Adapt to dynamic & emerging scenario, says experts at IMC 2013

The recent Indian Magazine Congress 2013 saw a presence of media professionals from around the world and speakers contributed their ideas/ expertise wholeheartedly. The theme of the two day conference  this year was “New Directions, New Opportunities’, speakers & panelists spoke about new ways of generating revenues and Return on Investments (ROI) for the magazines, new sustainable business models in the face of rapid digital growth, need of multimedia platforms and digital space, engaging consumers & better leveraging of resources / opportunities by the magazine industry.

Adgully spoke with several of these media stalwarts to find out what they feel should be done to make the Indian Magazine Industry robust in the new digital era. Present herewith are a few insights by them.

According to CVL Srinivas, CEO, South Asia, GroupM, magazines need to change their mindset and start selling engagement instead of selling advertisements. “It should get repositioned as an engagement medium and focus on what is relevant to capture audiences,” says Srinivas. It has been found that although magazines had high trust factors, their revenues were flat and they 

came at number six. The opportunities to leverage the medium are high therefore. He further said, "we need to leverage magazines through social media platforms and create a buzz. The growth area is to move from passive to active communities.”

On the other hand, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, India & South East Asia, Aegis Group Plc enumerated key steps which would help magazines grow in the new era. They are playing according to one’s strengths, innovations and engagement. This will help change the entire dynamics he opined. He said, “magazines need to work in partnership with different distribution patterns and develop a new ecosystem. They need to play to a strategy and take competitors & collaborators along with them.” Given the fact that magazines have only 4 per cent of the ad pie, individual titles need to fight for the medium as a whole, instead of cutting each other down and snatching advertisement through rate cutting etc. Instead of fighting for the same dollar, magazines can increase the number of dollars by collaborating with competition.

The advertising biggie, Sam Balsara, CMD Madison World felt that magazines need to experiment more to gain more in the future. Media should be bought keeping in mind the output that it can generate for brands. He suggested a few action points for the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM). These are “conducting studies on impact of multimedia on different categories to measure ROI when magazines are added to TV; developing case studies on impact of use on magazines advertising on actual sales and working closely with advertising agencies on exploring ways of creatively using digital media to promote magazines."

From a standpoint of the consumer, Balsara pointed out that reading a magazine was an active activity, while viewing TV was considered to be a passive activity. And therefore, a combination of TV with magazines should be more frequently used in media plans. He further said that while the TV-magazine combination was effective, it was important to schedule them together, and not one after the other.

Ambika Srivastava, Chairperson, ZenithOptimedia and Vivaki Exchange stressed on keeping the focus intact on content creation. She said, "magazines work very well in guiding the consumer in making a purchase decision, be it automobiles, travel or food. Content plays a critical role, if you look at it from the long term point of view. While you may want to try various things to generate more ROI, one must not take the focus away from content." As for the advertising sales part of the business, she said that magazines should look beyond cover pages, double spreads and full page ads.

Whereas the first day of the session focused on multimedia platforms and new business models for magazine media, the second day stressed upon diverse topics like licensing and ROI. IMC 2013 ended on fair note. Now it’s time for marketers and publishers to act upon new ideologies to leverage the magazine industry.