The hot topic for many involved in magazine publishing in Australia yesterday was the report that European magazine publisher Bauer was in negotiations to purchase ACP Magazines.

Several newsagents I spoke with during the day wanted to talk about what such an acquisition might mean.

The way I see it, ACP being sold to Bauer or some other established publishing business could be good for the company and magazine publishing generally. Good competition fosters good competition and this results in better products.

Magazines live or die by the value those reading them discover in their pages. A publisher purchasing ACP will help it deliver better products. A private equity player purchasing ACP is less likely to focus on driving value through content – in my view.

Newsagents can only sit and watch what happens with ACP with more than passing interest from the sidelines.

Check out a recent blog post by Colin Morrison, former ACP Chief Executive now based in Britain, about the challenges the company faces.

We received these Scooby Doo titles last week and wondered about their relevance to us.  Four titles, two copies each in a segment which is challenged in all but the top selling titles. I’d feel better about the titles if they were part of a broader Scooby Doo story, something I could build something more meaningful around. I am looking more and more for this, opportunities to take a title beyond a pocket and drive interest by retailers elsewhere in the business.

I love the collateral for the latest issue of Zoo. It’s simple, providing good visual cut through.  It’s also clear in its goal.  Both factors help us in our environment of considerable competition for attention.

I also love the display created at the counter by one of our team members. This is an excellent place for the title. The display rocks!

We are promoting the latest issue of Total Girl magazine with the Charm It and Beanie Boos products, products which connect beautifully with this issue.

Promoting three products in the one display like this will get more people looking at the offer.  Our goal is to drive sales of this issue of the magazine.

This display is at the entrance to the magazine department.

While the cover of the current copy of Science Illustrated looks good, it is the back cover is more compelling. Check it out.

How to survive floods earthquakes bushfires taps into topics close to us.

I was thrilled to see both the front cover and the back cover on show at one of my newsagencies this week. Excellent initiative.

When working through our food titles I came across Creative Sugar Craft. At first I thought this was an overseas title and sort of ignored it.

On my second look I noticed it was an Australian title, a good Australian title (I like cake!) – this got me to take time to think about how I could support the title.

Creative Sugar Craft is a title for these days of the amazing popularity of cupcakes and other baking. Get it in front of the right people and it will sell. While that statement – get it in front of the right people and it will sell – could be made about almost any title I think it’s more true with this one for several reasons: it’s a quality special interest title, it’s about a topic which is hot right now, it plays to our point of difference in the magazine space.

We are supporting by Creative Sugar Craft placing it at the front of the column, at eye level, with the full cover on display.  We will also put it on our list of titles which we give extra attention to – at the counter and even with women’s weeklies … to increase the eyeballs that see it.

I encourage newsagents to seek this title out and give it careful attention.

We are promoting the latest issue of family circle magazine with this display in-location and several other activities including placement with women’s weeklies, featuring it at the front of the store and time on the counter over the next few weeks.

With a sell through for us of 97%, family circle is a terrific success. I put this success for us down to a mix of the product being excellent and us making sure that shoppers see title title through our various activities. Our hard work pays off in sales.

family circle is not always a destination purchase for shoppers – probably because it is not monthly. This is where we, as magazine specialists, need to play our role and chase sales. In our case, this work is working a treat.

I was asked by a new newsagent last week for advice on how to use the ACP basket builder stand and took this photo of how we were using it in one of my newsagencies.

I figured I’d post it here and run through how we use the stand.

The photo shows our traditional use. It’s from last week.  This is how we allocate space when we are not featuring a title or a category. On those times, the title or category own the stand.

In the photo you can see we have AWW and the puzzle book next to each other.  We are using Good Health and the Pregnancy title as the beacon titles. They are working, pregnancy one especially. The placement of the two Shop titles next to each other is deliberate.

The last four pockets can be anything as they are the least shopped no matter what we put in there.  That said, we make conscious choices on what we put in them – we do this by placing tiles next to each other that are more likely to work well together.

Taking care about what you put in a stand like this can generate extra sales and that’s what we all want eh?

I urge newsagents to check all magazine supplier stands and ensure that they are promoting titles from the supplier of the stand in the stand.

This stand from ACP and all magazine publisher stands are about making money for us. If they don’t then what’s the point!  It’s up to us how successful the stands are – by what we put in them and where we locate them.

We take this very seriously.

The latest issue of Country Home Ideas comes with a terrific bookmark as a gift. It’s a good gift, well selected for the typical purchaser of this title.

The problem is that most shoppers will not see the bookmark as it sits at the bottom of the bag and will be covered by magazines in front and traditional magazine fixturing.

While the promotion at the top of the bag is good, will it get people looking? The bookmark is better quality than I expected. hence my concern about people actually looking at it.

We are addressing the challenge by placing the title at the front of our counter section – making the bookmark easily seen.

I am not sure what the publisher could have done this time around for putting the bookmark higher where it could be more easily seen would have meant covering the masthead.  So … I don’t have an answer. I guess my goal here is to point the issue out to newsagents, to encourage them to promote the title so the gift can be seen.

We are promoting the new branding of New Idea magazine with this terrific floor unit toward the front of the newsagents, a full column display mid store and the new branding collateral supporting the title in its usual location.

We sold plenty of copies of the magazine off the stand in the photo yesterday.  It is easily seen from the front of the store – we selected the location for this reason, hoping to tap into recognition of the TVC.

I love the stand provided by Pacific Magazines.  It’s innovative, easy to setup and easy to relocate. Yes, I know not everyone got one. I’d note, again, that the stand is just part of how we are promoting the new brand.