Eating Their Children at Conde Nast
The results are in and Gourmet is out. As a long-time subscriber, I’m both disappointed and perplexed. The magazine has been around for over 60 years and it’s a one-word trusted brand for quality, interesting writing (at least to me and my friends who are also bemoaning the news).
Back when I first read the news that CN had retained McKinsey Company to “help” – I groaned. Great. Another big consulting company riding to the rescue. Loads of time-consuming “confidential interviews with staff.” Powerpoint Pontificating to the CEO and his direct reports, restating the obvious for the oblivious (McKinsey was hired, in part, to review the luxury publishers’ spending)…Lots of deep, deep thinking…resulting in binders with (oh-ah!) pie charts…and (I’m sure) reams of beautifully formatted spreadsheets produced by freshly minted MBAs.
I’d bet a goodly chunk of dinero that the decision to drop Gourmet was based solely on its production costs, as validated by those beautiful spreadsheets. Of course, CN remains committed to “the brand” (!?!) From the internal memo:
Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet’s book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com…In the coming weeks, we hope to announce initiatives to develop digital versions of our brands that will make use of new devices and distribution channels.
Well, that should be interesting to watch, in a “horrified bystander at a car crash” sort of way.
Of course, we can be grateful for small mercies. Apparently, Anna Wintour at Vogue won’t have to give up her car service. And, there are a lot fewer “big consulting companies” these days. (That should tell us something right there, shouldn’t it?)
I wonder how much real marketing evaluation and work could have been done with McKinsey’s fee?
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Jeffrey Chodorow, quoted in today’s NYMag: “There’s so many magazines and blogs available for free, why would you pay for it? The good news is you can’t eat over the Internet.”
Why would I pay for it?
1. Quality
2. Delivery to my door (no online searching needed.)
3. I LIKE paper media
So, how much would you pay for it? If ad revenue goes down, don’t subscription prices have to go up? So what’s your breaking point? $5 an issue? $10? $20 an issue?
Ah, that’s the old formula. It doesn’t necessarily need to be either/or.
What IF:
They looked at the marketing issues holistically – integrated off and online content. How many “eyeballs” are they really capturing for ads? Over and over? (Also, do they factor in libraries across the country?)
They looked at publications that are doing well (or holding their own). What are they doing right?
They ASKED their subscribers how they’d like to pay – for combination of offline and online content or combos of publication/events/online media (Garden and Gun is doing something like this.)
They stopped thinking in the old demographics ruts. “Middle class” doesn’t mean we don’t want to read “affluent” content. Same thinking when publishers were resistant to Julia Child’s little book about French cooking (American housewives don’t want that…)
Of course, I’m paying the NYT over $50/month so I may be atypical, but I think it’s worth it.
You are atypical, but of course that’s why we love you.:-)
I agree with Paul Graham’s take on the print edition of the NYTimes: “Do you, er, want a prinout of yesterday’s news?” Um, no thank you.
And if magazines can only thrive by publishing in a form hard to match digitally, then the food rags will have to try a “scratch and sniff” approach, I guess (like those — ugh — perfume ads in Vogue).
I think the harder battle is against the trend to an eco-friendlier minimalism. I stopped subscribing to the print editions of a ton of papers and magazines because I can’t justify the resources it takes to get a copy in my hot little hands, and I hate to have stacks of paper in the house. But perhaps I’m atypical (and even I make an exception for the Economist, because it’s just too dense to read online).
Ah, us atypical readers. I also stopped subscribing to many things – including New Yorker, which CN is keeping. I can check out that (along with Bon Appetit) at the local library branch.
The New York Times is today’s news for me, since I read it – um – daily. Further, over the years their content has moved from “new news” to more thoughtful informational pieces that are relevant for days, weeks, even years (opinion columns, travel, etc.) The Metropolitan Diary on Monday is a must read. I look forward every week to the Dining and Home sections that show up in my driveway like a wonderful gift. Then there’s Gail Collins, David Brooks and Vern Klinkenborg…I also love being able to cut out articles (and the crossword puzzles to mail to my Mom.)
I’d suggest that all the “dead tree” media take a fresh look at their subscribers and readers that love dead trees and why they love them…adjust their strategies and budgets accordingly (Not forgetting the online piece of it, which I also love.)
…But then I’m atypical.
Here’s an interesting experiment to check out: http://www.fleamarketstylemag.blogspot.com. As far as I can tell, they’re starting on the blog, and then moving to print, but only pre-ordered “on demand” printing.
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