Ingenious magazine on a bottle
from Good Thinking (391 articles)
Ingenious magazine on a bottle
Image Gallery ( 11 images )January 21, 2006 The media mix is about to have a new and very viable form of print publishing – on-product magazines will hit the market for the first time in early 2006 and we suspect this innovation is capable of changing the world of print media as we know it. The concept of on-product magazines first came to Joanna Wojtalik while she was studying in the final year of a marketing course just two years ago. The idea was simple – create a small (in the first instance this will be an A7 - 74 x 105 mm) magazine which fits onto a fast moving consumer product and distribute via grocery rather than traditional magazine channels. Joanna’s idea is now patented and will launch in January as the first on-product magazine - a bottled water aimed at the female market with iLove magazine attached and will be joined in Q2 by a magazine for children and a magazine aimed at men on Iced Coffee. Distribution will be focused through convenience stores, supermarkets and gas stations, significantly differentiating the products that carry them and offering advertisers a circulation far in excess of magazines sold through traditional magazine distribution channels. By March, iLove magazine will be the largest circulation magazine in Australia and the company has global aspirations, holding patents for on-product magazines attached to all common food packaging formats.
Print was the first mass medium, the first medium to take advertising, and still commands more than 50% of the world’s advertising expenditure despite the advances of radio, television, outdoor and more recently the internet. Newspapers and magazines have not had an easy time over recent years as the paid circulations of the leading publications have declined, partially due to the ability of the electronic news media to deliver more specialised, relevant and up-to-date news and partially due to the increased competition in the market. The availability of Desktop Publishing tools such as Adobe PageMaker, QuarkExpress and Adobe InDesign have democratised publishing, more than doubling the number of newsstand magazines in most countries and fragmenting the market accordingly.
Those magazines which still hold large circulations do so with cover-mounted tip ons, freebies, competitions and massive marketing budgets. While magazines target specific audiences far better than most media, these market forces have detracted from magazines’ ability to deliver large audiences.
The company which Joanna founded, ModernMedia Concepts, has only been in existence since August but has been busy testing and refining the concept, developing a product which can be safely stored in a refrigerator without condensation affecting the paper.
ModernMedia Concepts CEO Alex McKinnon told Gizmag the tests had been highly successful in consumer trials and the first such on-product magazine now ready for market. “It won’t survive submersion in an ice bucket for long, but it handles condensation in a refrigerator just fine,” said McKinnon.
“We’ve also had a terrific response from advertisers, and as you’d expect, it’s the progressive innovative marketers who have been the first movers”, said McKinnon, “though we expect as the distribution channels develop and circulation increases, we’ll see the major marketers coming on board.”
Initially, ILove magazine will be a 32 page A7 magazine including 10 pages of advertising per issue with the circulation of each edition reaching 2,000,000 by March, 2005. That’s roughly three times the circulation of Australia’s largest circulation womens magazine, the Australian Womens Weekly.
The company is also about to announce joint ventures with an established children’s publisher to create a product aimed at children and a men’s magazine to create an Iced Coffee with a magazine aimed at men.
McKinnon emphasised that the company would “not be just a beverage company” but had plans for developing magazines integrated into many different types of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), and holds patents for on-product magazines attached to all common food packaging formats.
