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Nearly 300 magazine industry executives, digital leaders and media professionals filled the ballroom of the Marriott New York Marquis on March 3, 2009, to attend the fifth "Magazines 24/7" digital conference. The one-day event, produced by Magazine Publishers of America, routinely brings together a stellar lineup of thought leaders, digital pioneers, Internet and mobile executives, journalists,and representatives from all sides of the magazine business. The event was chaired by Meredith Interactive Media SVP Lauren Wiener.
In addition, the third annual MPA Digital Awards were announced during a special luncheon ceremony. Kate Maxwell, Senior Editor at Condé Nast Traveler and star of the brand's online videos (pictured right) presented the awards. Click here to view the ceremony photo gallery.
Following are highlights from the "Magazines 24/7" sessions.
Conference Welcome
Lauren Wiener, SVP, Meredith Interactive and 2009 Conference Chairperson (pictured left), welcomed attendees to the magazine industry's premier digital event. Nina Link, President & CEO of MPA (pictured right), announced new data on magazine website traffic and time spent during her opening remarks. (The official press release on the new data is available here.)
Keynote Speaker: Rethinking Decision-Making in a 2.0 World
MPA's fifth annual digital conference kicked off Tuesday morning with an address from Avinash Kaushik, Google's Analytics Evangelist and the author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day.
While conducting research for his talk, Kaushik noticed that most magazine sites are dominated by advertising, subscription requests and navigation, and not by content. Kaushik also noted that free content can generate income since his book has been developed from content that he publishes on his blog. He noted that the web offers myriad analytic opportunities. "You can track everything," he said, but it is crucial to understand how to use that information. Most things measure what a user is doing online, but it is far more valuable to understand why the consumer is behaving a certain way. "The gold is understanding your consumer," he said. And that can be done by looking at analytics in unconventional ways.
He also informed attendees that the currently accepted metrics are quickly becoming passé and that publishers need to find new ways to measure their audiences in order to help themselves deliver better content and provide their advertisers with more useful information.
The "Hits" metric, for example, he said humorously, is an acronym for “How Idiots Track Success” while the Bounce Rate metric—"the sexiest metric on earth," he said—translates to "I came, I puked, I left."
He warned publishers from employing the "selfish lover strategy" of focusing on getting the user to just do one thing: subscribe or click on advertising or anything else. "The key is developing a long-term relationship with the person on the other end of the computer," he said. "Not just getting one thing out of them."
The use of analytics can help publishers understand customer behavior but also what people actually want to see, and that can change the way a site works from both the advertising and editorial perspective.
Most important, he noted, is to keep on testing and don't just take the opinion of the "highest-paid person in the room." He pointed out that publishers aren't always open to this. "You have to learn to be wrong," he said. "It's a gift."
On his own website, Kaushik can quantify every click on the site. "This is not all direct revenue to the site," he said, but that revenue can be tracked back to the work he does online. The key, he says, is to use the site to inspire irrational loyalty. "Ads and subs aren't enough to save your business," he said. "Irrational loyalty is."
Raising the Digital Bar in a Down Economy
(l-r) Carley Roney, The Knot; John Loughlin, Hearst Magazines; Roger Neal, BusinessWeek.com; and moderator Cyndi Stivers, EW.com
Cyndi Stivers, EW.com's Managing Editor, moderated the first panel discussion at this year’s “Magazines 24/7.” She was joined by panelists Roger Neal, SVP and General Manager of BusinessWeek.com; John Loughlin, EVP and General Manager of Hearst Magazines; and Carley Roney, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Knot.
For Roney, digital remains the center of her business, even though the site also has a national publication and 17 regional magazines with eighty percent of the company's revenue coming from digital.
Hearst took its titles online in 2006 and has climbed from 2 million unique users at the start to more than 20 million uniques. Loughlin mentioned that Hearst's digital business will have 30 percent growth in the first quarter. In light of the recession, Hearst has become more aggressive about outsourcing any back-end jobs that need to be done offshore. "It's forced more creativity," he said.
Roney said the Knot is embracing the concept of user-generated content. "We're not a magazine company," she said. "We're a content company. We aggregate people and connect them with advertisers and content and to one another."
As far as what advertisers want from online, Loughlin said the main thing he is hearing at this point is "engagement," while Roney says advertisers want to be "deeply integrated." She said, "We're trying to come up with new solutions for them. It's a constant battle because the agencies have a lot of power now. They know we need their money."
Loughlin warned publishers about using large analytic networks because once those are automated, it will have a deflationary effect. "Unless you have very deep pockets, you're vulnerable," he said.
