Facts finds new fans
Magazines: Since its relaunch, Facts has been attracting more buyers at newsstands. Advertisers, however, remain cautious.
Magazines Since the relaunch, Facts has found more buyers at the newsstands. Advertisers are holding back.Finally, a positive signal from Facts. Two months after the magazine's relaunch, those responsible are talking about encouraging signals. "Compared to the first quarter, newsstand sales have risen by an average of 30 percent," reports Sari Simola, Head of Reader Market Magazines at Tamedia. However, consistency is still lacking. "The upward trend is also confirmed by a marked increase in the willingness of trial subscribers to switch to a fixed subscription. "The conversion rate is 10 percentage points better today than it was a year ago," says Simola.
The respectable developments in the reader market are all the more astonishing because they came about without any increase in the marketing budget. There were no additional measures at the POS, nor were large promotional runs flooded into the market. And also the strategy with generous bonuses (Half-Fare, home electronics, etc.), with which Facts had lured subscribers in earlier years, is definitely a thing of the past. "Back then, it was purely about quantity; today, durability is the most important thing," explains Sari Simola.
Bright spots in the advertising market
Facts still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of advertising revenues. The relaunch was preceded by a dramatic development in the advertising market. Since the fall of 2003, the news magazine had "dropped out of the media plans on a relatively broad front," according to Marcel Tappeiner, interim head of advertising market magazines at Tamedia. Now, advertising sales in the first four months of the current year are "about 30 percent below last year." "To make up for the accumulated losses, we probably need the entire second half of the year," Tappeiner said. But he is optimistic that the race to catch up will succeed. "We are feeling a lot of goodwill from advertisers. Many advertisers who had said goodbye, arguing that the old Facts was no longer an attractive platform for them, can identify with the redesigned magazine again and are coming back." According to Tappeiner, these include such major advertisers as Microsoft, SBB, Ovomaltine, Cartier, Jura and Zurich Insurance.
However, Facts is in good company with its poor advertising revenues in the first four months of this year. Of the titles that belong to its direct competitive environment, only NZZ a. S. was able to rejoice with an increase of almost 30 percent. All the others - Cash, Bilanz, Weltwoche, HandelsZeitung, SonntagsZeitung, Stocks - were down, in some cases massively (see table).
Profits only at the expense of others
There is no prospect of a rapid improvement. "We're facing another tough year for the press, with a particularly difficult June due to the European Championship," explains Weltwoche's publishing director Uli Rubner. However, she is not worried that the new Facts will pose a threat to her title (see box).
On the other hand, Facts is aware that the air is thin. Tappeiner: "The market segment in which we are positioned is full, both in the advertiser and reader markets." In plain language, that means you can only gain readers or ads by taking them elsewhere. "If the economy doesn't pick up in the medium term, there will be too many titles in this segment," Tappeiner fears. But Facts will certainly not be among the surplus.
Weltwoche maintains momentumIn the previous year, Weltwoche was the big winner in both the reader and advertiser markets, and this was particularly at the expense of Facts. Now that the Tamedia news magazine is showing positive signs following its relaunch, one would have to assume that Weltwoche, its most important competitor, is now in trouble.
But this is not the case. "I don't see any trend reversal in favor of Facts," explains Uli Rubner, publishing director of Weltwoche. "Only in the first two weeks after the relaunch did we have fewer ads." But after that, the tide had turned back in Weltwoche's favor.
The new Facts also left no traces on newsstand sales. "During the relaunch week, Weltwoche even sold above average," Rubner said. (dse)
Acceptance study announcedAt the end of July, we will know more precisely how the new Facts is received by the readership: Then the acceptance study by Tamedia Market Research will be available. Individual adjustments were made after the first two issues of the new concept. "We have slightly increased the proportion of pictures and the number of charts," explains Facts Editor-in-Chief Stefan Barmettler. Also eliminated are problems with the legibility of the typeface, which came across as gray instead of black on individual sheets due to the absorbency of the new paper. In the meantime, the portrait column by illustrator Peter Gut has also been relaunched. The fine-tuning is not yet complete. "This week, we are discussing with the department heads where we might still need to make improvements," says Barmettler. (dse)
Daniel Schifferle
The respectable developments in the reader market are all the more astonishing because they came about without any increase in the marketing budget. There were no additional measures at the POS, nor were large promotional runs flooded into the market. And also the strategy with generous bonuses (Half-Fare, home electronics, etc.), with which Facts had lured subscribers in earlier years, is definitely a thing of the past. "Back then, it was purely about quantity; today, durability is the most important thing," explains Sari Simola.
Bright spots in the advertising market
Facts still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of advertising revenues. The relaunch was preceded by a dramatic development in the advertising market. Since the fall of 2003, the news magazine had "dropped out of the media plans on a relatively broad front," according to Marcel Tappeiner, interim head of advertising market magazines at Tamedia. Now, advertising sales in the first four months of the current year are "about 30 percent below last year." "To make up for the accumulated losses, we probably need the entire second half of the year," Tappeiner said. But he is optimistic that the race to catch up will succeed. "We are feeling a lot of goodwill from advertisers. Many advertisers who had said goodbye, arguing that the old Facts was no longer an attractive platform for them, can identify with the redesigned magazine again and are coming back." According to Tappeiner, these include such major advertisers as Microsoft, SBB, Ovomaltine, Cartier, Jura and Zurich Insurance.
However, Facts is in good company with its poor advertising revenues in the first four months of this year. Of the titles that belong to its direct competitive environment, only NZZ a. S. was able to rejoice with an increase of almost 30 percent. All the others - Cash, Bilanz, Weltwoche, HandelsZeitung, SonntagsZeitung, Stocks - were down, in some cases massively (see table).
Profits only at the expense of others
There is no prospect of a rapid improvement. "We're facing another tough year for the press, with a particularly difficult June due to the European Championship," explains Weltwoche's publishing director Uli Rubner. However, she is not worried that the new Facts will pose a threat to her title (see box).
On the other hand, Facts is aware that the air is thin. Tappeiner: "The market segment in which we are positioned is full, both in the advertiser and reader markets." In plain language, that means you can only gain readers or ads by taking them elsewhere. "If the economy doesn't pick up in the medium term, there will be too many titles in this segment," Tappeiner fears. But Facts will certainly not be among the surplus.
Weltwoche maintains momentumIn the previous year, Weltwoche was the big winner in both the reader and advertiser markets, and this was particularly at the expense of Facts. Now that the Tamedia news magazine is showing positive signs following its relaunch, one would have to assume that Weltwoche, its most important competitor, is now in trouble.
But this is not the case. "I don't see any trend reversal in favor of Facts," explains Uli Rubner, publishing director of Weltwoche. "Only in the first two weeks after the relaunch did we have fewer ads." But after that, the tide had turned back in Weltwoche's favor.
The new Facts also left no traces on newsstand sales. "During the relaunch week, Weltwoche even sold above average," Rubner said. (dse)
Acceptance study announcedAt the end of July, we will know more precisely how the new Facts is received by the readership: Then the acceptance study by Tamedia Market Research will be available. Individual adjustments were made after the first two issues of the new concept. "We have slightly increased the proportion of pictures and the number of charts," explains Facts Editor-in-Chief Stefan Barmettler. Also eliminated are problems with the legibility of the typeface, which came across as gray instead of black on individual sheets due to the absorbency of the new paper. In the meantime, the portrait column by illustrator Peter Gut has also been relaunched. The fine-tuning is not yet complete. "This week, we are discussing with the department heads where we might still need to make improvements," says Barmettler. (dse)
Daniel Schifferle
