WOULD YOU PAY FOR WATSONS MAGAZINE?
Watsons, the personal care specialist (using their own words) is launching a quarterly customer magazine called Glow. With a print run of 100,000 copies the publication will be distributed in Singapore, with plans to expand to China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand. In Singapore the magazine will have a cover price of S$2 (US$1.30) and be available exclusively in Watsons' stores.
My view is this project is doomed. Why should customers of Watsons (which is similar to Boots from the UK) be expected to pay for a customer magazine? You'd have to be a massive fan of the brand to want to do that, and I don't think there are many who would part with cash for a magazine when, for the same money, you could get an established fashion or beauty title.
Delish from Central Food Hall is the only serious customer magazine I get (you can tell where I do a lot of shopping) on a regular basis that's any good. It's informative and it's free. I wouldn't pay for it, but getting it free maintains the link with the brand. That's how customer magazines work.
NOTE: Edit made on 24/3 to amend the S$ price from S$12 to S2. This was a typing error. The US$ price is correct.
2 comments:
If the content is “solid”, $2 is not really that expensive relative to a lot of other fashion/beauty magazines currently on the market. Moreover, Watsons is an established name so I think the quality of the magazine should be quite good. I would definitely buy a copy to see what it’s all about especially since they carry quite a lot of health and beauty brands which I personally use.
Thanks so much for your comments PRC.
Watsons is good at what is does, so I wonder if they'll be using an equally good contract publishing company for this project? If they plan on doing it in-house (as other companies here do) it's not going to have the desired impact and could ultimately damage the brand image. (Anyone .. let me know if you want details of some good contract publishers in Thailand).
And yes, I agree that the magazine will likely include products which customers of Watsons will use and buy, but will it also include competitor products or products that are not stocked in the stores?
At least with one of the non-store centric health and beauty magazine you should get a complete overview of the market, but with so many established magazines already on the market it's really going to be a challenge to build a worthwhile number of readers. Just my opinion, and thanks for sharing yours.
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