Australian magazine Quadrant is facing a boycott from newsagents over an advertisement it carries in its latest issue.
The excellent Australian News Agency blog broke the story yesterday here and has follow-up today here. The controversial ad in the magazine simply says: "If you bought this magazine from a newsagent, you are missing out on such a lot. Subscribers get so much more."
Understandably newsagents in Australia are upset. Many have removed copies of the current edition from sale and have canceled future supplies. What turned out to be a simple subscriptions marketing exercise for the magazine could well cause severe problems.
Without this important sales channel most magazines would perish. That's true no matter where in the world you are.
I've noticed an increasing number of campaigns that are undertaken without thought to any repercussions. I'm not sure if it's the speed with which the campaigns are pressed through, or if it's simply a lack of experience. The idea of encouraging subscriptions over newsstand purchases is nothing new, but to put it in so blunt a way is telling, I think.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on how much profit a magazine typically makes from street sales.
ReplyDeleteIt's my understanding that only subscription sales are audited - and therefore relevant for setting advertising rates. So every newspaper/magazine publisher wants to boost subscriptions, even at the cost of losing street sales.
I assume, though, they didn't expect a 100% loss of street sales - from the boycott.
I am not certain in this case but from my experience it's all sales (news trade and subs) that are audited.
ReplyDeleteI think what this magazine has tried to do is make their sales more profitable. Sales through the news trade bring in less revenue than from a subscriber, plus publishers like to establish a relationship with their subscribers that will generate more income over time.
I think this publisher has been pretty silly in its approach, but the words they have used are probably similar to what a lot of publishers around the world are really thinking but don't dare to say openly. That's because the news trade is important for almost every magazine, both in terms of sales but also in terms of positioning and advertising. That's something those such as Mark at the Australian News Agency blog are very quick to point out, and something they are not compensated for.
And I agree totally with your thoughts that the publisher could not have imagined its poor attempt at subscriptions marketing would have such far-reaching ramifications.