Magazine Publishers of Australia is launching a first-of-its-kind newsagent promotions campaign in a bid to boost plummeting print magazine sales. The campaign kicked off this month and will run until April 1, with each month focusing on a specific popular category; weeklies, homes and food. The campaign has been backed by the main publishers Bauer Media, Pacific and NewsLifeMedia. MPA says the campaign was not launched in response to the recent dismal magazine circulation figures. Speaking to Australian Printer, MPA executive chairman Mary Ann Azer says the campaign was already in the works. She says, “We’ve been thinking about this for a while, newsagents are a very important channel and it was just a matter of bringing a team together, looking at the data and starting the project,” she says. “We expect it to do well, the feedback has been very good from newsagents so far.”
MPA has launched a new promo campaign to boost sales in Aus magazines
The promotional drive will run exclusively in newsagencies across the country, and MPA is hoping to boost sales across Australian titles using merchandising and competition giveaways. The effort comes only weeks after Bauer Media announced sweeping changes across some of its most popular titles in the face of falling sales, including the closure of Cleo which has been in print since 1972. In 2015, Cleo’s monthly print run plunged by 20 per cent to just 42,200. Other Bauer titles also took a blow, with Dolly down by 20 per cent and Cosmopolitan’s print run falling by 15 per cent to 77,000. Tracking readership levels from Dec 2014 to Nov 2015 in comparison to figures from the previous year, Enhanced Media Metrics Australia (emma) reported a ten per cent decrease in Australian Women’s Weekly, a 20 per cent decrease in Donna Hay magazine and a 17 per cent decrease in Home Beautiful, see here for a full list. Seventeen of the country’s biggest magazine brands will come together under the campaign including Woman’s Day, New Idea, Home Beautiful and Vogue Living. MPA chairman Peter Zavecz says, “For the first time, the collective online, social and digital reach of some of the biggest brands in the country will work together. This is the biggest magazines promotion ever undertaken in Australian newsagencies, and a flagship, timely initiative by the MPA.” MPA expects to receive initial results of the campaign in the coming weeks.
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