MOBILE MAGAZINES NO PANACEA - BEWARE OF FOLLOW MY LEADER

Tumbling circulations in a number of sectors, covering men’s, teens and technical markets, point to a downward trend of interest in paid-for printed magazines.  For optimistic technophiles ‘going digital’ could be the solution. And increasingly, digital these days means embracing mobile platforms. The evolution of third generation mobile phones and the impressive rise of the iPad, with their versatile range of ‘apps’ have been uncritically accepted as signals of where the future lies for magazine publishing. 

Some innovators in the market have enjoyed encouraging early mobile subscriber numbers. Dennis Publishing have attracted promising iPad downloads for some of its digital-only brands such as iGizmo and Money. Elsewhere, tablet editions have fared less well indicating that it would be unwise to regard mobile technology as a panacea to the industry’s market woes.

Success stories and failures reveal that mobile magazines may suit some genres and their distinctive reader communities better than others. Playing ‘follow the leader’ whereby one publisher mimics another based on the latter’s personal experience with a particular technology platform could prove to be a problematic strategy. Instead, it is important to understand more about composition and ‘psychology’ of mobile technology markets and how they map on to specific magazine readership markets before adopting mobile as a publishing platform.

MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS AT THE TIPPING POINT

The recent (March 2011) online survey of around 200 professionals working in the magazine publishing sector commissioned by The Specialist Media Show revealed that nearly one in five (19%) said their companies already produce mobile content. According to classic ‘tipping point’ research, a critical mass of innovation adoption that could trigger dramatic mass adoption usually occurs at between 10% to 25% market penetration. Although the current survey did not randomly sample magazine publishers, if its findings are to be taken as indicative of the way the sector is moving, we already seem to be in the tipping point zone.

Further evidence that the tipping point effect could be about to happen was provided by the proportions of those questioned saying they would launch a mobile app within the next year (15%) or next few years (11%). Many (46%) remained undecided but few (6%) dismissed the idea outright.

IS THERE A MARKET AND HOW DO PUBLISHERS MAKE MONEY?

Among respondents with mobile apps in mind (59 in all), the iPhone and iPad (81% in each case) received the greatest endorsement, followed by the Android phone (63%) and Android tablet (49%).

Across the majority (n = 177) of respondents who answered, a significant minority (42%) said they were planning an edition for tablet or e-reader including iPad.

All these findings provide a clear indication therefore that much of the sector regards mobile apps as where their future lies. Two big questions in need of answers here are: [1] Is there a market out there for a mobile version of your magazine? [2] How can this product be monetised?

To answer these questions we need to turn to consumers themselves. The last Digital Entertainment Survey by Wiggin/Entertainment Media Research [www.entertainmentmediaresearch.com] which interviewed more than 1,500 respondents aged 15 and over. Their analysis indicated that an overwhelming majority (79%) of those questioned claimed that they currently or mainly read magazines in paper formats. Despite the expectations that going digital can enable you more effectively to capture the youth or young adult markets, the evidence here indicated need for a cautious optimism. Males aged 15 to 19 (16%) or 20 to 24 years (14%) were significantly ahead of the population average (8%) who mainly or only read magazines online, but they were alone in this respect. Even they were in the lower half of the tipping point zone in terms of digital magazine adoption.

When respondents were asked about willingness to pay for various forms of content, only a minority (15%) were willing to do so in the case of magazines that could be read on a mobile device, and that was when the cost of doing so was no more than 20p! In this respect mobile electronic magazines received slightly more widespread support than mobile electronic newspapers (13%).

CONSUMERS WANT PRINT AND DIGITAL; PUBLISHERS SHOULD HEDGE THEIR BETS

Turning to the future, consumers, regardless of their age or gender, seem to want the choice between hard copy and digital formats. Just over four in ten (43%) from the Digital Entertainment Survey said they only wanted to read paper magazines and a small minority (6%) wanted only digital magazines. The most popular option (for 46%) was to have paper magazines with the ability to access content online, including via a mobile device.

The best advice for the sector at present then is to hedge your bets and to embrace digital, but not totally at the expense of paper. The caveat that should be added to this conclusion is that the magazine sector is not a single market in terms of its defining demographics. Multiple genres serve multiple population sub-groups that probably vary also in their technology ownership profiles and application literacy. What the sector is sorely in need of is market research that can pinpoint more precisely where ‘going digital’ and ‘going mobile’ is the appropriate move for specific brands.

About the author: Barrie Gunter is Professor of Mass Communication and Head of the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester. 

The survey of 200 publishers was commissioned by the Specialist Media Show in partnership with PPA, InPublishing, University of Leicester and Wessenden Marketing.  

The full results will be presented at the Specialist Media Show Conference

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