Interactive media: strengthen your brand - differentiation of the services offered by magazines from online services - Folio: Plus

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 15, 1993

Have you ever played with online services like America Online or Prodigy? Paul Wolff, vice president and group publisher of American Express Publishing's Database Media Group, thinks you should try it to experience the dynamic between the user and the service. Tons of information is available, he observes, but there is very little way to distinguish quality information from chatter.

What's happening is "the opening up and democratization of information," says Wolff. "We are all reaching for the individual, but there's no way to control the individual. There will be dramatic, world-class competition to establish connections in ways we can't even imagine." So how do you grab a customer's attention and hold it? As publishers, we're accustomed to providing a quality product, says Wolff. When someone picks up a magazine, there's an expectation of authority. Magazines have something valuable to offer online and via interactive media that shouldn't be thrown away in the rush to get on these services: It's their brand identity. The next step in interactive media is branding. As technology allows more sophisticated visuals, there will be more opportunities to differentiate your magazine as a brand. The smart deals that are being made now recognize the incredible information value and the brand identity that magazines bring to the reader, as opposed to just providing information, Wolff says. (For example, the information supplied by Time is "branded" with the magazine's color and logo.) In the new media coming along, we have the opportunity to push the power of our brands, according to Wolff. "What will become interesting is whether the creators of the online and interactive services make use of the huge, proven reservoir of editorial and design talent available from magazines," he says. "People who design the interactive and online information deliverables tend to be either technophiles or creative people more accustomed to delivering games. That's a different dynamic than delivering information that an individual will value. Magazines are in the business of packaging information, and have a lot to offer in the way interactive and online services package their information."