We received twenty-eight copies of the launch issues of Yours magazine from Bauer Media yesterday – double what I would have expected to receive based on sales of other magazines appealing to the target reader. We received more copies than People’s Friend, an established title for us that is skewed at women just slightly older than the Yours target.

I wish publishers would start a title slow and build rather than using us as their bank and warehouse by giving us more stock than necessary. This new title has a two-week on-sale. Bauer could have used their sales based replenishment to top-up supply instead of front-loading. Despite this, we are supporting Yours with full cover display placement in two locations – with our weeklies and this location in the photo next to People’s Friend, next our our UK weeklies.

I spent half an hour reading Yours last night, cover to cover. Seriously. It feels true to its target reader except for the fashion and beauty pages – they felt very advertiser heavy and out of place – but I am not the customer.

Comparing it to the cheap and cheerful UK weeklies chasing the same reader, the Aussie Yours feels right at home. The difference here is that we don’t have a section of titles except for the imported UK titles. Yours feels more like them than an Aussie title.  It being placed with the UK titles may not help it find the Aussie customer.  I wonder if Yours would be more successful over time if it was not the only Australian magazine in this space. I think for these reasons it is important we promote it with our regular weeklies as well as UK titles – to get both shoppers.

It’s way to early to look at sales data. We plan to support the title for two months, your issues, and then asses our space commitment.

The Who cover featuring Phillip Seymour Hoffman is getting full cover treatment in two locations in-store from us – to promote the title to people who might not normally purchase it. Who does stories like this well and even for the shot time available the coverage is satisfying for a fan in my view.

Here is our aisle-end promotion for the Pacific Magazines $10,000 competition. It’s satisfying seeing customers notice the display, stop, and pick up a title. While I am not a fan of billboard displays in-store, this one works because of terrific collateral supporting a simple pitch.

Here’s how the team at one of my newsagencies is promoting the Pacific Magazines $10,000 competition opportunity. I love this display: it’s bold and strong on brands.

This display is at the front of the main magazine aisle. We have stock of each title in their usual location.

This simple cash prize promotion is easy for customers to understand and the collateral from Pacific plays into that.

Here’s the ad promoting the $10,000 competition connected with New Idea, That’s Life and Better Homes and Gardens.

Nice.

I urge newsagents to ensure the full cover of the latest issue of Feast magazine is on show. It stands out against the sea of colour in the magazine aisle. We co-loate Feast for the first couple of weeks – usually with weekly magazines or at the sales counter, to leverage the regular ads on SBS.

People purchasing Taste magazine at Coles get a set of bamboo salad servers. I’m not so sure it will affect our sales since the magazine looks better in newsagencies un-bagged than it does in Coles. The gift is good but not great. My only frustration is the notice on the bag that the gift is exclusive to Coles.

With the iPad Air still selling well it’s timely we are able to promote this magbook created specifically for the title.  We have it in our technology magazines as well as with news magazines. We will also give it a shot with newspapers.