Customer magazines
Although, like a conventional paid-for magazine, many customer magazines carry advertising from third parties, they are a separate channel of communication because their prime functions are different. Customer magazines are regularly published titles produced by publishing agencies on behalf of brand owners, and are distributed to customers, employees, members and/or stakeholders. Most are distributed in-store or by post.
Their underlying objectives are to deepen the brand’s relationship with its target audience, engaging in dialogue with customers, and enhancing loyalty. This may involve informing and entertaining the reader; providing advice, ideas and suggestions about products or services, thus driving sales; increasing the frequency of store visits; representing a tone of voice for the brand; influencing brand image; or any other marketing objective. According to the latest bi-annual Mintel report on the customer magazine industry, published in 2005 [97], the industry comprises about 600 titles and was worth about £385 million in 2004, with turnover on a sharply rising trend.
Improving brand equity
New research has demonstrated that customer magazines can increase the appeal of and affinity with the brand, and boost share of expenditure. The “APA Advantage Study” [98] was conducted by Millward Brown, and published in March 2005 for customer magazines’ trade body the Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) and Royal Mail. 17 brands with customer magazines were studied, and for each brand two samples were selected: a sample of customers exposed to the magazine, and a control sample of customers who were not exposed to the magazine. The magazine sample was weighted by demographics to match the control sample. Aggregating across the 17 brands, a total sample of 4,390 consumers was interviewed.
Millward Brown’s ‘Brand Equity Pyramid’ technique was used to assess the impact of customer magazines. The pyramid consists of four measures which taper upwards: awareness of the brand; acceptance (would not reject the brand); appeal (it offers something more than competitors); and affinity (good knowledge of the brand and higher than average purchase consideration).
Results showed that customers who had seen the magazine were more positively disposed to the brand than customers who had not seen the magazine – on all four measures.
Brand Equity Pyramid
|
|
Exposed to |
Control: |
Index: |
|
|
magazine |
not exposed |
Control=100 |
|
|
% |
% |
|
|
Affinity |
37 |
28 |
132 |
|
Appeal |
51 |
40 |
128 |
|
Acceptance |
93 |
89 |
104 |
|
Awareness |
99 |
97 |
102 |
Since both samples were customers of the brands surveyed, the levels of awareness and acceptance were very high. Where a substantial difference emerged was in the two highest levels of the pyramid. The appeal of the brand was 28% higher, and affinity (linked to purchase consideration) was 32% higher, among those customers who had seen the customer magazine.
Boosting consumer spending by 8%
A second measure was a Consumer Loyalty Score, based on questions about purchase consideration. Millward Brown’s experience with this loyalty score, used in 3,200 studies across 69 countries (including 377 studies and 150,000 respondents in the UK), is that the score predicts actual buying behaviour very accurately. Specifically, it predicts share of category expenditure which is spent on the brand in question.
The Consumer Loyalty Scores were averaged across all brands, separately for the two samples. With the control sample indexed as 100, the score for customers exposed to the customer magazines was found to be 108. That is, they were predicted to spend 8% more of their category money on the brand in question.
The study also found that the average customer magazine is read for 25 minutes - very similar to QRS (leaving aside the monthly television listings titles). Another finding was that 44% of readers take some form of action as a result of reading the magazine. For example, with a car manufacturer’s magazine the action might be at least one of: visiting or phoning a dealership, entering a competition, using vouchers, visiting a website, enquiring about a specific product or service, or buying something.
The “APA Advantage Study” is to be updated with new cases every six months. Details will be released on APA’s website at www.apa.co.uk
Influencing brand image
Another survey by Millward Brown established in a different way that customer magazines have a positive effect on brand image. “Consumer Attitudes To Customer Magazines”, commissioned by APA and Royal Mail and published in 2003 [99], interviewed approximately 475 consumer customers, split between those who had read the customer magazine and those who had not, for a range of brands.
The conclusion was that readers have a more positive image of the brand than non-readers.
Agreement with statement, among customers
|
Statement about company |
Readers |
Non |
Index |
|
|
% |
% |
|
|
Has a good reputation |
93 |
80 |
116 |
|
Is a company you can trust |
89 |
70 |
127 |
|
Strives to meet customer needs |
86 |
70 |
123 |
|
Looks after its customers |
86 |
72 |
119 |
|
Offers good value for money |
84 |
73 |
115 |
|
Constantly improving products/services |
79 |
68 |
116 |
On all six attitudes, reading of customer magazines was associated with an improvement of 15%-27%.