Author: Mark Fletcher

This is another heavy week for magazine promotions.  Madison is the third ACP title we have in a feature location this week. We have it facing shoppers as they leave our two main magazine aisles.  This location is on the back of the ACP Basket Builder stand – space with many newsagents leave idle.  We will leave Madison in this location until next Monday – unless we shift it to our counter position.

Further to my earlier post about promoting the launch issue of Prevention magazine, we have the counter unit located in among our women’s weeklies titles.  This was another right out of the box display – very easy and fast to setup.  Publishers should take note of this – the easier they make it for newsagents to promote their titles the more likely they are to be promoted as they want.

We will try and keep this display unit for at least the next three months to help build regular Prevention customers for us.

So far today we have sold five copies of Prevention.

We are promoting Good Health magazine at the entrance to our women’s magazine aisle this week. This stand located at the entrance to the magazine aisle continues to work very well for us.  But with Good Health magazine out a week already I am not expecting amazing things from this promotion.  However, it would be good to be wrong on this.

We plan to change this display later this week if we are not getting the sales necessary.

The small stand promoting Top Gear magazine near newspapers over the weekend worked with three copies sold off the stand.

We track sales for single title stands.  The more successful a title in as a result of such a display the more likely we are to promote it in this way again.

Our placement of the latest issue of Rolling Stone at the counter resulted in sales of an additional six copies over the weekend.  Some of these are likely to be sales of the Rolling Stone which would not have otherwise been achieved.  This opportunistic placement of magazines is key to driving incremental sales.  Not flashy displays or consumer competitions but placement in a high traffic area where the cover will connect with a reasonable number of shoppers and from where a quick impulse purchase decision can be made.

It is challenging for publishers to make this pitch.  We do it in our newsagencies because to look at the covers and have space set aside for this type of promotion.  We have made it easy for us.

We are promoting the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Father’s Day magazine moves around our newsagency.  The John Lennon feature makes this a collectors issue and an ideal Father’s Day gift for a Generation X dad.  We have this display located at the busiest point of our counter – targeting maximum impulse purchase. It’s ideal timing from ACP to have the John Lennon feature out now.

We are promoting the latest issue of Top Gear magazine near our newspaper stand in the lead up to Father’s Day.  This placement is part of a range of moves with magazines to pitch for Father’s Day business around our newsagency.  The newspaper location has worked well for sales of Top Gear for us in the past.  We will leave this display up until Monday at least.

We are promoting marie claire magazine at the front of the newsagency this week to leverage the free bag which comes with the title.  We’re short of space right now so finding this location for what is a good offer was a challenge.  We have this display near our busiest lottery counter.  It will be up for at least three or four days – longer depending on demands on space.