Publishers Hope Threesome Will Perk Up Newsstand Sales

Here’s proof that tough times make for strange bedfellows: Three major magazine publishers are teaming up to peddle newsstand copies of their top fashion magazines.

The unprecedented promotion for Conde Nast’s Vogue, Time Inc.’s InStyle, and Hearst’s Elle will appear this autumn in Target stores during fall fashion season, the publishers revealed at last week’s Retail Marketplace 2014 conference. “The offer: Buy any two of the fashion titles and get a $5 Target gift card as you check out,” according to a write-up from the event.

Along with in-store displays, the promotion will be boosted by 50 fashion bloggers, said Will Michalopoulos, Hearst’s senior director, retail sales.

“This is an example of competing titles coming together to drive sales for some of their biggest brands, and to drive traffic for a retailer,” he said. News of such innovations was welcomed by beleaguered newsstand executives, who are still reeling from the collapse of the country’s second-largest wholesaler, Source Interlink, not to mention continuing declines in newsstand sales.

A Meredith 2-for-1 promotion

Hearst and Meredith are among the publishers who have polybagged pairs of related titles to offer two-for-the-price-of-one deals at retail.

“In almost every case, these have gained incremental distribution, and in one case, we calculate that this program will double the overall retail business in one of the chains in which it’s been introduced," Michalopoulos said.

With publishers talking more than ever about cooperating to bolster retail sales, the three-way Vogue-InStyle-Elle tie-up is a logical next step. There was also talk of other joint ventures at the conference, such as creating an industry-wide mobile app to promote sales of magazines.

“Our competition is not other magazines; it’s all of the things that readers are doing when they’re not looking at magazines,” preached Joe Ripp, Time Inc.’s chairman and CEO.

“There’s no going back, so we’ve got to work together to survive in this brave new world,” agreed British media consultant Jim Bilton.

While the magazine industry’s newsstand leaders were having their Kumbaya moment at the conference, the nation’s largest magazine wholesaler sent them a message demanding that they sign a legal agreement if they wanted to continue selling magazines in Walmart and many other stores. The document, which spells out the terms under which TNG will take over most of the magazine distribution that Source Interlink left hanging, is highlighted by a convoluted 191-word Lawyerspeak sentence covering indemnification.

“I still can’t make heads or tails of that sentence,” commented one magazine executive, “but I think it means that if Source ever sues TNG or anyone who works there, I have to give up my first-born child.”

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