Yesterday some newsagents received 21st Century Australia from magazine distributor Gordon & Gotch. Retail price is $9.95 and the on sale period is around three months.
21st Century Australia is not a magazine. It’s election propaganda from a political party: 21st Century Australia. Go to their website and see for yourself.
Indeed, go to their website and download the whole magazine for free. Seriously.
The leader of the 21st Century Australia Party is Jamie McIntyre. He calls himself an educator, author and mentor. Reading through the website he comes across to me as someone peddling a familiar rags to riches story. There is little in the way of substance. From what I can see, his businesses don’t appear to create real value or engagement for those connected with them. Maybe my suspicions are on alert because he has Max Markson as his publicist.
If he uses people the way newsagents are being used for this ‘magazine’ no wonder he’s done okay for himself.
Check out the report by Mark Hawthorne in The Age about an allegation that Jamie McIntyre is faking Twitter follower numbers. Also check out The Sydney Morning Herald report from 2011 and issues with ASIC. While you’re researching him you might want to check out this.
This ‘magazine’, 21st Century Australia, should never have been sent to newsagents. It’s not a magazine. Someone in Gotch should have stopped it getting on the trucks. If not for the election propaganda nature of the content then for the design. It’s dreadful.
Our glorious magazine distribution model is such that we have to pay to send this junk back. Gotch has declared it a full copy return. So even if newsagents early return this title they have to pay freight as well as the labour handling costs.
This is another example of what’s wrong with the newsagent magazine distribution model. We get sent this junk and have to pay ourselves to handle it. None of our magazine competitors get this junk. It makes us less competitive. It’s this stuff that is driving more newsagents to shrink engagement with magazines and some to exit the category altogether.
The magazine distributors say the sale or return model protects newsagents. This is nonsense. Labour, freight and storage costs for junk like this ‘magazine’ are a cost of business newsagents face that our major competitor magazine retailers do not face.
Gordon & Gotch has ethical social responsibilities to newsagents, responsibilities they have failed to fulfil with the distribution of 21st Century Australia.
Does it matter that it is not a magazine alot of the crap we get isn’t either-from what i read above i guess your no fan
P, The “magazine” is nothing more than a political advertisment. Would you be prepared to distribute flyers for the LNP, Labor, The Greens and every other party out there in your store?
P, I do wonder about where it sits with our electoral laws. That aside, the only reason it’s on our shelves is because we’re cheap labour for them. I suspect their model sees our shops as billboards more than as revenue generators for them.
P., I see it like this. I received qty 2, so I pay just under $20 by 20th of next month. I have to OWN the product.
I estimate zero sales, no matter what I do (aren’t there about 300 + new political parties being registered currently, in order to compete in the imminent election?)
Return is Sep ie I get my dollars back when I pay my account on 20th October.
Now, to my mind, I have been forced to lend someone 20 bucks for three months.
Not happy Jan, AND, I vote.
EARLY RETURN why would you not . rip the top off and send it back .
I do the same with Union propaganda masquerading as magazines.
James,
What magazines do you receive that are produced by a union and don’t identify themselves as such?
I agree with you Mark about it abusing the system.
As to the issue of biased content. It provides one view just as the DT and Australian do. I might disagree with the Message bit if people will buy it I will sell it as long as it is within the law. Mind you this particular party appears from what I see to be a bloody disgrace, rather like Liberal and Labour.
Peter I do wonder about their obligation as a party in terms of disclosure.
Mark,
show me a party that respects electoral law. I believe none do they all see it electoral and party law as a beast to be subverted to best suit their needs.
A good example of this subversion is the Refugee Advertising the Gov gas been running all week that if you come by Boat then off to PNG with you. The Target Market is people considering hopping on a boat from Sri Lanka or Indonesia for Aust.
Its advertised extensively in Australia yet the Target Market is not here, it is elsewhere in the world. What this advertising does do is it allows the Government to say look aren’t we good a good job and we are doing something about it while claiming the Advertising is ostensibly for another major purpose. As to disclosure I can only refer to John Laws and Allan Jones to see how they totaly subvert law to suit themselves usually with the rider we are saving Australia.
Jarryd, we had something called “the australian worker” distributed ONCE earlier in the year……. enough said.
Peter, your comment was
“Its advertised extensively in Australia yet the Target Market is not here, it is elsewhere in the world.”
The ads here do good in that all the relies here tell the rest of their extended family back home the current lie of the land.=, well, that’s the hope I think !
h,
That magazine is clearly labeled as a product of the AWU (it even has their name and logo on the cover) and doesn’t masquerade as anythign else. It is a regular magazine, not a publication designed to use newsagents as one-off election billboards.
Good to see the the folk of the left own a newsagent or do they .GREAT POSTER OF TONY AND JOE this week will run it for weeks
lets not get carried away we are magazine experts not political commentators
Magazine experts of landfill creators ,I am not sure . Judging by the shopping trolley load of mags I binned today I would say landfill creators
No not landfill generators rather work generators for Network and Gotch ands then us at the end of the chain.