter. They also use tot social network sites to

interact with their friends or to share pictures. The differences

between Facebook and Twitter is the fact that Twitter is a service

that provides people to know what there friends are doing, instead

of Facebook which provide a service were you also can create your

own personal online platform. Thereby Facebook with there 60

million users is much bigger than Twitter that has about 18 million

users. Finally the last difference between Facebook and Twitter is

the fact that women that are using Facebook are likely to log in

daily (72%) in stead of the women that are using twitter(36%).

For marketers the overall growth and habitual use of social media

by women represents opportunities to reach and engage women of

all ages, and influence their purchase decisions

(http://www.utalkmarketing.com).

5 Literature-review

That social network sites are a great instrument to reach certain

target groups is also reported in the research project in 2007 of

two students of the Michigan State University. They did a research

project about the big influence of social network sites on people.

Other research that I have found are two articles about the great

influence of the social network sites as a promotion tool. The most

important finding in this articles were;

“Social networking are increasingly popular, and have become

wildly popular with a varied demographic. Nowadays many

companies use social network sites to connect or reconnect with

their costumers by communicating and sharing ideas. Thereby

social network sites are a great business promotion tool. An

example of a great social network site to use is Facebook.

Facebook is one of the biggest social network sites in the world.

It’s no longer just the social networking choice for teenagers, but is

a thriving business promotion tool. Facebook give companies the

ability to make their own personal business page were they can

promote their company” (http://www.articlesbase.com).

6 Answer to the central question

After discussing the highlights of the theoretical research and

literature-review an answer to the central question can be given:

“Have new media influenced and pushed and reinvented the

structure of the classic magazine format of the women glossy

magazine?”

New media has had a great influence on the structure of the classic

magazine format of glossy magazines. Because of the rise of new

media there became a lot of new forms of media, like social media.

Social media give people the ability to talk, cooperate and

exchange information with each other throughout online tooling,

like social network sites.

Social network sites are very popular among the readers of glossy

magazines witch use the social network sites to share their

interests with each other. This leads to the fact that the companies

of the glossy magazine industry no longer know which subject the

reader want to read in the glossy-magazines. To reconnect with

their readers, sell more magazines and attract there cosmetics-

advertisers, glossy magazine companies can use a social network

site, like Facebook.

7 Proposal

7.1 Introduction

After discovering the need for glossy magazine companies to use

social network site, to promote their brand, a proposal for Sophie

Spindler’s creative direction company about how they can use

social network sites is written. In this proposal the chosen social

network sites will be first discussed. Secondly the promotion-

strategy that will be used by this social network site will be

explained. After this the financial-table to accomplish this strategy

will be presented.

The social network site that has been chosen for this proposal is

Facebook. The reason this social network site is chosen is because

this social network site seems to have a strong reputation among

the readers of the glossy magazines. Secondly, with more than 60

million active members, Facebook is the world’s largest social

platform. The strategy Facebook uses to improve the reputation of

companies exist of five different campaign types which will be

described in the next paragraph.

7.2 Strategy

The first campaign type there can be uses is the Poll Engagement

Ads.

With Poll advertisements a company can can get the users opinions

on any topic they like. To solve one of the problems the glossy

magazine industry is facing the women glossy the Poll

advertisements can be uses to ask their readers what subjects they

find interesting to read in certain glossy magazines.

Another application that is quiet similar to the poll’s are the Quiz

Applications. With the Quiz Applications glossy magazine

companies can also ask their readers what they want to read in the

glossy magazines. Besides getting the opinion of the readers about

certain subject there are a few more features Facebook can offer

companies.

Another campaign type Facebook can offer is the Video

Engagement Ads.

With Video advertising publishing companies can select a target

demographic and display the video ads to them. This video has no

limitation on the length of the video in a way similar to television

advertisements.

A third campaign application Facebook is offering are the

Branded Gift Engagement Ads. This gifts are virtual gifts that

friends who are connected on Facebook give to each other The

branded gifts will display on the homepage and users will be able

to see those friends which have sent gifts to each other, as well as

what they wrote when the gifts were sent. This is also a great way

to get Facebook users engaging with a brand.