Neal agreed: "As things change, it can hurt the value of those kinds of networks. If our brands are visible and viable, we should be OK."
WWW: What Works Well - National GeographicA series of interstitials that put a spotlight on successful case studies.
Chris Mate, VP, Games and Interactive Entertainment, National Geographic Society, chronicled the growth of gaming as a revenue stream.
Mate noted that gaming is growing faster than any other medium and is expected to rise 15 percent between 2008 and 2012. National Geographic started to develop games five years ago and has seen significant return on its investment.
The first of its games were mostly linked to National Geographic films, such as March of the Penguins. The company has continued to expand since then, with such games as an interactive photojournalist safari that includes content from the magazine and website and allows for the use of National Geographic's huge photo library. "The magazine is constantly in the game," which, according to Mate, is played mostly by 14-34 year olds.
The company has made games for a wide variety of age ranges and recently entered the casual game space with “Herod's Lost Tomb.” National Geographic allows people to play the game online for one hour for free and then charges. The game has been downloaded more than three million times and more than 100,000 users have paid to play it.
Another source of revenue with these games involve sponsorship opportunities.
Mate's recommendation to publishers is to remember that publishing isn't about print, it's about content, and that they should know their brand's core attributes and be open to delivering new user experiences and engage new audiences.
Are Paid Sites the New Black?
(l-r) Moderator Jim Cooper, Adweek Media; MaryAnn Bekkedahl, Rodale Inc.; Gary Hoenig, ESPN Publishing; and Hank Boye, Harvard Business Review
With the recession in full swing, paid sites are beginning to re-appear. Moderator Jim Cooper, Executive Editor of Adweek Media, led a discussion of the subject. Joining him were MaryAnn Bekkedahl, EVP and Group Publisher at Rodale Inc.; Hank Boye, Publisher of Harvard Business Review; and Gary Hoenig, General Manager and Editorial Director of ESPN Publishing.
Hoenig noted that publishers aren't left with much of a choice at this point. ESPN charges for some content on its website, calling subscribers “Insiders” and giving them access to special content and events. "If content isn't worth anything to the consumer, we have an ongoing problem," he said. Rodale charges for some content as well, for an ongoing services such as a weight tracker or fitness-goal tracker. Bekkedahl also noted that Rodale has more success having users pay for content when it is packaged with an actual product: a DVD, a book, etc. "But that service better be good, because that's what they're coming back for," she said.
Boye said he has some specialized higher-end content that is paid for, but a sticking point is setting price points and figuring out the logistics of payment.
Another issue Bekkadahl has faced is how to sell it to advertisers. "Even if you have 60,000 people who will pay for content and you have them gathered in one spot and paying $15 a month, that number is too small for many big advertisers," she said.
Print vs. Web: The Editorial Challenge
(l-r) Goeff Reiss, Newsweek Digital; Paul Maidment, Forbes; Gail Glickman Horwood, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; and moderator Jacob Weisberg, The Slate Group
Jacob Weisberg, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of The Slate Group, started off a spirited discussion by asking panelists—Gail Glickman Horwood, SVP, Programming and Strategy at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; Geoff Reiss, General Manager of Newsweek Digital; and Paul Maidment, Editor of Forbes – why magazines haven't been more effective online.
Maidment noted that a problem is that magazine publishers still fail to realize that what they're producing is not a magazine and that publishers need to be more comfortable giving the audience whatever it needs and wherever it needs it. "It's taken too long for us to realize this," he said.
Horwood said publishers need to spend more time understanding their online audience as opposed to their print counterparts. "They can be really different," she said. "They're not both looking for the same thing. We have to let go of what is essential about your brand and how that translates to a different medium. Each medium has its own audience, and the answers to those questions are in the data from your website."
Weisberg said his company's biggest advantage is that it is solely online and that he doesn’t need to think about print. He's noticed when talking to publishers that print is always the priority because that's what publishers know and that's where the revenue has been. Maidment pointed out that this equation needed to change. "You need to invert the two," he said, with online becoming the priority.
All three panelists agreed that when editors work in the online world, they will find themselves in the room with the sales side much more often than when working in print. "It's an everyday collaborative process," said Horwood. "The common goal is to serve the audience."
All three panelists also predicted that their titles would be still printing in 10 years. Weisberg predicted that his would still only be online.
WWW: What Works Well - Condé NastA series of interstitials that put a spotlight on successful case studies.
