Flare publisher Melissa Ahlstrand says the publication’s decision to stop selling newsstand copies is part of a strategy to better target millennial audiences, and does not signal a retreat from print.
“We determined that we are really targeting a millennial audience – a younger, fashionable, smart [and] cool girl – and in an effort to do that we thought ‘Where do we need to focus our energies and does newsstand make the most sense when we’re thinking about that target?’” said Ahlstrand, group publisher, fashion and beauty, for Flare, Hello! Canada and Cosmetics at Rogers Communications.
The most recent Alliance for Audited Media (AAM) report showed Flare with newsstand sales of 2,658 for the six months ended June 30, accounting for approximately 2.8% of its total paid circulation of nearly 96,000. Single copy sales were down sharply, from 7,719 in the year-earlier reporting period.
Ahlstrand said Flare’s single copy sales are currently hovering around 1,800 per month, less than 2.5% of overall circulation.
“That small quantity, coupled with our objective to reach younger readers – who let’s face it, are not regular newsstand buyers – [created] a lot of questions for us,” said Ahlstrand. “Our solution is to move away from newsstand and invest in other forms of print distribution that just make more sense.”
She said specifics around these new distribution tactics would be announced later this month, but Flare owner Rogers Communications plans to distribute 150,000 print copies of the fashion title in 2016, all specifically targeted to millennial audiences in key urban markets.
“We will be creating brand experiences around this distribution that are multi-platform, unique and exciting,” she said. The publication also plans to create advertising opportunities specific to these copies.
Ahlstrand said preliminary discussions with Flare’s key advertising partners have been “quite positive,” particularly as the publication adopts a more collaborative approach to advertising built around so-called “content partnerships.”
“We see this as a way to get even more creative, whether with those clients or new clients,” said Ahlstrand. “We’ve done quite a few of them this year, and we’re getting pretty good at it.”
She said next year’s print run actually represents a slight increase over this year. “We’re making a big investment in it,” she said. “It’s not like we’ve made the newsstand decision for cost-cutting [reasons].”
The moves do not impact Flare’s more than 42,000 print subscribers, which Ahlstrand said remain a “vital and important” aspect of the magazine’s business.
In September, Flare introduced what Ahlstrand characterized as a “very slight” redesign featuring slightly different fonts and an increased reliance on photography, all conceived with a “digital-first” mindset. “We know that people are seeing us more on their phones and their tablets, and we want it be a seamless experience across all of our platforms,” she said.
A glance at the recent AAM numbers indicates declining newsstand sales are not specific to Flare. St. Joseph Communications’ Fashion saw its single copy sales fall to 3,814 from 5,426 (a 29.7% decline) in the past year, while Elle Canada’s newsstand sales fell to 6,340 from 7,079 a year ago (-10.4%).
It is a similar story among U.S. fashion titles, with Vogue’s newsstand sales in the first six months of 2015 falling to 163,000 from 203,000 last year, and Glamour’s dropping to 178,283 from 222,967.
Douglas Knight, president of St. Joseph Communications, media group, told Marketing his company has no plans to stop producing a newsstand edition of Fashion, noting year-over-year newsstand sales (September 2014 to September 2015) are up 3.5% to just under 4,500.
Knight said he doesn’t foresee the Rogers decision portending a broader industry trend. “It’s interesting that Rogers decided to do this with one title, so the question might be ‘Will Rogers make this a trend?’ Would they ever consider doing something like this with a major title like Maclean’s?”
While newsstand sales have not traditionally been key to overall circulation figures in Canada, Knight said a newsstand presence remains vital as a form of “outdoor advertising,” exposing a magazine to potential new readers who might be attracted by a particular cover story.
“It’s a reminder and an awareness tool that is hard to measure in hard dollar business terms, but in softer communications terms, everyone has looked at newsstand presence that way,” he said.
Flare has what Ahlstrand characterized as a “robust” following on various social media channels, and “amped up” social and web plans for 2016.
Marketing and MarketingMag.ca are also owned by Rogers.
Interesting…Marketing says newsstand sales for Fashion are down 29% while St Joseph Communications says year-over-year Fashion’s newsstand sales are up 3.5%? Who is right?
Monday, November 09 @ 3:21 pm |