Media is a tough business as today’s announcement by Fairfax of 550 job cuts shows. We have been insulated here in Australia from the challenges being experienced in media companies in the US and Europe. The Fairfax announcement will be sobering not only in publishing circles but in newsagencies too. It is a reminder that we need to seek balance in our newsagencies in terms of the categories of products from which we draw sales.
A Federated News Agents’ Association of Australia is an ideal which has long been in the minds of the leaders of the individual State organisations.
This was written by H. J. Rees, Editor of The Authorised News Agent in 1924.
Communications frequently pass between the State secretaries and managers, and it is felt that the day is not far distant when some definite move will be taken to bring together the respective State leaders, and the outcome of which will be a Federated Association of the News Agents of Australia.
I wonder how Mr Rees would view the state of our representation today. The ANF model adopted through the new Constitution early in 2003 has failed to deliver the benefits newsagents hoped for. The many and expensive Bill Express messes provide the best evidence of this. Only two newsagent associations, NANA in New South Wales and the QNF in Queensland, have served newsagents well on Bill Express. Their actions have been driven by member need rather than commercial gain or politics.
The hope expressed by Mr Rees in 1924 remains a hope today – that strong state based organisations will focus on the needs of newsagents and develop a new model which serves newsagents nationally. A challenge in achieving this is the conflicts of some of those involved.
The quotes in those post have come from a history of VANA published in August 1924 and edited by H. J. Rees. I am grateful to John Rees for providing this document which is packed with history.
I like competitions where one of our customers is guaranteed to win a prize. This is the case with our Hallmark backed Father’s Day promotion. The prize is a nice watch for Dad. While a state based or national prize will be more valuable, it is further from reach of your customers. Hence, my preference for a store based prize. Customers get to know that you offer these prizes and, I suspect, are more likely to visit for these seasonal purchases.
Burke’s Backyard won the premium counter space at our Frankston newsagency this week thanks to the free pack of seeds and the excellent collateral from ACP Magazines. You know you have good marketing collateral when the display can pull focus from all of the surrounding colour. Six months ago, this display space did not exist in Frankston. The sales results since show the commitment to be a good investment for us.
With the Cancer Council’s Daffodil Day over we did what I am sure many newsagents did with their unsold Daffodil Day products and wrote a cheque for the full amount including unsold product. Collectively, newsagents must contribute millions to charity each year in this way and in-kind through counter space and labour.
The next 24 hours will reveal how successful newsagents have been at stopping payments for their Bill Express equipment being taken from their accounts. While newsagents have been advised for three months to cancel direct debit arrangements, some had not because the Australian Newsagents’ Federation, until a couple of weeks ago, published contrary advice (without having legal advice to back this).
I expect that some banks will have not followed account holder instructions and allow payments to proceed. Any newsagent in this position needs to know that many have successfully clawed back the money taken by their bank for Bill Express equipment lease payments.
The 2009 Restaurant Guide which comes free with the latest issue of Gourmet Traveller qualifies it for premium counter space at Forest Hill this week. It is a happy coincidence that our pick is also being promoted through the ACP Connections program – hence providing excellent collateral material for our use.
This front counter space continues to deliver good results for us, helping to reinforce our pitch as magazine specialists and to drive good sales outcomes.
ACP Magazines launched The working mums guide to happy kids today. This is a timely release given that parenting titles are enjoying strong sales. We have placed working mums in the parenting segment as well as next to Woman’s Day – we figured this was logical given the brand connection. Parenting is a challenging segment to locate. Like health titles, I am sure a co-location strategy would deliver good results.
There are four magazines in this photo. With three you can see the masthead but with the fourth, just below EGM, there is no idea as to the title. It is actually a collection from Retro Gamer. This is why we placed it next to the parent title. If we had not picked this up it would have risked being lost in the sea of titles. As it is, browsers will need to pick up the title.
The stand I remember most from the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne two weekends ago is the stand by Vodafone – not because it was opposite out stand but because it’s branding was the strongest. They are in control of the visual in a bold and memorable way.
While we can make excuses as to why newsagencies are not as well branded, the reality is that many newsagents do not look at and work on the branding of their businesses. Too often, we follow the rules laid down by suppliers and create billboards for them rather than our own businesses. We do this out of laziness, ignorance or fear. I have found suppliers willing to embrace new ideas around in-store promotion which respect store brand ahead of a supplier brand.
While we cannot brand our businesses around a single offer such as Vodafone, the strength of their visual must give us reason to pause and look at our own businesses.
The photo shows the Father’s Day marketing collateral we have created for our Sophie Randall card and gift businesses – the sign on the left side of the photo. They are the result of a collaborative effort and reflect the style we feel best represents the Sophie Randall brand around the Father’s Day season. The small signs are easy to install – they have a fold out stand at the back. By completing the design to finished art in-house we have been able to contain costs for our group of four stores.
The Sophie experience continues to open opportunities in our newsagencies, beyond what one might expect. We are appreciating learning about brand management, multi-store operations management and merchandising. We have a long way to go. Father’s Day is the first season in a year and a half at this that we feel we are close to where we would like to be.
