Market Summary - Customer Publishing Insight

At a Glance

Customer Publishing

Once perceived to be the 'poor relation' in the publishing world, Customer publishers are now producing innovative flagship titles that are seriously challenging consumer magazines for reputation, with high quality titles such as Waitrose Food Illustrated providing serious competition to many glossy, newsstand lifestyle titles.

So what is customer publishing exactly?

Editorialised brand content in its simplest form is content and information provided by a brand or organisation to its customers, that will be relevant and interesting to them. This can be in the form of a video, website, TV channel, radio station, email newsletter, mobile application, Faceboook page, customer magazine or any other customer facing touch point.

Editorialised branded content is also an extremely versatile tool in the marketer’s armoury as both a standalone channel or as a complementary medium within an integrated campaign. It is also proven to work across all sectors from retail and travel through to public sector and B2B.


Graph Showing Advertising Association Media Spend Figures
 - £904m spend on Customer Magazines compared with £791m on Consumer Magazines

Hot Topics

-  Despite the downturn, the medium is remaining buoyant: A study by Veronis Suhler Stevenson predicts investment in targeted content  will grow at 7.3% over the next 4 years.

-  The future in debate: paywalls versus freely available content.

-  Customer titles threatening the position of consumer magazines – represented in the latest ABC results.

Some Interesting Customer Publishing Facts

 
Customer publishing over the last five years has evolved significantly. Today it encompasses far more than customer magazines which are the foundation stone of the medium, spanning back over 20 years with the launch of BA High Life. Editorialised branded content comprising web, video, radio, TV, email and magazines allow marketers to engage customers with relevant content providing an effective soft sell platform that both engenders loyalty and encourages purchase. This is why the channel is now worth £904 million and is expected to pass the £1 billion mark late next year.

Magazines account for 75% of the total spend in customer publishing. However, digital activity encompassing web design, e-CRM, e-zines, mobile applications, podcasts has grown by 15 per cent in three years and customer publishers foresee digital becoming a major revenue stream for the industry moving further into the recession as clients move towards greater interactivity and seek stronger engagement with their customers. Integrated and stand-alone digital projects accounted for 10% of all customer publisher work in 2009.

The latest ABC figures showed 12 customer magazines in the top 20 and eight in the top ten, one up on last year and the industry now representsover half (53%) of the total circulation of these top 100. Thefigures also highlighted that the market is far from stagnant with two launches which have experienced very positive first results – Waitrose Kitchen (total circulation - 339,109), previously Waitrose Food Illustrated which made it to number 36 and John Lewis Edition (total circulation – 484,040), the brand’s first ever magazine which has hit the position of 21. Every customer magazine which features in the top 10 is also now creating cross-media content to further engage its customer base.

How does Customer Publishing Work?

How is it measured?
APA, the association responsible for editorialised branded content developed the APA Advantage Study in 2005, which was the media industry’s first benchmarking study to measure the effectiveness of branded content activity. The APA Advantage Study continues to be updated regularly to ensure that it reports metrics needed by marketers to demonstrate its return on investment.

How is it segmented?
The nature of the medium means that all activity is governed by the audience for which it is intended, making it one of the most relevant channels available. However, it can also be segmented for individual customer groups and even individual customers depending on the channel used eg. customer title or email newsletter. Customer magazines can be segmented to different audiences for example by age range and email newsletters can be tailored using a dynamic content platform.
With respect to print magazines, content can be targeted to different demographics and segmented accordingly and with Royal Mail delivering to 99.9% of the UK, no-one is out of reach. In 2008, Royal Mail’s Advantage Study showed that almost a quarter of all customer titles are segmented to suit differing reader demographics, meaning that a 24 year old professional might receive the same magazine as his 73-year old grandmother, but the editorial within will have been customised according to their interests and lifestyle.

How and in what form can the media be bought?
Typically the first port of call for marketers looking to invest in editorialised branded content is the APA. It runs APA ASK a free consultancy service that matches clients with customer publishing agencies. APA manages the entire process. Since its launch three years ago £60 million of new business has been run through APA. The fee-based model makes it an accountable, scalable, practical and affordable channel for brands and organisations. Additionally, some organisations are using their branded content initiatives to offer third-party advertising slots such as Waitrose Kitchen or Tesco Magazine.

Creatively, how does it stand out?
Again the nature of the medium means that there are no restrictions on creativity. It can be as simple or as complex as an organisation’s brand character demands. For example a hedge fund organisation will have very different parameters to an automotive company. 

How, from a marketers perspective, can it work for me?
As mentioned above because of its unique commercial model editorialised branded content is one of the most scalable and complementary channels available to marketers. There are many compelling statistics that make editorialised branded content an attractive proposition. However, the most recent research from APA revealed that almost two thirds of customers who interact online are more likely to buy if a website includes branded content. Additionally nearly a quarter will recommend a website to a friend if it is updated with information at least once every few days.

Key Features and Benefits of Customer Publishing

Loyalty – a third of readers of editorialised branded content agree they feel more committed to a brand after reading (Millward Brown)

Deeper, more meaningful engagement - research has shown that readers spend an average of 25 minutes with a customer magazine, with the majority (57 per cent) reading half or more of the content. This allows a brand more engagement time than any other tool.

Improves consumer trust - Royal Mail research has discovered that over three quarters (78 per cent) of the UK’s most trusted brands publish a customer magazine as part of their integrated customer communications strategy. Organisations including British Airways, Tesco, Virgin, Norwich Union (or should I say Aviva), British Gas and AA were all recently as named the county’s top trusted brands within their respective categories in the Reader’s Digest annual survey, and all of whom regularly publish a customer title.

Key Audience Strength

Customer publishing is one of the least discriminative channels available. Content so long as it is relevant can engage and reach every single consumer across all classifications.