cover story / innovations FANCY THAT: INNOVATION HIGHLIGHTS


In a partnership with Virgin Galactic, Playboy Magazine is planning to create a Playboy Club in space. “As Virgin Galactic gets closer to becoming the world’s fi rst commercial space line, Playboy is eagerly pondering the creation of the ultimate intergalactic entertainment destination,” said Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jelinek. “This heaven-in-the-heavens will exceed starry-eyed travellers’ wildest dreams, and guests will truly experience a party that’s out of this world.”


Back down to earth content is now being delivered via cereal boxes. In a bid to tie a magazine to a daily ritual, Meredith’s Fitness magazine teamed up with the makers of Cheerios in a six-month deal launching in the fi rst half of 2013. Each box of Multi-Grain Cheerios includes a description of the Fitness weight-loss plan and a special code that allows consumers to access the magazine online free of charge.


future,” says Davis. “Like online models, imagine that tomorrow, you will be able to segment your audience and sell pages depending on the profile of each subscriber. There is a huge potential to be explored.” Personalisation is obviously both easier and more precise on digital platforms. So prepare for more ‘Big Brother’ moments soon. Launched in September 2012, Facebook Exchange is a new real-time bidding interface that enables advertisers to target users based on their browsing history. Facebook is now using cookies to track users via their browsers with third party applications. Those third parties match your browsing data from other sites to Face- book. For example, if you’re in the market for a leather sofa, and you’ve been visit- ing furniture sites, you’ll now see ads for leather sofas when you log in to Facebook — ads that companies have had to bid on for positioning in your sidebar feed. How is that different from the normal


ads that bombard you on Facebook on a daily basis? Well, this time, the ad is not coming just from inside the house — the ‘house’ being Facebook, which used to track only your Facebook browsing — but also from your overall web browsing data. It’s all getting very personal and, publishers trust, in a symbiotic way.


Singles might E-singles are a force to be reckoned with. They’re filling a niche abandoned by most magazines: long-form journalism and sto- rytelling, writes Wilpers in the new book. The consumer’s appetite for such con- tent, and their willingness to pay for it, was still a big question just two years ago. But the success of long-form pio- neers The Atavist and Byliner proved there was a market, especially for inexpensive repurposed or bundled content. Byliner reported an estimate of more than 1 mil- lion e-singles sold in 2012 while Atavist sold more than 100,000 of their 20 Originals. Depending on your academic, career,


culinary, political, historic, educational or sexual needs and interests, you can find an ebook or e-single that satisfies. Let’s take the opposite ends of the spec-


fipp.com


trum: Cosmopolitan’s ebook Sex Questions Answered in 20 Words or Less” and The Atlantic’s ebook The Civil War. The former is penned by Cosmo’s infamous, if anony- mous, sex advisors, the latter by authors including Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nath- aniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott. Cosmo’s ebook is a condensed compila- tion of their sex advisors’ best (or at least most libidinous) work that has appeared in the magazine edited down to 20 words per answer. The ebook was promoted as “a titillating collection of sexual trivia, how-tos, and tips for success as only the editors of Cosmopolitan could provide.” Blogger Ken Hagan spilled some of the beans and revealed the answers to some of the questions. All snickering aside, Cosmopolitan sold thousands of copies of Sex Ques- tions. Before that, the company cashed in on another e-single, Cosmo’s Sexiest Stories Ever, published in August 2011 that sold more than 40,000 copies at US$1.99 initially later reduced to US$.99. “In the beginning, we thought there


wasn’t enough content to charge $1.99,” Cosmo editor-at-large John Searles told PaidContent, but the price didn’t hurt sales. The e-singles don’t exist in a vacuum.


Cosmo promotes them in the print maga- zine which results in an immediate and


Meanwhile, British men’s lifestyle magazine ShortList made magazine history with the fi rst playable cover. In an issue featuring a top 20 list of classic, retro-style videogames, ShortList decided to take the magazine experience to the next level. In partnership with app company Blippar, the magazine recreated the classic 80s game Chuckie Egg… on the magazine’s cover. Readers could download Blippar’s app, scan the ShortList cover, and play the game in an augmented reality setting.


Looking to surprise their readers, the editors of RubberDuckMagazine, a UK car magazine touted as “quirky”, “slightly mad”, and “intelligent” by BMW, switched from a magazine format to a poster for some editions of one issue. Creating a limited run of 500 copies, RubberDuck published its content on a double-sided A1 poster.


traceable increase in sales of the e-singles. And the titillating titles also stimu-


late the sales of more e-singles. Searles also said Cosmo experienced a “substan- tial number of sales” of the Sexiest Stories e-single when Sex Questions was released. Cosmopolitan has been releasing


e-books about sex and relationships since last year, publishing 14 so far, but Cosmo Sexy Stories is the first collection of origi- nal fiction from the magazine’s writers. Meanwhile, to commemorate the 150th


anniversary of the American Civil War, The Atlantic compiled in a single ebook entitled The Civil War some of the most compelling stories from its archives, including work by Twain, James, Stowe, Douglass, Hawthorne, and Alcott, American literary icons all. For example, Louisa May Alcott writes about the horrors of life in a Union army hospital where the mangled and dead were brought for her care. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. writes about the agony that hundreds of thousands of families suffered: news that his son had been shot in the neck and Holmes’ subsequent frantic search for his boy, the future Supreme Court Justice. Because The Atlantic did not pub- lish photographs at the time, the editors of the ebook collaborated with the National Portrait Gallery to include gripping wartime and slavery photos. A truly riveting read for history lovers.


IDEAS IN ACTION


The fourth Innovations in Magazine Media World Report covers advertising innovation, content delivered via cereal boxes, social commerce, big and little data, a magazine published as a poster and one with a playable video game cover, new skill sets for publishers and fi nally a publishing company launching a perfume line with the scent of paper.


Co-published by FIPP and Innovation International Media Consulting Group – co-authors Juan Señor and John Wilpers (pictured) – the 2012 Report showcases new, dynamic and lucrative innovations in all aspects of magazine media. Order Innovations in Magazine Media World Report at fi pp.com/publications. Print or digital editions cost £69 (£97 for non- members), print plus digital costs £97 (£139 for non-members)


For further information, including translation rights and bulk discounts contact Helen@fi pp.com.


Juan Señor and John Wilpers issue 76_2013 | Magazine World |19


INNOVATIONS IN MAGAZINE MEDIA 2013 WORLD REPORT


A SURVEY BY THE INNOVATION INTERNATIONAL MEDIA CONSULTING GROUP FOR FIPP – THE WORLDWIDE MAGAZINE MEDIA ASSOCIATION


JUAN ANTONIO GINER EDITORS


JUAN SEÑOR JOHN WILPERS


INNOVATIONS IN MAGAZINE MEDIA 2013 WORLD REPORT


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