Are fashion magazines still key? Are they still a top player for advertisers? With newsstand sales not at their best, will we start seeing fewer top advertisers in the next 3-5 years? Will we also see fewer fashion magazines in the upcoming future?
It has been written about numerous times about the onset of fashion and beauty blogs and how more companies are looking for more personal ways to reach out to their target market and acquire potential new customers. And blogs give them that additional option. Also, some top fashion and beauty blogs are more than just adequate competition to magazines they have garnered a large percentage of readers and have been established as a creditable free resource. But with blogs, there is a risk of abandonment not just from readers but from the blog owners themselves. There is a huge turnover rate with people starting and abandoning their blogs.
Magazines are still a key component for reaching customers but since most fashion magazines are published monthly the publishers have created more interactive websites with some being updated on a daily or weekly basis. And found on some of the sites are advertisements that are aimed at the target audience. Magazines are also still key with some readers because they satisfy a convenience, visual and tangible factors. Some readers even stock pile or collect their magazines instead of getting rid or recycling them at the end of the month.
Though most top fashion magazines are in no danger of disappearing, publishers still need to start promoting and advertising their products (i.e. their magazines) or risk losing readers to other forms of competition. Recently, a few magazines have even started offering coupons, for instance Real Simple and Woman's Day placed them in the Sunday coupon booklets. Teen magazine offered a printable coupon on their website for their Winter issue. Offering coupons may work for some magazines but may not fit the image of others but they still need to figure out a way to improve their sales.
2 comments:
I love your blog, always something different to read.
As for your question, No, I don't think these magazines are important for 3 reasons: they promote only a certain look, foster consumerism and they survive only because women hate the way that they look. They don't provide any value to women.
I stopped buying fashion magazines 3 years ago. I got tired of writing in asking them to promote more diverse and healthy models. When was the last time you saw a Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc model on the cover unless they were a celebrity. The marketing, advertising and fashion industry are still under the notion that if they put a non-White model on the cover that it will not sell. I think the readers should stop buying the magazines for a 1 or 2 years and the editiors will change their thinking.
It's just like the runways, where did all the models of color go? If people stopped buying the designer's clothes until they changed their backward thinking they could really put a nice finacial dent in their wallets. They will start to listen then.
If I want fashion or beauty news I will research it myself.
You made some good points about the fashion industry because it's still one of the only industries that can hire or not hire someone based on appearance (skin tone, weight, height, etc).
The change is very slow and hopefully with more people becoming aware of the slow changes more changes will take place.
As for the magazines they are starting to lose steam with some reading whether the publishers what to realize that or not and they will have to figure out a way to re-gain readers.
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