What’s Print Media’s Golden Ticket? A Reverse Engineered New Product.

Publication networks like Conde Naste are the pinnacle of experiential media and advertising. But, they are selling the wrong product.

The severing of Conde Nast’s Gourmet magazine title (among others) was a brash reality check to the entrenched media industry leaders, oblivious to all prior warnings, that NOW is time to adapt or become extinct!

The shift to online (at least partially), combined with a reduction in journalist staff and increased content aggregation, is the new operating model being implemented to streamline publication, capitalize on the shift to social media, and dramatically cut costs. However, while lean operations and cost cutting are immediately necessary, very few are tackling the REAL elephant in the room: How to decouple oneself from the sinking ship of advertising and adopt a new (read: better) revenue model? The answer . . . ?

Reverse engineer the experience of a magazine into a better product. I’ll explain.

The use of Experiential Advertising, the marketing of a product or brand through an experience rather than the placement of advertisements, in selling products is nothing new. Companies like Red Bull have perfected the art by sponsoring alternative athletes and lifestyles, creating proprietary events like Red Bull’s Flugtag (check out the footage from the last event in Chicago here), and transforming its website into a blog (cite: RazorFish FEED). All done in the name of creating a brand experience that intimately connects with their customers, and, ultimately, sells a butt load of products.

Now, apply this same idea to the arena of media publication. Pick up a copy of Conde Nast Traveler or Food and Wine Magazine and hop aboard a 200 page scuba diving trip through the South Pacific’s Micronesian islands or on a backcountry bike and food tour along Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Dive head first into stories that tug at your emotions for adventure, romance, and food. Now, if that is not the pinnacle of experiential media and advertising, then I don’t know what is.

Flip the idea of experiential branding on it’s head and work backwards. These publications have the branding and customer experience, now they need a product to sell that directly correlates with the brand experience they’ve created.

For example, take the online blog network Sugarinc.com, which includes the blogs PopSugar (celebrity gossip), FabSugar (fashion), LilSugar (mothering), etc — all edited and designed with 28-year-old women in mind. In 2007, Sugarinc.com acquired the shopping e commerce platform ShopStyle as a way to offer its readers the exact clothing and styling options that Sugar’s articles discussed. In turn, it developed a revenue platform that enhanced the brand and user experience already created by the content – a perfect marriage.

Media publishers are sitting on the golden ticket of experiential advertising. If they can only pick their heads out of the sands for long enough to realize it, they may find some interesting revenue alternatives by developing their own new products.

More on this topic to come in the future . . .