Shopping in the Leibblatt
Merchandising: German publishers are increasingly leveraging their brand power for ancillary businesses. Their own online stores are intended to increase their independence from advertising.
Merchandising German publishers are increasingly using their brand power for ancillary businesses. Since 1996, when the Stuttgart-based media group Holtzbrinck took over the traditional Hamburg newspaper, the clocks have been ticking differently at Die Zeit. Within a few years, the black and white bedspread for liberal boffins has become a colorful opinion forum with award-winning design and innovative marketing. Its latest coup is the creation of the "ancillary business" division, where partnerships with wine, book and watch companies, which came about by chance, are now bundled and further developed in terms of brand strategy. The current diversification products have catchy names such as "Schreibkultur", "Wein-Zeit", "Zeit-Reisen" or "Uhr-Zeit" and, according to ancillary business manager Anke Brack, serve "firstly to crisis-proof cross-financing of journalistic premium quality and secondly to systematic reader loyalty". According to Andreas Arntzen, deputy managing director of Die Zeit, this attempt at emancipation from the advertising industry - eagerly copied by financially troubled competitors such as Süddeutsche Zeitung - already contributed four percent to sales of a good 70 million euros and an impressive 24 percent to profits (!) in 2002.
Die Zeit itself functions as a kind of brochure for the in-house e-shop, where educated citizens have been able to stock up on relevant status symbols and luxury items for over a year. There is no doubt in Brack's mind that this strengthens rather than weakens the journalistic brand essence. "That's why all our offers have such a strong recommendation character." In other words: Anyone who shops online in the Zeit store receives the same high quality and exclusive goods as a subscriber to the newspaper in journalistic terms.
Sensitive newspaper brandsAt the other end of the German newspaper spectrum, these signs of the times - similar to private TV - were recognized five years ago. Since the first cooperation experiments, merchandising at Bild, the mega-brand of Axel Springer Verlag, has become increasingly important and professional. Today, the electronic Bild store stocks everything from jackets, cell phones and notebooks to the "Volks-Spüler" (people's dishwasher) that has just been added to the range - everything that is affordable and suitable for the masses. One can only assume that this cheap store boosts the Bild Group's turnover rather than its profits: The publisher and its various partner companies are mutually silent about figures and margins.
The question remains as to how transferable such merchandising models are to Switzerland. According to Bruno Blaser, the fact that Blick has not yet made any further use of its brand power is mainly due to the market being 15 times smaller: "If Bild sold 10,000 C&A jackets to its readers, we would only get rid of 500 here," calculates the Blick publishing director.
What may not seem worthwhile in terms of sales for the time being could, however, pay off twice over in terms of brand management and reader loyalty. Blaser's colleague from the NZZ is also aware of this. Tobias Trevisan is therefore keeping a wary eye on Zeit's activities. "Due to
the high initial costs and
Due to a "lack of management capacity", merchandising plans that had been in place for some time had not yet been realized. Trevisan is well aware that such teething troubles could easily be circumvented by cooperating with German pioneers. However, he has not yet put out feelers to Hamburg.
Zeit and Bild show how it's done: Brand stretching helps to retain readers in times of crisis and flush extra euros into the coffers.
Die Zeit itself functions as a kind of brochure for the in-house e-shop, where educated citizens have been able to stock up on relevant status symbols and luxury items for over a year. There is no doubt in Brack's mind that this strengthens rather than weakens the journalistic brand essence. "That's why all our offers have such a strong recommendation character." In other words: Anyone who shops online in the Zeit store receives the same high quality and exclusive goods as a subscriber to the newspaper in journalistic terms.
Sensitive newspaper brandsAt the other end of the German newspaper spectrum, these signs of the times - similar to private TV - were recognized five years ago. Since the first cooperation experiments, merchandising at Bild, the mega-brand of Axel Springer Verlag, has become increasingly important and professional. Today, the electronic Bild store stocks everything from jackets, cell phones and notebooks to the "Volks-Spüler" (people's dishwasher) that has just been added to the range - everything that is affordable and suitable for the masses. One can only assume that this cheap store boosts the Bild Group's turnover rather than its profits: The publisher and its various partner companies are mutually silent about figures and margins.
The question remains as to how transferable such merchandising models are to Switzerland. According to Bruno Blaser, the fact that Blick has not yet made any further use of its brand power is mainly due to the market being 15 times smaller: "If Bild sold 10,000 C&A jackets to its readers, we would only get rid of 500 here," calculates the Blick publishing director.
What may not seem worthwhile in terms of sales for the time being could, however, pay off twice over in terms of brand management and reader loyalty. Blaser's colleague from the NZZ is also aware of this. Tobias Trevisan is therefore keeping a wary eye on Zeit's activities. "Due to
the high initial costs and
Due to a "lack of management capacity", merchandising plans that had been in place for some time had not yet been realized. Trevisan is well aware that such teething troubles could easily be circumvented by cooperating with German pioneers. However, he has not yet put out feelers to Hamburg.
Zeit and Bild show how it's done: Brand stretching helps to retain readers in times of crisis and flush extra euros into the coffers.
Oliver Classen
