Magazine sales suffer from the hard cell - Shift to digital...
February 7, 2013 8:46 pm
Magazine sales suffer from
the hard cell
By Emily Steel in New York
It is a scene playing out
in supermarkets across the world: a consumer waits to pay and, instead of
browsing the magazines and chewing gum displayed alongside, she pulls out her
mobile phone for a quick digital distraction.
US magazine executives
call the habit the “mobile blinder” after the vision-narrowing headgear worn by
racehorses, and say the trend is wreaking havoc on the industry.
Data released on Thursday
show a big decline in single-copy sales of US magazines at newsstands and
retail outlets, amid increased digital competition and reduced retail space.
Single-copy sales fell 9.5 per cent to about 26.7m in 2012 from the previous
year, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. That is about half the 52.9m
magazines sold on newsstands a decade ago.
The trend is even more
pronounced for the women’s, fashion, sex and celebrity gossip titles prominent
displayed in supermarket and drugstore checkout aisles. Cosmopolitan, which has
the highest single-copy sales of all US magazines, saw single-copy sales plunge
18.5 per cent to 1.2m in the second half of 2012. People, In Touch Weekly, US
Weekly, Glamour and Star Magazine all reported double-digit declines in
single-copy sales for the period.
“We do find a number of
people, if stalled for a minute, will steal a look at their email or news
feed,” said David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, which publishes
Cosmopolitan and 19 other magazine titles in the US. “Everyone that has
products at checkouts has to battle for consumer attention.”
Chewing gum and other
impulse buys are facing the same “mobile blinder”.
“Just think about your own
behaviour. Even when you walk up to pay, you barely look up,” said Bonin Bough,
vice-president of global media and consumer engagement at Mondelez, which sells
Trident, Chicklets and Stride chewing gums.
Publishers are trying to
combat “mobile blinders” by jazzing up their print magazine covers with
attention-grabbing digital features and placing copies in different areas of a
store. Cosmopolitan put a digital QR code on its September cover, tempting
consumers to scan the code each day for a surprise deal.
Hearst also recently
conducted a promotion with Diet Coke to feature Cosmopolitan beside it in
stores.
Mondelez, meanwhile, is
trying to capture shoppers’ attention on mobile phones by launching marketing
promotions with location-enabled mobile applications, including Waze, In Market
and Kiip.
“Studies show that devices
are impacting impulse purchases and in some cases even have the power to
influence,” Mr Bough said.
Single-copy sales are
considered a pulse of health for the magazine industry because they best
reflect consumer demand. Publishers are not able to prop up the numbers, as
they can with subscription figures by offering cheap deals.
A portion of the decline
is offset by an uptick in digital subscriptions. The average number of digital
magazines sold more than doubled in the second half of 2012 compared with the
same period the previous year.
But while growing quickly,
the 7.9m digital editions were just 2.4 per cent of the industry’s total
average circulation. Total paid and verified circulation for US magazines in
the second half of the year was flat, down 0.3 per cent.
The news comes amid
another blow to the print magazine business. The US Postal Service announced on
Wednesday that it was ending first-class mail delivery service on Saturdays.
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