Kudos to News Magazines for working to ensure aditional stock availability of the launch issue of the Master Chef magazine.  Plenty of newsagents have ordered extra stock and while supply was a challenge earlier in the week. stock was flowing yesterday.

Based on a small sample group of 12 stores, sales for Master Chef magazine appear to have been patchy yesterday – very low in some (1) and good (8) in others.  What is interesting is that the stores with stronger numbers had weaker Monday sales.

While somewhat unfair since they are from two different categories, I am comparing the performance of Master Chef  to Prevention last year. The launch budgets were similar (if I recall correctly).   Prevention had a stronger first day and follow up on day two.  More of the launch budget was spent in retail, particularly newsagencies.

Based on what I have heard from newsagents, I suspect that a review of the launch will show that inadequate retail marketing collateral and scale out mistakes held the first issue back from reaching its potential.

With all the magazine promotional activity around at the moment we decided to reposition our Prevention magazine offer.  We now have it facing shoppers as they leave our card aisle and head toward the counter.  Given that most card customers are women I expect Prevention to work well for us in this location.  This location is on the side of our newspaper stand – a side we have not used much previously.

Associated Press is reporting that the US issue of Playboy magazine which goes on sale this Friday will have a 3D centrefold.

This is the year of 3D with magazines offering glasses for TV shows, 3D movies everywhere and now a 3D Playboy centrefold.

Gimmicks are fun and can deliver a sales lift.  However, sustained above average performance is based on the product itself.

The launch issue of Master Chef magazine performed well yesterday in the newsagencies for which I have received sales data.  Sell-through ranged between 15% and 36%.  There was a good mix of shoppers looking specifically for the title and those who happened across it while looking for something else.

The result is good given that the latest issue of Good Food magazine was released yesterday with considerable promotional support from ACP Magazines.  Competition is healthy!

The only complaint with the launch I have heard is insufficient marketing collateral.  I’d be interested to see the percentage of the launch budget invested in in-store collateral.  Given the foot traffic in newsagencies, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Yesterday’s performance of Master Chef puts it close to that of the launch of Prevention magazine last year – except that Pacific Magazines did a better job with marketing collateral.

I’d expect some newsagents to be chasing more stock of Master Chef magazine by the end of the week based on the sales numbers yesterday.

We are promoting Soccer International Magazine’s World Cup 2010 program at the counter this week. While sales have been okay from the location with other World Cup titles – in the men’s magazine aisle – I wanted to see what could be achieved with a counter display.

We are still developing our broader World Cup campaign so guidance from the success of this title will help in the next few days.  The display is situated near the World Cup trading cards.

Since we did not have any collateral, we went with a black and white copy of the cover as the backdrop.  It looks more effective in person.

We have found that Famous magazine sells well on impulse with newspapers – hence the small stand we setup yesterday morning to run for a couple of days this week.  This simple display using a copy of the front cover works well with a few titles so we try and give fair representation to publishers with the space.

We are promoting the bagged Woman’s Day / OK! magazine $6.95 offer at two high traffic impulse locations – on the unit shoppers pass as they leave our busy women’s magazine aisle and at the sales counter.

We chose to not place this offer next to Woman’s Day since we did not want to pitch it to our regulars for that title. I see this as a value proposition and therefore more likely to appeal to a different shopper.

While we are supporting this and other value promotions, I have to note that I am not a fan.  I don’t want to educate customers to not pay full price for magazines.  That said, I understand that other retailers like the offer and so feel somewhat compelled to support them.