by Karlene Lukovitz
Editor, MBR Daily Publishing & Retail News

During a 2018 MBR Conference session, Tim Humanik, SVP at national distributor CMG, reported that publishers and their distribution channel partners have already been incorporating elements from MBR's “What If We Leveraged Everything Magazines and Books Have to Offer?” presentation template — as well as real examples of innovative retail magazine and book partnerships that have been implemented — into actual recent presentations to retailers. (See "Part 1" for an explanation of the template and its purpose.)

Wholesaler TNG incorporated the presentation’s summary of category opportunities at retail and “good/better/best” methods that specific retailers could use publications to engage with consumers:

CMG also recommends ways a retailer could use publications to engage with shoppers, and then highlights specific examples of concepts that have been implemented in-store through publisher/retailer partnerships:

Bauer Media’s presentation includes select slides from “Leveraging Everything,” including one highlighting that magazines also sell other products in the store. To drive home that point, they show an image of a receipt that includes the price of a magazine, plus the costs of items needed to make a recipe in the magazine:

 


Hearst Magazines leverages the company’s array of brand assets in its approach, stressing it more than 118 million audience per month across media channels. They also list resources they can bring to a partnership with retailers and show actual in store implementations completed:

Meredith highlights its FSI magazine coupons and promotions involving digital display and, mobile apps:

Trusted Media Brands, Farmer's Almanac and Consumer Reports (shown in a combined image below), among others, have created custom-published content for specific retailers to support publication sales and simultaneously drive the sales of other retailer products:



Another example: AMI’s inclusion of a retailer’s private-label product, in a box called a “cover chip,” on the covers of OK! and US magazine copies sold at that retailer's stores, with a similar promotional call-out for the product inside the issue:


[Editor's note: "Leveraging Everything, Part 1" coverage, and an audio recording of the full session, are also available on MBR's site.]