Coverage: MPA's Magazines 24/7: Leveraging Consumer Magazine Brands in the Digital Age

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Coverage: MPA's Magazines 24/7: Leveraging Consumer Magazine Brands in the Digital Age

By Kim Mateus, Managing Editor Mequoda Daily and Library

Two hundred magazine professionals attended "Magazines 24/7: Leveraging Consumer Magazine Brands in the Digital Age," a sold-out conference hosted by the Magazine Publishers of America at the American Conference Center in New York City on December 8, 2005. The event was geared toward identifying ways that magazines can embrace the power of emerging digital technologies. Due to overwhelming demand, the event was also offered as a live webcast, which is still available for purchase.

Opening Remarks

Nina Link, president and CEO of the MPA, opened the conference by saying that the event had been sold out for almost a month, which is very indicative of the intense interest in this subject. She mentioned that all attendees, including those watching the webcast, were a part of history.

She said that while magazines have been involved in the digital media for a decade, this event is the first dedicated exclusively to leveraging consumer magazine brands in the digital age. She highlighted a number of important reasons for putting on this event. One was to showcase the work of those magazine publishers who are digital leaders and the accomplishments their magazines have had on digital platforms. Another was to listen to people who are one step outside the magazine industry talk about new ventures magazine publishers should be exploring.

She made clear that magazines are part of this digital revolution. "Ad dollars are falling into our buckets, eyeballs are glued to our websites," said Link. She also noted that as a logical extension of their brands, digital platforms will allow them to touch their readers every minute of every day and every day of every week. "In other words… magazines 24/7," said Link.

Her sentiments echoed what was first felt at the American Magazine Conference held in October of 2005 in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

What Does Digital 2.0 Mean for Magazine Brands?

The keynote speaker was John Battelle, founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing and author of The Search. Battelle spoke about the dominance of a search-driven world and how magazines, with their authoritative content, have a huge advantage. "I think magazines are reaching a new phase," said Battelle.

Seizing the Moment: Emerging Digital Technologies

Katherine Sayre, vice president of Boston Consulting Group said the new digital age is a tremendous opportunity to bond with the consumer. She stressed the importance of leveraging magazines' combined strengths: content, community interests and their strong relationships with advertisers.

How Search is Changing the 5 Year Plan

Michael Smith, general manager of Forbes.com, Lauren Wiener, vice president of Merideth Interactive, Bob Carrigan, president of IDG Communication and Jeff Jarvis, blogger of Buzzmachine.com (moderator) presented a panel titled "How Search is Changing the 5-year Plan." Carignan of IDG compared visitor behavior online to "speed dating" and how through relevant links and related content they have been able to keep a longer relationship with visitors. Carignan also noted that seventy to eighty percent of site visitors are going into article pages from searches, stressing the importance of treating every page as a home page, 'pathing' users from an article page with lots of relevant content to draw them further into the site. Smith of Forbes.com highlighted the video his site has produced and how they have multiple production studios, producers and bookers to support the demand.

(For more information on SEO, see Peter A. Schaible's How to Start and Run an SEO Program. For more information on IDG publications, see Jane E. Zarem's PC World Internet Marketing Case Study and Terri Edmonston's ComputerWorld.com Website Design Review and for more information on Forbes.com see Don Nicholas' Forbes.com Internet Hub Case Study.)

Translating Your Voice

Merrill Brown, former editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com, and Founder and Principal of MMB Media, LLC (moderator), Jaime Pallot, editorial director of CondeNet, Todd Anderman, president of Dennis Digital and Paul Fichtenbaum, managing editor of SI.com presented a panel titled "Translating Your Voice." Anderman said, "If you look at the fastest growing websites (eBay, Google, MySpace and FaceBook), they're not beautiful, they're functional. The user is in control."

(For more information on creating functional websites, see Designing User-Friendly Websites with the Mequoda Website Design Scorecard.)

A Step Ahead: What We Can Learn About Wireless from Other Areas

Nihal Mehta, CEO of Ipsh! (Instant Power Single Handed) called America the sleeping giant compared to Europe and Asia in terms of wireless advancement. He claimed America is finally waking up though, as there are now 200 million mobile phone users in the U.S and by 2009, U.S. mobile handset users will generate 49.8 billion SMS (Short Message Service) messages and 4.4 billion MMS (Multimedia Message Service) messages. Mehta also noted that mobile subscribers will steadily increase to 212 million in 2009, representing 69 percent of the U.S. population.

Magazines—The Hot New Medium

The luncheon keynote was delivered by Chief Sales Officer Wenda Millard of Yahoo!. Millard, reflecting on her experiences as a mother of an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter said, "We've gone from an era of mass media to my media—we're reaching these kids with IM, television, catalogs, magazines… but reach is not enough. It has to be about connection, " said Millard. "Engagement is everything… Web and magazines seem to create more engagement and impact when used together."

Final Thoughts

The messages delivered here were loud and clear: magazines, backed by their powerful brands, are in a perfect position to harness the power of emerging digital technologies. As Link noted in her opening remarks, magazines are already naturally viral. They're already a targeted medium with content that can be easily re-configured for the Web. We knew it'd only be a matter of time before they caught on and we are undoubtedly excited to document their progress.

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