Magazine brands are innovating to unlock new and real-time opportunities for smart marketers, says Mary Ann Azer, executive director of Magazine Networks.
Rather than being one-dimensional paper dinosaurs, our local magazines brands are fast becoming industrious powerhouses of innovation. With a network of touch points that span the communications spectrum, in the last few months alone, Australian magazine brands have created a number of publishing firsts.
Elle.com.au recently became the first publisher in Australia to offer interactive shopable videos where consumers can click and buy direct from the screen from a retailer’s online store.
The print edition pulled off a world-first in September, where the power of Twitter was harnessed allowing followers to direct the content of Elle’s November issue. Editorial decisions on image selection and headlines were all made using crowdsourced suggestions.
In October last year Marie Claire took on WeChat creating a dedicated account offering a luxury Sydney shopping service with an interactive guide. Over 15,000 shoppers signed up to the account.
Bauer’s Runway Weekend, the annual two-day fashion and beauty festival, no longer just takes Pitt Street Mall and Westfield Sydney by storm. This year it took Instagram by storm too.
Vogue Fashion’s Night Out is becoming the biggest shopping event in Sydney and Melbourne calendar. It’s exceeding boxing day sales and generating significant revenues for all brands involved.
With a hub of creative partnerships and engaging activations, magazines are constantly evolving, inspiring creativity and challenging traditional boundaries in an effort to surround their readers in all forms of media.
Not only are these types of interactive reader experiences building magazine brands, but they are providing savvy advertisers with clever new ways to engage their consumers. Powerful engagement that comes with the influence that magazine brands deliver as a trusted and credible source.
Some would say this innovation is helping to unlock new and real-time opportunities for smart marketers – and that these opportunities would be foolish to ignore.
This article is sponsored by Magazine Networks.