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Unique Cars magazines talks down its retail channel

Page 244 of the current issue of Unique Cars magazine carries a full page advertisement promoting direct subscription. Here’s the headline for the ad:


SUBSCRIBE TO UNIQUE CARS…
and you’ll never have to race to the newsagent again!

Unique Cars has been a fixture on retail newsagent shelves since it began. Newsagents have been instrumental in building its brand. Newsagents are justifiably by the way they are represented in this advertisement. Some have decided to remove the product from their shelves. Others have written to the publisher.

While it is understandable that publishers pursue direct subscriptions, to do so in a way which offends the biggest channel, the newsagent retail network, is dumb. The publisher of Unique Cars would do well to issue am immediate apology to newsagents and pursue over the counter sales building initiatives with newsagents.

Unique Cars is part of the buying and selling category. It, along with all other titles I the category, is suffering from consumers and advertisers moving online. Indeed, the magazine is part of the carpoint.com.au operation. Maybe the anti newsagent pitch in the advertisement represents the impact of the decay in sales. Regardless, but for a line of copy, newsagent anger could have been avoided.

19/12 UPDATE: Stuart Jones, Circulation Manager, has apologised to newsagents and expressed his own surprise at the wording of the advertisement.

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