Custom Publishing Grows Up

American Demographics, July 1, 2002

In other words, despite their expense, custom magazines are more efficient at reaching the right people and at building a unique relationship with those people in the process. Almost all custom publications are intended to reach existing clients and to cultivate relationships with them in a way few marketing tools can. But now that some titles are targeting new clients, the proposition becomes all the more tantalizing. As the editorial content has grown more and more sophisticated, so too has the design of most custom magazines; they now look and feel exactly like their commercial counterparts. Because of this, the magazines can now attract new sources of revenue that offset production and distribution costs while also lending a certain cachet. For example, Crunch and Sony Style, titles that are sold on newsstands, are far more likely to be taken seriously than magazines that are handed out for free at your local home improvement store.

Readers will often find articles written by professional journalists on topics that may or may not be directly related to the brand the company is marketing. And the best among them try to engage readers without making a hard sell, pushing the essence of the brand instead of trying to seal a deal. "The idea behind custom publishing is to reward the customer," explains Simon Kelly, president of Seattle-based Fluent Communications. "If it does its job properly, the magazine will engage the reader and reinforce the value of the brand of the company."

Still, for all the buzz about custom magazines these days, the idea is far from new. Airlines have stuffed seatbacks with in-flight glossies for decades, offering articles and news relevant to their routes. In the U.K., where custom publishing is a well-entrenched business, 7 of the top 10 magazines, in terms of circulation, fall in that category. Yet what's made custom magazines more prominent is outsourcing.

The Custom Publishing Council, the two-year-old arm of the Magazine Publishers of America, now has representatives from more than 30 firms specializing in such publications, each with a staff of editors, marketers and freelancers. Many of those firms are now owned by ad agencies such as Interpublic Group and WPP, which have taken to building comprehensive marketing efforts incorporating custom magazines. And publishers from Time Inc. to Hachette Filipacchi Magazines have joined the fray, offering their editorial and publishing background to advertisers looking for more.

Custom publishing actually includes a wide array of communications vehicles beyond magazines, such as newsletters and Web sites, developed for internal and external audiences. (More than half of all custom publications in 2001 were newsletters, while magazines accounted for 24 percent of the market and Internet content made up to 17 percent.) Yet magazines receive far more attention because they have a higher profile and require a more significant expenditure, Kelly notes. They offer a tactile connection and a resonance not possible with the Web while costing as much as an ad campaign.