Josh Stinchcomb, Executive Director at Condé Nast Digital Media/Business Group, walked publishers through one of his company's recent digital successes. In order to help combat the poor economy, Condé Nast is breaking down the silos between its different properties to help bring a larger ROI.
Stinchcomb noted that it costs $2,000 on average to make a video for the web, and it would take 40,000 hits for the video to break even. So the more distribution points it can attain, the easier it will be to break even.
Wired and Portfolio recently joined together to create a website for a project sponsored by Microsoft. From the material online, the two entities published content in both magazines that was sponsored by Microsoft. And finally, in partnership with the company's Golf Digest, Microsoft took some of its clients and representatives of Portfolio and Wired on a golf outing. "We're planning to do much more of that," Stinchcomb said.
Keynote Speaker: Three Digital Things You Need to Know Now
Domenic Venuto, SVP, Media Entertainment at Razorfish, closed out the morning session with "Three Digital Things You Need to Know Now." He said that brand survival depends on the ability to adapt and adopt the trends he has identified for the next six to twelve months, which include:
1. Aggregate or be aggregated. "If you don't do it, you'll be aggregated and move further down the food chain," Venuto said.
Examples of effective aggregators include The New York Times, Hulu.com and alltop.com. The Times aggregates external news sources about the stories that its reporters are writing about and also provides topic pages that bring together all of the stories the Times has written about a subject as well as links to outside sources. Alltop gathers headlines about any subject a reader seeks and provides them to the consumer while Hulu aggregates video content. "Hulu changed the landscape," Venuto said. "It proved that people will watch advertising-supported content on their computers." Venuto pointed out that there are many opportunities for magazine publishers to aggregate while also creating original content.
2. Data is the new creative. Venuto said publishers are sitting on goldmines of information, particularly if the publisher has a unified customer database that's been combined with offline data as well. Such companies as Google and Microsoft are seriously interested in data analytics at this juncture because it can help explain customer behavior.
3. Social influence marketing. In this term that Razorfish has trademarked, Venuto sees many opportunities for publishers, particularly since many consumers make choices due to peer influence. Venuto gave CNN's iReport as an example of this as well as a function on BusinessWeek's website that allows the user to add information about a topic.
Keynote Interview: MySpace
Jeff Berman, MySpace, with Jessi Hempel, Fortune
The afternoon sessions of “Magazines 24/7” got underway with Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing at MySpace, interviewed by Fortune writer Jessi Hempel.
Berman, once Chief Counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer, considered MySpace different from other social networking sites because it is much more about content than others he had experienced.
He gave a quick rundown of user statistics:
• Users of the site spend about 4.5 hours on MySpace each month• 76 million U.S. users each month• 50-55 million users worldwide each month• 85 percent of users are over 18• Roughly 50 percent of users are over 34• 40 percent of all U.S. moms online visit every month
The latter stat, he says, came as a surprise to MySpace, but he could see why that would happen: Short on time, MySpace moms use the site to post pictures of their kids and connect with friends that they're not able to see in quite the same way they once did.
One important element to any relationship with MySpace is the amount of customer-behavior data the site can deliver since it has so many users. Berman defined three different ways magazine publishers could use MySpace:
WWW: What Works Well - Meredith CorporationA series of interstitials that put a spotlight on successful case studies.
Dan Hickey, VP of Digital Content for Meredith Corporation, gave attendees a rundown on the company's first foray into social networking: mixingbowl.com. The site's name cost Meredith $5,000, but Hickey thinks the brand will be priceless.
It only launched in January of this year but it has been growing rapidly with 85,000 members, 2,000 submitted recipes and 200 members groups so far.
"The whole idea is to make social discovery and interaction easy," Hickey said. "Discover other groups, discover recipes, other people, information. Every twist and turn is about discovery on the site."
Hickey noted that mixingbowl lets users personalize their space and give themselves creative names such as Count Spatula, Fear of Frying and Betty Rocker.
He recommends when building such a site to have like-minded folks on staff and to really try to foster a relationship with the most active members of the site, which he called the "passionistas."
"These are the people starting conversations, submitting recipes, starting groups," he said. "You really have to spend a lot of energy and time reaching out to the community." Meredith also has two people on staff who are the in-house “passionistas,” answering all emails and reaching out to users.
What Advertisers Want
(l-r) Moderator Jacki Kelley, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; Jordan Bitterman, Digitas; James Kiernan, Mediavwest Worldwide; and Stacey Deziel, MediaCom Interaction
A question that is always on publishers’ minds is what do advertisers want. Three members of the media-buying community joined moderator Jacki Kelley, EVP, Media at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, to discuss the topic at MPA’s digital conference. The panelists included Jordan Bitterman, SVP, Media, Marketing and Content at Digitas; Stacey Deziel, Managing Partner, Director of Client Services at MediaCom Interaction; and James Kiernan, VP, Group Client Director at MediaVest Worldwide.
