Are media trends predicting the end of Fashion magazines?

Media trends show that Custom Media is the best alternative to low advertising returns in glossy magazines.

Once upon a time, magazines were one of the uber-cool answers to big fashion labels and mega brands. But all this came to a grinding halt with the arrival of the new medium, a.k.a. Social Media. It came quietly like the calm before the storm, and shook the entire world of traditional media.

I remember the time when Cosmo India launched an almost thousand page magazine for Diwali a couple of years ago. That was something really, but unfortunately for those who didn’t see that day, you indeed must fret. For it will not happen again.

A year ago, fashion publications were having the time of their lives. They were heavily sought-after by all brands, the new and the old, the big and the small. But today, after the wave of recession has receded and life seems to be crawling back to normalcy, magazine readers have almost completely forgotten that they once used to splurge on fashion magazines. They’ve moved on, and seem to believe that they don’t need a fashion magazine to tell them what’s hot or not anymore. Readers now have reputed blogs and websites that give them the same information. And what’s better here? Social Media sites and blogs are updated more frequently. And the icing on the cake, these are written by media fashionistas and they’re really genre specific!

Mercifully, there was just one really good reason to pick up a fashion magazine though. A reader needed a fashion magazine to check out the new arrivals and haute products that are hitting rodeo drive and a few other smaller drives in town. But that’s where we have the killer blow.

I came across a link in a tweet from a friend (you can find the link on my ‘twitter faves’ on the right). It’s good news for Custom Media, because surveys estimate that in the UK alone, custom media would be worth £1bn by 2013, and is projected at a growth rate of twenty two percent even with the global slowdown hovering over our heads. That’s a seriously high growth rate considering the rest of the fashionable publishing world is clinging on to a hope of mere survival in the near future!

Several leading labels like Karl Lagerfeld (for Chanel), Acne Denim, Yves Saint Laurent and Forever 21 have already started publishing custom in-house magazines that are running successfully and showing favourable results to their brands. It’s a better alternative to traditional magazine advertising, considering the limited choices that advertisers have in terms of premium positioning. A Louis Vuitton Galliera wouldn’t really cringe if it’s printed adjacent to Megan Fox in her new Armani campaign, but what if it’s in a sticky spot next to Daisy Dee ling-a-ree? Bummer, right?

Big brands all over the world are asking themselves the same question too. Are ads in traditional print magazines worth the money, and is it good for power branding? The spanking new and easier solution? The all new In-house magazine shows the way…

So will the other brands flow suit and start their own publications to cater to their customers, or will they stick around with their traditional Inner Front Cover page advertisements with Miss Daisy Dee for company? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I believe that publishing an in-house magazine at least once every quarter is a fresh way to reach out to a specific audience, as long as it’s complimented with other niche social media campaigns. Better this than to lose potential customers in the battle for brand recollection with other competitive brands and better in-house magazines.

And hey, if it isn’t working, why is everyone else doing it?

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Think out of the box to find out what your customers really want from your company. Henry Ford did it. So can you!

While we’re walking down our yellow brick road to fame and glory, we’ve all heard the famed adage, “the customer is king”. And most of us have lived by it. But is it always right, especially now, in this age of extensive social networking? Can we still trust our customers blindly and give them what they want? Today, a brand can connect directly with their customer and find out exactly what a customer wants. No more guesswork.

Thinking about it, do customers know what they want? I’ve had to deal with this problem one too many times in my line of work. Clients tell me they want to provide a specific solution to their customers’ problem. And when I suggest ideas to them that may seem a tad out of the box, most of them are ecstatic, while a few go into panic mode. Speaking about the ones that go into panic mode, they are the ones that want specific solutions. It’s not a bad thing to give a customer exactly what they want, but is that the best we can do? That’s the big question about your loyal customers and whether we can trust them blindly. Do customers really know what they want?

This reminds me of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, and what he had said about his customers, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.”

Ford’s customers would have been jumping with glee had he given them what they wanted, a better horse. But Ford thought beyond what his customers wanted from him. He gave them a car!

Ford probably would have asked himself why they needed a faster horse. Because they wanted to go somewhere faster. He would then have asked himself if the horse even mattered in the equation. His customers may have wanted a good horse, but give them good speed, and frankly, my dear, they wouldn’t give a damn!

Now that’s one of the pioneer “out of the box” strategies. This way, you don’t give your customers what they want, but you surprise them with a better idea that not only solves the problem, but gives them an alternative that’s way better than what they wanted. By understanding what your customers really want, and not just focussing on their social networking updates, any company can build itself an extremely satisfied and loyal set of customers who will turn evangelists for your cause!

So are you brave enough to think beyond what your customers are asking for, and take the plunge to find a better alternative for them? If you want my opinion, I’d say go ahead and take a plunge. You know it’s worth it!

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Publishing in Buffalo? Or Custom Publishing in Bangalore?

Understanding the world of Custom Media and Outsourcing.  Is content outsourcing for the better, or for worse? It’s your call.

Last year, American president Barack Obama unveiled a new proposal to end tax breaks for American companies that shipped jobs overseas to countries like India, China, and the rest of South Asia. Many people cheered the move, but it was criticised by several others like the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times. Leaving the over-discussed fuss and the technicalities around the most hit sectors like BPO, let’s take a look at the world of media outsourcing.

Media outsourcing is definitely happening. And many articles that most Americans or people from other countries assume to be truly patriotic may actually be written from a time zone that’s five and a half hours ahead of GMT a.k.a. India. It’s been happening even before the term outsourcing was commonly used. In the world of media, we have a sugar-coated word to replace the word “outsourcing”. It’s called Freelancing. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full scale, well structured Bangalore based media house that is producing magazines for an American company or a few individuals who work in a common room. It’s always called Freelancing in media terms.

Every time I interact with a curious client outside of India, five times out of ten, the client’s wary of any prospective associations. Media jobs in India have a history of being tagged with low quality and suitable for nothing more than technical content or user manuals. But that’s all in the past. The new Indian media house is anything but inferior. Flip through the pages of any magazine published by a reputed media house in India, and big chances are, you’re going to be impressed. Let’s not get into talking about fly-by companies that are launched by regular writers who couldn’t hold on to their job in the first place, and decide to jump into the bandwagon of launching a media house. Of course, they suck! I’m talking about Indian companies where their publications or other media ventures do the talking.

If you’re a media professional in the UK or the USA and have cherished a dream of launching your own publication house, or if you’re the head of corporate communications for your company and want to launch a custom publication but don’t have the funds for a full blown team, what are you going to do about it?

Think outsourcing? For the price of a couple of good writers, you could have a glossy publication printed, published and delivered on schedule to your office, all the way from India. And not many people know the story but you. So is outsourced media publishing a good option to test the waters? One may disagree, keeping in mind the speculation about loss of prospective jobs within their own country. But think about it, if not for hushed-up custom content outsourcing, would some companies have launched their magazines or in-house publications in the first place? I think not.

And let’s not even get to talking about media houses that have been suffering due to the economic slowdown. Outsourcing of Custom Content from Bangalore may seem like a job-stealer. But in the long run, as a company grows, it inevitably has to create more job openings in its own country too. This has been discussed with respect to the BPO industry in several other blogs, but I couldn’t see too many pages about outsourcing and editorial content.

Editorial Content outsourcing has been happening for a while, and it is only going to increase in future. No more is the world a small place. With the advent of social media and networking, it’s no surprise to see a company based in London or New York with employees from all over the world, sitting at home in their pjs and working on a project.

But is it the right approach to having your own publication. Well, that thought, I’ll leave to you. To each their own!

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