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Few fans of the magazine Gourmet expected the November issue of 2009 to be its last. However, a struggling economy, along with the internet, has made it hard for many magazines to survive.
After nearly 70 years, publisher Condé Nast abruptly stopped production of the monthly magazine due to lack of advertising sales and a shift in consumer interest. At the time of Condé Nast’s decision, both Gourmet and its sister magazine, Bon Appétit, were struggling with ad sales. Bon Appétit made the cut. Gourmet didn’t. Bon Appétit was offered as a substitute for Gourmet for the remainder of almost one million subscriptions.
Since then a slight margin (a slim 20 percent to be exact) of past Gourmet subscribers have chosen to switch to Bon Appétit. This seems odd for such highly dedicated and long-term subscribers. The lack of transferred subscriptions poses a hard question. Why did Condé Nast choose not to research the niche market of such an obviously successful magazine like Gourmet in order to keep those dedicated subscribers?
On the cover, the magazines look similar. Both share great recipes. Both feature articles about food, culture, and politics. However, the audiences of each magazine differ greatly. This is evidenced through both magazines advertisements as well as their contrasting takes on good living. Gourmet was luxurious and indulgent. It stressed extravagant travel and an elitist lifestyle. Bon Appétit stresses a comfortable home life, centering on family cooking. It offered complex, yet more accessible recipes.
While many Gourmet readers feel heartbroken about no longer receiving the magazine each month, Condé Nast’s decision makes good sense, especially when considering the economic forecast that sunk Gourmet. Foodies aren’t paying for exotic trips to experience food anymore. They’re cooking at home with their families, growing their own gardens, or buying local food. Despite a large fan base, Gourmet’s attention to life’s luxuries and hefty subscription fees failed to keep advertisers interested. In the case of Gourmet and many other magazines, ad money trumps readership and loyalty.
But after loosing 800,000 subscribers, it seems that Condé Nast missed a really great chance to study their Gourmet readers. The magazine may have been out-of-touch with the current economic reality, but its subscribers were still writing checks every year. If Condé Nast saw the end of Gourmet magazine in sight, why not find out what it was that appealed to readers and kept some subscribing for decades. That sort of insight would have been exactly what Condé Nast could have used to align Bon Appétit toward the views and preferences of Gourmet’s readers in order to boost the number of subscription transfers and keep those loyal consumers.
We’ve laid off the “Infographic of the Day” posts for awhile, as so many other blogs feature similar content. This one demanded attention though. The information itself is important and interesting, but I found the interactive functions of this home energy use tool to be so well-designed that I couldn’t pass up the chance to pass it along. This infographic works in three dimensions: question asked (there are 4 options); appliances selected and their individual data; and the running total usage at the bottom. If only there was a way for the user to indicate when they own multiples of these products…
Click through and around to assess your home’s energy usage:
As a researcher and a cyclist, I was doubly interested in this Slate article about the absence of fixed-gear, or fixie, bicycles in China. (For those of you not familiar with the hipster fixie trend, here’s a quick primer.) While the article is ostensibly about this one product in this one country, it makes a larger point about trends and cultural context.
What is “cool” and “trendy” to one audience can be “weird” and “useless” to another. And this is not just true when comparing Brooklyn and Beijing. In research, subtle differences in demography can have huge effects on the perceptions of a product. Considering the cultural context in which we operate is always key.
Even the ‘screw it all’ attitude of British punk rock had a business element to it, money was to be made. And no one was more aware of this, and arguably more important in developing, packaging, and selling punk to the world media than Malcolm McLaren. Malcolm died yesterday of cancer at age 64.
Malcolm was the original “cool hunter” for no one could sniff out a trend more effectvely. I can’t even begin to account for the ripple effect he’s had on today’s world of music, fashion, advertising, and general culture. Like the name of the company his son founded, Malcolm was an Agent Provocateur.
God rest his provocative soul, for the business world could sure use a few more Malcolms and a heck of a lot less of everyone else…
The people at ViralBlog.com talk about ’7 solid social media marketing trends’, and it’s quite interesting. For example, according to them, things like Facebook Pages will take a brand nowhere. At the same time, an upcoming trend involves hiring specialized social media content managers that can push your game further and create content and interesting ways to infiltrate the social media scene.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter (and others) can help brands integrate with their users, customers, etc., on a continual basis. It gives them the opportunity to combine websites and related audio/video content to their brands, connecting users to each other as well as to the brands. In return they’ll share your interests with their networks. It sounds logical and obvious, and it is.
Another idea brought up in the article is a push for more online stores on social networks (something that makes a lot of sense to me). If people know exactly what they want and can get it online, they will. It saves them time and money.
I also believe that a brand (digital or not) must follow the social media scene in order to survive. If you’re not always engaging with your audience online through interesting and compelling stories, the risk will be that your competitor does. The social media geeks seem to get it while many brands don’t. What do you think? Read the full article, here.
I’m not going to wax philosophical about Diesel’s new “Be Stupid” campaign. I’ll let you all decide for yourselves.
I’l just say that once you get past the initial, well, stupidity of it all, it’s actually kind of refreshing. Isn’t the proposition being made here essentially what every trendy “lifestyle brand” asks of its consumer – to eschew rational thinking and do what they feel. I mean, there’s no purely logical, rational reason to buy $150 jeans. You buy they because you just want them.
For a second opinion, here’s Ken Carbone’s take from Fast Company.
In a world with a myriad of ways to communicate and network, and a culture obsessed with instantly branding everything from scandals to celebrity couples, it is hard to believe this decade will end without a name.
Here is a link to an article in The Washington Post with some theories as to why the decade shall remain nameless.
21st century’s first decade is slipping away without leaving its name