Two things the media buyers agreed on were that they weren't seeing enough integrated proposals from publishers and that what they want is more data deciphered in clear and different ways.
Kiernan noted that some may be afraid to make a creative leap and suggested that publishers use some of their smaller properties as an incubator to test out new programs. Deziel said publishers should know what metric they are measuring before going into a program. "What are you trying to communicate with it?" she asked.
Kiernan recommended that publishers remain open to working with former competitors as well as social networks.
Meanwhile, Bitterman suggested that publishers not forget that they are successful because of excellent content. "It doesn't have to be all about video and other tools," he said. "The future of your brand has to do with what consumers are consuming now. You really have to pay attention to what people want."
The three also agreed that the age of mobile devices has arrived but that there is still work to be done to figure out how that can be used as a marketing delivery system.
Monetize Your Brand's Authority
(l-r) Carolyn Bekkedahl, Mochila; Eric Patterson, GamePro Media; Nancy Hallberg, The Parenting Group; and moderator Bill Stump, menshealth.com
The question of how to monetize magazine brands was discussed by moderator Bill Stump, VP, Brand Editor and Editor of menshealth.com, with panelists Carolyn Bekkedahl, President and Chief Revenue Officer of Mochila; Nancy Hallberg, Chief Strategy Officer for The Parenting Group; and Eric Patterson, VP of Marketing at GamePro Media.
Hallberg chronicled how Parenting.com had built a shopping site just before the holidays that included editors' recommendations and the ability to click and buy the items directly, with the back end being handled by Amazon.com. "It was simply a shortcut to navigate the sea of options," she said.
Patterson noted that gaming is going through a design revolution that allows many people the ability to express themselves through game design. So his company set up a space to serve as a promotional platform for young designers to market their work.
Meanwhile, Bekkedahl's Mochila serves as a platform for the distribution of content, taking it from one place (such as a few IDG titles) and placing it somewhere else (such as the technology page of Chicago Tribune online). "It builds up traffic and potential for both entities," she said, since it allows for IDG to sell to national advertisers and for the Tribune to get a cut of those dollars. Her company also makes widgets to help companies distribute their content.
The key, the three agreed, was providing quality content. Without that, there would be nothing to monetize. "For a user, a trusted content brand is huge," said Bekkedahl. Hallberg pointed out that relevance and transparency are important factors as well.
Next Big Thing in Mobile for Magazines
(l-r) Sophia Stuart, Hearst Magazines Digital Media; Edward Lang, Playboy Media Group; Richard Glosser, Condé Nast Digital; Simeen Mohsen, InStyle.com; and moderator Bruch Upbin, Forbes
“Magazines 24/7” closed up Tuesday looking toward the future with a session entitled "Next Big Thing in Mobile for Magazines." The conversation, led by moderator Bruce Upbin, Managing Editor of Forbes, ranged from disseminating fashion tips to distributing video. Panelists included Richard Glosser, Executive Director of Emerging Media at Condé Nast Digital; Edward Lang, SVP and General Manager, Mobile and International Online at Playboy Media Group; Simeen Mohsen, Director of Business Operations at InStyle.com; and Sophia Stuart, Executive Director, Mobile, Hearst Magazines Digital Media.
Mohsen chronicled how Time Inc. is building up its core properties on the mobile front. People.com is focused on breaking news and video. Users can also text to get information on clothing in certain sections of the printed magazine.
Glosser said that his group's focus is on creating iPhone applications and optimizing its websites for smartphones. "For us, the success of our apps confirmed that the iPhone isn't just a text device but a lifestyle device," he said. He says Condé Nast tries to take the essence of a site, such as Style.com, and place it online by including a slide show from a fashion show during Fashion Week. Meanwhile, Wired has an application that allows users to check out a slew of gadgets on their iPhones.
Lang said that Playboy has had "robust downloading" to mobile devices worldwide. One thing it tried in 2008 that found success was an online show, filming short episodes about what it was like to be an intern at Playboy. Shows had sponsorships from advertisers and exposed viewers to other parts of the Playboy environment they might not have been privy to. The show has had more than a million views.
Meanwhile, all of Hearst's different properties used mobile differently, whether it was providing a recipe of the day, photographs from fashion runways or travel information.
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