Australian Newsagency Blog

At my gym they’re giving away current issues of New Idea and That’s Life. They’re sitting in a stack at the counter with a note saying “take one”. No story, no apparent reason for the give away and while the gym has a retail area, they do not sell magazines. I asked the counter staff about the offer and they said they didn’t know anything about it.

While I can understand the need for promotion of titles to attract new readers, this type of promotion does not make sense to me. It devalues the title and disconnects with the traditional retail outlet.

I would have thought that a promotion supported by retail outlets selling New Idea and That’s Life would have made sense. For example, If I received 100 copies of each I could sell them as part of a promotion over the weekend - at the end of their on sale period - and achieve a more commercially valuable outcome for Pacific Magazines. By provide the stock without cost to me I could afford to bundle an offer which I’d hire a spruiker to tout to people passing the store. It worked last month for two titles so I’m sure it would work for New Idea and That’s Life.

Message to magazine publishers: work with your established channel! Growth can be achieved through the existing channel – especially newsagents - with the right offering. Campaigns like that I saw at my gym will not work as well, if at all.

I’d be interested to know how they account for these give away copies in the audit.