The imminent demise of the printed word has been mooted for more than two decades. How seriously should we take this prognosis? Well, consider first that when the phrase "print is dead" was quipped by Dr Egon Spengler in 1984's Ghostbusters, it was supposed to be a joke.
Consider next that British consumers spent nearly £2.2bn on magazines in 2005 - a rise of more than £700m on 1996 figures (source: Advertising Association) - meaning that, in the decade since the dawn of the internet, consumer expenditure on magazines has increased by 49%.
Nonetheless, the Spengler paradigm has achieved substantial credibility in recent years, aided particularly by the failing fortunes of key sectors of the newspaper market.
Certain magazine sectors have been hit hard too - monthly markets have been eaten away by smart new weeklies and certain titles have been outpaced by online publishing. But despite some turbulence, there is evidence that, while our need for daily printed news may be falling, our fundamental magazine habit remains strong.
The National Readership Survey 2006 showed that 84% of 15 to 24-year-olds read consumer magazines, giving the medium a higher penetration there than in any other age group.
The same survey found that 15.9 million men read magazines each month, compared with 11.5 million who read a national morning newspaper.
The bottom line? Consumer magazine sales have increased every year for the past five years and the average UK adult bought almost 30 magazines in 2005 (source: World Advertising Resource Centre).
What lies behind magazines' continuing power over consumers? We asked publishers and agency experts to identify 10 key factors.
1. Magazines are actively purchased
"There has never been a time in Britain when more magazines have been read," says Conde Nast UK managing director Nicholas Coleridge. "We are at a peak; we are not looking back at some golden age."
The remarkable thing is that, in spite of some downward pressure on prices, magazines have achieved this without following broadcast, radio and, increasingly, newspapers in giving the product away. Matt Teeman, BBC Magazines' director of advertising sales, points out: "In today's market, when everything else is becoming free, that is a really important thing."
And where there has been an outlay, there is invariably a higher degree of engagement. MediaCom's group press director Claudine Collins believes: "The fact that people pay money for their choice of magazine means they have a greater affinity with it."
2. Magazines are technology-proof
While other entertainment media are pushing for portability, magazines have got there almost without trying.
"Magazines feel to me like a very modern medium," says Coleridge. "They are very portable; they don't require electricity - and they don't run down. You can take them everywhere an iPod would go and more, so they are far more flexible than a podcast."
Future's chief executive Stevie Spring uses her favoured "bed, bog, bath" image to demonstrate the flexible quality of magazines. This flexibility - and the engagement it promotes - directly addresses one of the major issues other media are currently wrangling with, as IPC Advertising managing director Caroline McDevitt points out.
"Everyone talks about the interruption model in other media. We say that is not an issue in magazines, because the reader has choice and control."
According to Dominic Williams, head of press at Carat, this engagement is just one factor making magazine converts of clients. "Clients love advertising in magazines because they get editorial content, they work with other media channels, and are targeting an audience," he says.
3. The creativity of the medium, part one
Magazines' flexibility in creating tailored packages for clients has been much touted in recent years as publishers work to develop and highlight the creative side of ad sales.
BBC Magazines' Teeman admits: "The onus is certainly very much on the media owners to be more creative now, and magazine publishers have become like mini-agencies themselves."
Referring to the increasing importance of advertiser-specific solutions, often incorporating sophisticated editorial and cross-media elements, he adds: "In days gone by, the agency did most of that kind of work, but now there is a lot more collaboration. There are lots of good examples where that is happening now, and increasingly you see departments within publishers set up to be idea-generating."
4. Ads add value
In a US study two years ago, Starcom asked women and teenagers to pull out the pages they found most valuable in a selection of magazines. One in three of those pages were ads.
Future's Spring says: "Advertising is an integral part of every magazine. When you buy a copy of Vogue, you expect to see fantastic ads for fantastic bags and shoes. It is part of the experience, and magazines are probably the only medium on the planet where what you actually want is a lot of ads, because it makes it feel like a marketplace. How many other media are there where you could say a higher advertising/editorial ratio is a good thing?"
Nor is the phenomenon restricted to women's mags. According to Marcus Rich, group managing director at Emap Advertising and London Lifestyle Magazines, readers regard advertising as just as good a source of information as editorial.
"I picked up a classic car magazine the other day and, if you are interested in the subject, the advertising is as salient to you as reading the magazine. The messages are completely within the community they serve."
To prove the point, Roper Public Affairs' 2005 survey discovered that 48% of consumers agreed that "advertising adds to the enjoyment of reading magazines" - a higher figure than any other medium.
5. The creativity of the medium, part two
Few media regenerate on a continual basis with as much aplomb as magazines. According to IPC's calculations, the UK market offers 48% more titles now than it did a decade ago, with 3,445 consumer magazines currently listed by Brad. According to IPC's McDevitt: "The UK market is second only to the US in terms of choice, and don't forget they have five times our population."
The rate and scale of new launches among larger publishers is fierce and ensures the outward face of the magazine market never remains the same for long. Among the latest and most dramatic trends has been the rise of the weekly.
