September issues of fashion and style magazines are getting thinner. Compared to a year ago fashion magazines are losing from 3% to 18% of ad pages this fall. The Vogue viral case.
Till 2008 sixteen of the top style and beauty magazines issues were fed up with massive amount of glossy, well-paid, ads. Vogue was last year’s biggest with 725 ads pages and 4.9 pounds in September, but this year is a different story. Vogue is a great example of how decreasing ad spends are getting magazines on a diet: the all-important September issue has ‘only’ 674 pages of ads, 7% less than last year. It’s a global tendency that’s affecting many middle-market clothing and cosmetics firms that are paring back ad pages as a colling economy quiet their cash registers and as Internet opportunities allow more valuable shift spending. At this moment marketing executives facing 2009 aren’t optimistic about a turnaround in the number of advertising pages. Prices for one full-page ad can climb to $120,000, an amount that can discourage investors and that can hard-hit magazines for every missing page.
If magazines aim to acquire more attention from marketers, they nedd some fresh new ideas to prove to be still on track. Vogue Italia has taken the challenge: and won brilliantly. The editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, Franca Sozzani, decide to rock the boat, taking her risks, in a controversial way. She decided to create the July issue of the magazine featuring all black models, igniting a worldwide conversation. Let the numbers speak: the July issue of Vogue Italia is probably the most requested magazine in recent times, with 30,000 reprints in the US, 10,000 i the UK and 20,000 extra in Italy. Viral success cames from the use of Internet and social networs (as Facebook) to amplify a conversation about an issue, inspired by conversations surrounding Obama’s candidacy, that really engage people. At a time when magazine circulation is shrinking and ads sales are declining, Vogue showed how a great, and most important, engaging idea can turn upside-down market tendencies.
Maybe fashion magazines are losing some their well-paid ad pages, Internet is gainig attention day-by-day. Challenge is up and, at least for now, the ‘engaging idea’ is winning.
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August 17, 2008 at 6:38 pm
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