Written by Chris Magyar
Thursday, 25 February 2010 01:34
As a magazine nerd, I find this video from Bonnier endlessly fascinating. I’ve watched it half a dozen times now, and it still makes me gasp at the appropriate moments. Much more intelligent and intuitive than either the iPad demos or the Time Inc. reader previews that have been flying around. It’s quiet, and there’s a lot of Ikea-like stage dressing to make you feel cozy with the idea of digital reading, but hang with it and watch the features unfold.
A colleague sent by Wired’s version of a demo, and I was struck by the fact that the video wasn’t selling the concept to consumers or readers, like the above ones, but to advertisers.
So the question that immediately comes to my mind is: whither magazine advertising? In the Time demo, ads are — well, you find them. In the Bonnier version, they are slid into with curious fingers, as opt-in sorbets between article browsing. But the most obvious solution would be for ads to intercept the reading experience and capture a maximum amount of time before annoyance sets in, much as Hulu and some Flash applications do. Also, there’s the current model, in which ads are small and embedded within the article layout, often squatting within the text flow like speed bumps, and occasionally auto starting some video or audio to annoy you into paying attention.
Bonnier, with its emphasis on duplicating the spirit of the paper magazine experience, would of course choose opt-in. After all, when you’re flipping magazine pages, you choose whether or not to gaze at the ads that appear on interstitial pages. Fractional ads are tucked into discrete portions of the page, not rolled into the text flow. Advertorials and advertising sections are given prominent headers, allowing you, as a reader, to choose whether to ignore that segment of the magazine or browse it.
Despite giving readers every chance to escape the messages, print magazine advertising still works awfully well. I worked, for a time, for a magazine research firm that was contracted by publishers to poll subscribers on their reading habits. My task was to cold call readers, set up appointments of 15 minutes in exchange for something free (a mug, a restaurant gift certificate, a USB keychain), and sit down asking questions about their reading experience. I never asked anything about the articles; the entire exercise was one of advertising recall. How much time do you spend looking at ads? Did you remember noticing this ad? Did you read it? What do you remember about it? Most of the time, I was surprised how much people recalled the ads. In the case of some industry-specific publications (along the lines of Construction Materials Monthly or All About Plastic), subscribers told me they only opened the publication for the ads, because they needed to price specific widgets or keep up with product developments for their jobs.
In the eReader, the advertisement isn’t there unless you ask it to be, though. That’s a different level of opting in. Timed advertising breaks are too much like television — effective, but they include an inherent level of annoyance that diminishes your brand. Ads placed within text flow are similarly cheapening. While I’ve seen companies like Mercedes and Cartier stoop to those boxes within certain online newspaper articles, obviously these branding messages feel less exclusive than a full page of space on semi-gloss in Vanity Fair.
Readers will pay for content, but not much. The success or failure of digital magazine publishing rests entirely on the question of how advertising can be incorporated so that both clients and readers see the value. I think Bonnier’s the closest. I think it will come down to placing attractive ads between the horizontal article-to-article swipes, but not restricting them — that is, allowing readers to keep on swiping without a pause. The first brave soul into the pool with this will have to convince some hefty corporation that the eyeballs and prestige-by-association will be worth keeping print advertising as an opt-in model.
Otherwise, I fear for a future of magazine publishing in which magazine readers are treated like, say, movie theater goers: captive audiences with enough money at stake that they can be taken to the brink of annoyance before getting to the content. The only way to avoid this future is to refuse, as a consumer base, to pay anything more than a nominal fee for the content. Thus, this magazine nerd is in an odd position. I wholeheartedly embrace the digital publishing revolution for the format, but I won’t spend a nickel to support it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Commentary, Features.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
25/10
Thursday, 25 February 2010 01:34
As a magazine nerd, I find this video from Bonnier endlessly fascinating. I’ve watched it half a dozen times now, and it still makes me gasp at the appropriate moments. Much more intelligent and intuitive than either the iPad demos or the Time Inc. reader previews that have been flying around. It’s quiet, and there’s a lot of Ikea-like stage dressing to make you feel cozy with the idea of digital reading, but hang with it and watch the features unfold.
A colleague sent by Wired’s version of a demo, and I was struck by the fact that the video wasn’t selling the concept to consumers or readers, like the above ones, but to advertisers.
So the question that immediately comes to my mind is: whither magazine advertising? In the Time demo, ads are — well, you find them. In the Bonnier version, they are slid into with curious fingers, as opt-in sorbets between article browsing. But the most obvious solution would be for ads to intercept the reading experience and capture a maximum amount of time before annoyance sets in, much as Hulu and some Flash applications do. Also, there’s the current model, in which ads are small and embedded within the article layout, often squatting within the text flow like speed bumps, and occasionally auto starting some video or audio to annoy you into paying attention.
Bonnier, with its emphasis on duplicating the spirit of the paper magazine experience, would of course choose opt-in. After all, when you’re flipping magazine pages, you choose whether or not to gaze at the ads that appear on interstitial pages. Fractional ads are tucked into discrete portions of the page, not rolled into the text flow. Advertorials and advertising sections are given prominent headers, allowing you, as a reader, to choose whether to ignore that segment of the magazine or browse it.
Despite giving readers every chance to escape the messages, print magazine advertising still works awfully well. I worked, for a time, for a magazine research firm that was contracted by publishers to poll subscribers on their reading habits. My task was to cold call readers, set up appointments of 15 minutes in exchange for something free (a mug, a restaurant gift certificate, a USB keychain), and sit down asking questions about their reading experience. I never asked anything about the articles; the entire exercise was one of advertising recall. How much time do you spend looking at ads? Did you remember noticing this ad? Did you read it? What do you remember about it? Most of the time, I was surprised how much people recalled the ads. In the case of some industry-specific publications (along the lines of Construction Materials Monthly or All About Plastic), subscribers told me they only opened the publication for the ads, because they needed to price specific widgets or keep up with product developments for their jobs.
In the eReader, the advertisement isn’t there unless you ask it to be, though. That’s a different level of opting in. Timed advertising breaks are too much like television — effective, but they include an inherent level of annoyance that diminishes your brand. Ads placed within text flow are similarly cheapening. While I’ve seen companies like Mercedes and Cartier stoop to those boxes within certain online newspaper articles, obviously these branding messages feel less exclusive than a full page of space on semi-gloss in Vanity Fair.
Readers will pay for content, but not much. The success or failure of digital magazine publishing rests entirely on the question of how advertising can be incorporated so that both clients and readers see the value. I think Bonnier’s the closest. I think it will come down to placing attractive ads between the horizontal article-to-article swipes, but not restricting them — that is, allowing readers to keep on swiping without a pause. The first brave soul into the pool with this will have to convince some hefty corporation that the eyeballs and prestige-by-association will be worth keeping print advertising as an opt-in model.
Otherwise, I fear for a future of magazine publishing in which magazine readers are treated like, say, movie theater goers: captive audiences with enough money at stake that they can be taken to the brink of annoyance before getting to the content. The only way to avoid this future is to refuse, as a consumer base, to pay anything more than a nominal fee for the content. Thus, this magazine nerd is in an odd position. I wholeheartedly embrace the digital publishing revolution for the format, but I won’t spend a nickel to support it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Commentary, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.