"Five years ago in the women's market you had Hello! and OK!. Today you have Grazia, Reveal and Look," says Carat's Williams.
6. Magazines are still undervalued
Perhaps because the perception is that press is declining in general, magazines don't always get a fair crack of the whip, which means that many clients don't know what they are capable of.
"We are still further down the pecking order than we would like," admits BBC Magazines' Teeman. "I don't think the medium gets the sexy image it deserves. But I also think that when magazines are used, people understand they are fabulous environments that allow you to be very specific with your targeting."
The PPA's Sales Uncovered report found that, across 20 FMCG brand campaigns, those that incorporated magazines saw sales increase by 21.6% among those who had seen the print ads, while sales to those people who had not been exposed rose by 10%. What's more, in certain cases magazines produced a sales effect comparable to TV, at about a third of the cost.
According to Roper Reports' 2005 research, 63% of "influentials" said that magazine advertising had influenced their personal recommendations in the past year - a higher proportion than any other marketing channel.
7. Magazines are ripe for brand extension
Many of magazines' strengths - the "me moment", the portability, the tactile quality - relate directly to their print versions, which is probably why the market has remained robust in the face of the digital onslaught.
Magazine publishers are mindful of the need to evolve brands into parallel online properties, and while there are some stiff challenges, one asset magazines can port into the online space - or the television space, or the radio world - is the hard-earned trust of long-time readers.
"The big benefit for magazines in terms of brand extension is that they already have a relationship with the community they serve," opines Emap's Rich. "If you are Motorcycle News, you are pretty trusted, so for a reader to go online and buy a motorcycle at motorcyclenews.com is not a huge leap of trust. That's why we will see a lot of the dotcoms reverse themselves into magazine publishing - to try and tap into that deeper bond."
8. Magazines offer engagement
The emotional bond between a magazine and its readership is something rarely found in media. Radio fans might have a favourite station, but they will tend to tune in and out, while TV watchers are loyal to programmes, not channels.
Natmags' chief executive Duncan Edwards notes: "We always go to focus groups and hear people talk about 'my magazine', which is extraordinary. Magazines have this emotional relationship with consumers, whether it is someone interested in windsurfing and buys Windsurfing magazine, or someone interested in relationships and fashion and buys Cosmo."
The relationship between engagement in the editorial and the advertising is not a given, but it is one that doesn't need a major feat of imagination. Future's Spring points out: "Any advertising-supported medium is only going to last for as long as advertisers get a result from it. The fact that readers are engaged with the medium doesn't necessarily mean they are engaged with the advertising, but God knows it's a bloody good start."
In 2005, BIGresearch measured the multi-tasking levels of different media and found that 59% of magazine readers said they were doing nothing else when they read magazines, making magazines the least multi-tasked medium.
9. Magazines offer reach
Carat's Williams believes: "There are lots of positive things magazines can do for advertisers, but the main one might be to bring relevant numbers and a relevant audience at a relevant time."
Magazines offer not just reach, but reach right across a closely defined niche in a way that was unique until the fragmentation of television and which remains hard to match.
Spring says: "Question why more people bought more magazines last year than at any other time in the previous 20. People suggest the habit is dying - that doesn't sound like death to me."
10. Magazines are outperforming print
While no one would dispute that weeklies have stolen a march on their monthly rivals, partly on the strength of their newsiness, newspapers operate on a more time-sensitive terrain and don't appear to engender the same loyalty in their printed versions.
Natmags' Edwards has his own theory: "The magazine industry seems to be very good at innovation. Frankly, we have to be - innovation, creativity and risk-taking are absolutely hard-wired into the make-up of magazine publishers. Newspaper publishers haven't had to do that and they are finding it quite difficult."
MAG STATS
- British consumers spent nearly £2.2bn on magazines in 2005 - an increase of more than £700m on the 1996 figures (source: Advertising Association)
- Consumer magazine sales have increased every year for the past five years (source: WARC)
- The average UK adult now purchases almost 30 magazines each year (source: WARC)
NICHOLAS COLERIDGE, managing director, Conde Nast UK and deputy chairman, PPA
"I spend my life wondering when the Armageddon is going to begin, but actually every year just gets stronger for magazines, so I am highly optimistic about the future.
Last time I said that, at a PPA conference, somebody wrote in complaining it was disgraceful because their own company wasn't doing that well. But you can only speak as you find, and I don't think there is any need for magazine people to go round in sack-cloth and ashes.
At the moment, advertising is continuing to grow across the medium. We haven't seen the big falls of newspapers. We are still a growing medium, and I don't see any immediate signs of it slowing down - or even any medium-term signs.
The reason for that is that what they bring - the gloss, the sheen of ink on the page - cannot be replicated on the screen, and that makes us very different from newspapers.
The beauty of magazines is they generally reach a very defined group of people and advertisers find that appealing. We are living in a world of increasingly niche media and magazines have rather trailblazed in that regard. They are a treat and they are also very informative and descriptive media.
There are lots of small threats, of course - worries about the distribution chain and so on - but actually, the biggest threat is that there are so many magazines, and that has to be a good thing."
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