Comag Marketing Group, LLC » Magazine Publishing

FNM Rate Base Increase

Kim — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:52:16 +0000

Food Network Magazine continues to ride the wave of reader enthusiasm by issuing its 6th rate base increase since its 2009 launch. Another 100,000 issues will be added, increasing its rate base from 1.3 Million to 1.4 Million, starting with the Jan/Feb 2012 edition. The title was also the biggest ad page gainer for 2010, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau, which reported the magazine was up 78 percent to 796.5 pages. Impressive feasts feats! Folio (Aug 18, 2011)

Digital Editions Booming for Condé Nast

Kim — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:00:04 +0000

Since entering the App business in May, Condé Nast is reporting 242,000 digital downloads of its eight available titles, which include Allure, Glamour, Golf Digest, GQ, Self, The New Yorker, Wired, and Vanity Fair. This number includes digital subscriptions, single copy purchases, and print subscribers who chose to add digital additions to their packages. This last group consists of 136,000 subscribers.

Monica Ray, executive vice president of consumer marketing with Condé Nast says, “…while this represents a small portion of our subscription circulation, we find it increasingly promising, especially given the short time we have been marketing subscriptions.” (Aug. 2) Folio

AOL Launches Daily Mag App

Kim — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:48:48 +0000

With magazines being so well-received into the tablet world, AOL is jumping on the bandwagon with Editions, a free daily “magazine” that pulls content from a variety of sources. Sources, topics, and style are tweaked by each reader so they can have a more personalized experience. Readers can pick from 16 different topics such as sports, entertainment, music and travel. A keyword function lets readers choose or exclude keywords within articles to further tailor their reading experience. (Aug. 4) Folio

Meredith Drops One Title but Picks Up Another

Kim — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:00:30 +0000

Meredith is closing the doors on the DIY magazine ReadyMade. It will eliminate approximately 75 positions worldwide. Meredith Chairman and CEO, Steve Lacy, said the decision will enable them to devote additional resources to key strategic growth initiatives, including digital platform expansion. Though ReadyMade boasted circulation of about 335,230, ad pages fell 8.5% in the first quarter of 2011, putting the magazine on the chopping block. According to MagazineRadar, Meredith posted the largest drop in ad pages among the six major publishers in the first three months of 2011.

Hoping to turn their luck around just a week later, Meredith purchased multichannel brand EatingWell Media Group. This acquisition includes taking over the bi-monthly EatingWell Magazine, EatingWell.com, a Health-in-a-Hurry mobile recipe app, and a series of food and nutrition related cookbooks. Audience Development (Jun 21-27) ReadyMade EatingWell

Magazines without The Price Committment

Kim — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:42:35 +0000

Zinio, a digital magazine and newsstand provider, is offering up a pretty enticing deal through the discount phenomenon Groupon. Jeanniey Mullen, global executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Zinio, took a chance with Groupon by offering $35 worth of subscriptions to any of the 4,300 titles available on Zinio for just $15. It allows people to take their choice of the entire newsstand, so customers can stick with the magazines they already know they like or pick up a new magazine without paying steep prices for a full subscription. The deal was tested live this week in Anchorage, AK; Baltimore, MD and Chattanooga, TN and so far it’s been paying off. Audience Development (Jul 6, 2011)

Top Chef Richard Blais in New Hearst Ad Campaign

Kim — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:42:10 +0000

Look for Hearst’s “New Century Craftsmanship Idea Series” ad campaign in select July and August issues of Hearst titles. Partnering with Ford Lincoln, the campaign features artisans who carry through Lincoln’s branded message of craftsmanship and design through their own work.

Debuting in print ads, chef Richard Blais will be spotlighted in O, The Oprah Magazine and House Beautiful; men’s fashion designer Kevin Stewart in Esquire; and jewelry designer Karen Erickson in Harper’s Bazaar and Veranda. The campaign will also feature an online video series with these personalities on those magazines’ websites. Consumers can enter to win “goods” and “experiences” such as clothing and an invitation to attend Kevin Stewart’s upcoming fashion show.

Jeff Hamill, SVP of sales with Hearst Integrated Media, sees the ad campaign “As a chance for the consumer to get deeper into the ideas behind Lincoln craftsmanship and Lincoln philosophy, which was really the brand driver for Lincoln in terms of this program…It’s a perfect example of what we do with corporate sales, provide custom advertising solutions for our best advertisers. In a company our size, we firmly believe we can bundle our appropriate assets in a very strategic way for any of our large advertisers’ needs,” says Hamill.

Condé Nast Launches New Marketing Services Division

Kim — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:44:53 +0000

Ideactive, a new marketing services division of Condé Nast, will offer custom-content creative in print, digital, video and mobile platforms; web design and development; social media marketing and community development; and app development and mobile marketing, among other services. Lou Cona, who is Condé’s Chief Marketing Officer, will oversee the new division, with Janine Silvera at his side as Vice President of Ideactive. The new division will offer preferred pricing to current Condé clients, and “standard market rate” to all others. Condé enters the marketing services game along with many others, like Hearst with iCrossing, Source Interlink with Mind Over Eye, and Meredith with Integrated Marketing division (MIM).

Folio (5/23/11)

Commemorative Oprah Bookazine to Hit Stands in June

Kim — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:19:35 +0000

O, The Oprah Magazine will produce a special collector’s edition bookazine celebrating the 25 unforgettable seasons of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. The issue will include 148 heart-felt pages revealing the show’s early days, favorite moments of the staff, and memorable episodes from the 25 seasons of laughter, tears, surprises and triumphs that have meant so much to so many. Look for the bookazine to hit newsstands on June 28, 2011.

Reuters (5/25/11)

Magazine Tumblrs Creating Buzz

Kim — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:03:13 +0000

Tumblr, a rapidly maturing microblogging platform recently passed 250 million page views per day. There are currently at least 61 publications active on the platform, including Newsweek, GQ, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The Economist, and the most followed, Vogue. These publications use Tumblr as a behind-the-scenes look at the magazine, an outlet for voicing opinions that may be too feisty for the publication itself.

Newsweek has used Tumblr to defend the publication’s sale and subsequent newsroom turnover. GQ uses Tumblr to point out impressive features in the latest print production and thinks it helps show that the magazine goes beyond fashion. However, when magazines fail to utilize the platform on an interactive level and simply as an RSS feed, as was the case for People magazine, their Tumblr fails to take off.

Tumblrs are helping create buzz around magazines and hence, attracting new readership. The Atlantic believes Tumblr has been really useful in attracting a younger audience than their website. “There are plenty of incredibly thoughtful, intelligent, creative people that publish in new media, and Tumblr as a platform tends to attract creative types; as a result, it’s been a great source for really brave thinking and brave ideas…” said Jared Keller of The Atlantic.

Business Insider (5/25/11)

Strong Fourth Quarter Lifts Magazines

Kim — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 20:27:27 +0000

After a year of steady decline in 2009, magazines have emerged in positive territory in 2010. They improved with every quarter in the past year, with the fourth quarter marking the third consecutive quarterly gain. Though full-year ad pages were down slightly according to the Publishers Information Bureau, they were only down 0.1%, compared with a brutal 25.9% decline in 2009. Full-year ad revenue rose to 3.1%, which marked the first time in since 2007 that a year hasn’t ended in the red. Many magazine categories showed gains in ad pages, including bridal, science and technology, epicurean, parenting, fashion, and personal finance. Media Life (Jan. 11, 2011)