Good Housekeeping, and Harper’s Bazaar, have recently partnered with big-buck advertisers such as Haute Look (owned by US retail giant Nordstrom), Amazon, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Of the three, the Saks partnership is most intriguing as it keeps the editorial flavour of Harper’s while curating must-have lists in a magazine- style layout on the new ShopBazaar.com.
The move for magazines to act as
agencies, to create extensions of their brand which not only promote but also endorse products, is boundary-skirting, if not outright boundary-busting. Some call the phenomenon ‘branded content.’
Perhaps the most interesting part of the magazine-as-retailer discussion, however, is how magazines are redefining the medium in the post-blog world.
Rather than focusing solely on commentary, reviews, and 1990s-style journalism, magazines are successfully moving into the digital arena: forums, Twitter conversations, and Facebook status questions and polls are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Consider: in 1995, Jane, a senior in high school, scanned the racks of her local newsstand for a magazine to help her pick the perfect prom dress and paid anywhere from US$6 (for a couple of magazines) to $50 (a lot of magazines) for educated opinions.
In 2013, Jane logs onto
Facebook or Twitter and sends out a call to her favourite mag: “Looking for a hot prom dress, something shiny but not too extravagant (on a budget).” Within 24 hours, everyone from Jane’s friends to the magazine’s trend-monitoring editors
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“The iPad is bringing
sexy back to magazines” ROBIN STEINBERG. MEDIA VEST
are replying to Jane’s call for help; the magazine’s partnership with one or several of the stores targeting Jane’s demographic helps direct Jane’s purchase toward a brand that suits her needs while also reinforcing the demand for a given product in real time.
How likely are actual editors to respond
to queries sent via social media? It depends on the publishing company, though many magazines, particularly under the Condé Nast umbrella, have been smart about encouraging the inside-access aspect of social media, and routinely answer queries via the two major social media channels, Twitter and Facebook.
Yet this shift toward a blending of editorial
and retail content isn’t limited to social media and internet browsing. In a rather prescient statement made two years ago to The New York Times, Robin Steinberg, from Media Vest said that, “The iPad is bringing sexy back to magazines.”
And so it has; sleek photography, paired
with minimalist site and app designs, are returning a focus to featured products. On