The metrics provided to the brand following the campaign is the

number of gifts sent as well as the demographics of the people who

shared and received the gifts. This is a good way of promoting a

glossy magazine. One of the advantages are the fact that users can

send the gifts to other friend and in this way also promoting their

brand.

A fourth campaign application of Facebook is the Event

Engagement Ads, who give companies the ability to get

awareness by organizing an event.

For example the glossy women magazine Cosmopolitan who

launched a sponsored social media initiative called; “The Cosmo

Karma Project”. This project encouraged Facebook and Twitter

(another social network site) users to document acts of kindness.

This acts of kindness meant that the magazine 320.000 fans could

go to post their do-good activities, like racing money for a donation

company, like War Child.

Another application to promote a brand is by the Fan Page Ads.

With this application Facebook users can become a fan directly

from the advertisement and so automatically ask their connections

if they also want to be fan of this fan application. For example the

glossy magazine company Cosmopolitan can make a “

cosmopolitan” fan application to promote their magazine

(http://ww.facebook.com/ads).

To accomplish each of the advertising types there will be presented

a financial-table below.

7.3 Financial- table

Pricelist of the Facebook Engagement Ads

Type of Ad: Price:

Personal sales coordinator $3000 a month

Poll Engagement Ads $10.000 a month

The Quiz Applications. $5.000 a month

Video Engagement Ads. $100.000 a month

Branded Gift Engagement

Ads

$2.500 a month

Event Engagement Ads $10.000 a month

Total costs: $130500 a month

8 Literature

Books:- Manovich, L.e.v. "New Media From Borges to HTML." The

New Media Reader.” Ed. Noah Wardrip-Fruin & Nick Montfort. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003.

- Lister, M., J. Dovey, S. Giddings, I. Grant & K. Kelly New Media. A critical Introduction.London, Routledge, 2009

- Croteau, David & William Hoynes Media, Society: Industries, Images and Audiences. London, 2002

Articles:- Clark, Nicole: “Weathering the magazine circulation storm”.

February 2009.http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/881362

- Louw, Carina: “A glossy downturn”. May 2009.http://www.fluxtrends.com/web/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125

- Opgenhaffen, M, De commerciële waarde van user generated content. February 2008. http://www.denieuwereporter.nl/2008/02/de-commerciele-waarde-van-user-generated-content/

Thesis:- Danah, B. Ellison, N. “Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication”2007.

Websites:- http://vrouwentijdschriften.nl

- http://www.articlesbase.com

- http://www.utalkmarketing.com

- www.facebook.com/ads

9 Critical reflection

This critical reflection is not part of the proposal that is written for the direction

company of Sophie Spindler, but is written for academic purposes.

Dear mr. Leendertse,

For this assignment I had to answer the question:

“Have new media influenced and pushed and reinvented the

structure of the classic magazine format of the women glossy

magazine?”

The subject I have chosen for my research is the influence of new media on the

glossy magazine industry. I have focused my research on the type of new media;

social network sites. The reason I have chosen social network sites is because before I

started my research I already had certain ideas about how the social network sites

could influence the glossy magazine industry. But to prove my hypotheses I had to

search for scientific theory. The theory about the different kind f media was easy to

find. More difficult was finding the information about the current development of the

glossy magazine market.

One of my ideas about how social network sites could influence the glossy magazine

industry was by reaching their target group throughout the social network sites. When

I searched for information how the creative direction company of Sophie Spindler

could use a social network site as a promotion tool for their glossy magazines, I

founded the advertising tools that Facebook uses. This strategy agreed with my ideas

of how a company could promote their company with a social network sites, so I was

very pleased with this findings.

The part I had much difficulties with was to find a good literature-review about this

subjects. There is a lot of information about social network sites, but the problem is

that most of the information is not scientific, but written on blogs or websites. To find

enough information about my subject, to compare with my theoretical research, I have

chosen more resources. I hope this is alright.

Thereby I have to note that my financial table is totally fictitious, because I couldn’t

find the prices for the ad engagements of Facebook and I have absolutely no idea what

the cost of a personal sales assistant are.

The last thing I want to add to this critical reflection is that I liked this assignment a

lot, although it was very challenging for me, because this was the first paper I have

ever written in my life. I hope I have fulfilled all the requirements.

Greetings,

Elske Joustra