One decision we made early on which we remain happy with today is that our brand is most important. This is why you will see Father’s Day collateral around our brand and not that of another supplier. While I applaud supplier support in the from of good marketing collateral for newsagencies, sometimes the visual noise from supplier competition for attention is overwhelming. Hence, our decision in the Sophie businesses for a more constrained approach.
Customer reaction of the Father’s Day collateral has been excellent.
Who magazine comes with a free CD this week. It is an excellent giveaway but with counter space already taken we have created space at our main lottery counter to promote the title. While this is not as bold as our usual promotional display, I expect sales will reflect good results for us in this premium counter placement.
While I am pleased to see TV promotion for the Strawberry Shortcake part series, I am disappointed that this is not tagged to newsagents as is usually the case for part series advertising. We are actively promoting this product in-store. Sales would be better if the advertising directed consumer interest to newsagencies.
In the Newsagency Sales benchmark Report which was published last week I listed some ideas for promoting newspapers in newsagencies. I re-publish them here for interest. Consider these ideas a start. A big risk to newspaper sales in newsagencies is lack of action by newsagents.
Continuing with tradition, our team at Forest Hill has created a display of Dad’s magazines as part of our Father’s Day offer. We have included a variety of titles to appeal to different ages of Dads as to serve different interests. This display is as important to us as our displays of cards and gifts.
Beyond promoting magazines as a good Father’s Day gift, this display reinforces our pitch around magazine range – a pitch which is crucial if we are to consider ourselves magazine specialists.
We have been promoting magazines as Father’s Day gifts for years with great succes, often leading to sell-out situations for issues for which there would otherwise be returns.
I am glad to be in a position where I can congratulate the Board of the Australian Newsagents’ Federation for repaying overpayments made during May 2008 in respect of daily sitting fees.
ANF Board members are paid for $250 each sitting day for every Board meeting conducted.
This fee was approved several years ago by an annual general meeting of the ANF in accordance with Clause 32 of the Constitution.
It was suggested to me some weeks ago that all ANF Directors were paid for three sitting days in May, at the time of the ANF Convention on the Gold Coast, when the ANF Board in fact only sat for one day.
After representations from me, the matter was resolved by agreement to refund the overpayment to the ANF by not taking a sitting fee for the next Boards meeting.
I would welcome the ANF agreeing to having payments to Board members subject to independent audit.
I think it is time newsagents took ownership of the training delivered about running a newsagency. The five day training course run by the ANF sees the bulk of the money paid by newsagents to the ANF flow to the trainer who, as I understand it, owns much of the course content. Some of the content itself is, as one recent attendee told me, not practical to running a newsagency. I’d like to us develop genuinely valuable training which we as a channel own.
The training I envisage would be in addition to a more formal Certificate IV in Retail, it would be newsagency specific and focus on our unique processes with a goal of helping new newsagents and new managers to better manage their businesses. It is training which could be delivered in modules and be useful through the life of a newsagent.
The content would be newsagent (and not supplier) controlled.
Too many newsagents are doing the ANF training and hitting a brick wall six months later when facing issues they training did not cover yet which are common to our businesses.
The current ANF training has served its purpose and it is time for newsagents to take control.
We introduced online training at Tower Systems earlier this year. Our magazine management workshop has been particularly successful. It covers the technical and operational aspects of managing magazines. That it is online, single topic focused and relatively short in duration means newsagents are able to learn and apply in quick succession – knowing the course will be rerun in a few days if they want a refresher or to discuss what they have done and ask questions.
By the end of this year, Tower will have run more than 130 online training workshops for newsagents. This speaks to the success of online as a delivery platform for newsagent training. Of interest to some will be news that we are about to launch a Mandarin online training course.
The photo shows one of our Father’s Day displays in our Frankston newsagency. This particular display is for our range of Morish confectionery including the popular Dad’s Nuts bag. I like the products and the display because they pitch a significant point of difference from the retailers around us and a significant departure from what one expects to see in a newsagency. Differentiation is vitally important in any business, even more so in newsagencies. As more retailers have taken on products traditionally exclusive to newsagents we have neglected to chase differentiation.
Staples now owns Corporate Express. I’d expect to see their brand have a local presence within the next year or so. An entry by Staples in the retail stationery channel would shake at Australian market up considerably. See the company’s latest press release for some more detail on international moves.
I am grateful to a colleague for this photo of an ad stuck on the front cover of the Bangkok Post. The Visa advertisement covered up a front page news story and was much bigger than the stuck on ads
In February 2005 I spoke at a breakfast meeting of publishers in Sydney and presented a suggested list of magazine key performance indicators. In cleaning up last night I found the list and thought I’d publish it here for comment.
Magazine KPIs are mainly needed for titles outside the top 200. Inside the top 200 the supply model is, overall, good – although somtimes I would like to be abl to get extra stock more easily. Th real problem is the titles which generate around 20% of our revenue. These titles are cash flow negative. The KPIs I suggest above, if adopted, would make them at least cashflow neutral. The cash saved would help us have more resources to reinvest in our businesses.
I provided this to the ANF for their work on magazine performance KPIs at the time.
We know from the circulation figures released last week that sales of Men’s Health magazine have increased 10% January to June 2008 over the same period in 2007. We are leveraging that growth this week with a display at our main counter of the latest issue of Men’s Health which comes with two free shampoos. I expect we will sell out quickly. The display actually looks much better in person than in the photo.
