By Rebecca McPheters
Media Industry Newsletter
April 19, 2010
Publishers once had boundless faith that appropriate Internet business models would ultimately reveal themselves. Years went by. For most, the models that did develop were disappointing. Faith was lost. Expectations were lowered. Now, the iPad offers hope that the earlier faith was justified – and that the mistakes that were made in publishers’ approach to the Internet can be corrected. At this point, it is only a hope. It is up to publishers to make it a reality.
The iPad is a remarkable media delivery device and its apps provide publishers with an acceptable and proven model for monetizing content. If there are not enough iPad users to make much of a difference to publishers or advertisers in the near term, there will be soon – if not for this particular device, then for its successors. The introduction and reverberations of the iPad may reinvigorate our industry by not only making magazines and newspapers cooler, more relevant, and more engaging for younger readers, but also by making them easier to read for older readers who – though highly loyal – are increasingly in need of larger fonts. But there are pitfalls. Publishers must be careful not to allow their desire for ad revenues to divert them from the most important task at hand: creating value for their readers.
For the iPad to offer salvation to publishers, they must compete directly and effectively with the other media experiences for which the iPad is also a suitable outlet. Consumers must perceive magazine apps to be as or more desirable than competing media and platforms in terms of their:
- Accessibility
- Quality of experience/Ease of use
- Value of content delivered relative to:
- Time required
- Price charged
Sadly, magazines are not currently even a category in the App Store. While TV, books, movies, and music have their own categories, magazines are buried in news (Time), lifestyle (GQ) or health and fitness (Men’s Health). Ideally, each should be found both under a “magazine” category, where consumers are likely to look first, and in the appropriate content area.
The quality of the reading experience and the ease of use associated with magazine applications will doubtless improve rapidly. Although magazines are generally well-suited to this new delivery mechanism, adaptations are clearly necessary. Some publishers seem to have mastered the trade-offs between high resolution and file size, while others have created applications that fail to load in a reasonable amount of time. But we are all learning; while developers only now have the ability to see how their apps actually work on the iPad, consumers are just learning to use the new device as well.
As a consumer, I am frustrated by the fact that taps and pinches that work on some applications yield no result on others. Even within a single application, there is not always a consistent response to a similar action – and within a single issue, some articles “open” better than others. When all works well, I am stunned by the beauty of the photos, the clarity of the text, and the joy of easily navigating to stories in an order reflective of my own priorities.
Like the PC, the iPad is a personal device with limited opportunity to generate pass-along readership. While our research shows that magazines are almost always read by flipping the pages from front to back, the iPad allows the reader to be more selective. Readers are less likely to see every page – and less likely to see every ad.
Ad executions that divert the reader from the magazine, like unappealing TV commercials at the beginning of a pod, will reduce the likelihood that consumers will be exposed to additional content, whatever its nature. If advertising is to be a substantial proportion of that which is being delivered, more careful thought needs to be given to how it is integrated with editorial content. Seeing the same ad multiple times in this context seems less like smart marketing than poor execution. From our experience with the magazine apps currently available, we believe that the traditional concept of an editorial well preceded by page after page of advertising is a non-starter.
The primary beneficiaries of the iPad and like devices will be the consumers who can more easily read, watch or listen to what they want, when they want, where they want than ever before. In this new venue, publishers who adopt a more consumer-centric focus will be favored. Ironically, the more consumer-centric the publisher, the greater the value they will be able to deliver to advertisers. If the drive for advertising revenues – or to comply with arcane ABC requirements – is allowed to drive the development of iPad editions, publishers will lose the ability to effectively compete for readers’ time and money. The iPad offers a long-awaited second chance for publishers to get it right.
Rebecca McPheters, the former New York Times Magazine Group group executive and Simmons president, now heads McPheters & Company. The company specializes in strategic planning and research for brands and for companies in media-related fields, including media owners, advertisers, and ad agencies. She can be reached at RMCPHETERS@MCPHETERS.COM.
