Branded Magazines Can Be A Huge Boon For The Luxury Industry – 15/1/10

According to UK research body Mintel, “customer publishing” is booming. What we mean by this is branded in-house magazines, like Chanel’s 31 Rue Cambon (see our November 23 update for a brief run-down).

An interesting article in the Financial Times probed this new trend, suggesting that “increasingly, luxury brands are introducing innovative editorial-style brochures and ‘look books’ for their clients.”

“Our research has shown that these magazines create an eight percent uptick in sales,” says Julia Hutchison, CEO of the UK’s Association of Publishing Agencies. “On average, every customer spends 25 minutes reading these titles. That’s 25 minutes spent with the brand. Lots of companies are redirecting their ad and marketing spends to this avenue.”

So, we could be seeing a lot more in-house magazines in the future. We believe it goes back to knowing the customer innately. And if brands are continuing to up their anti and investment on CRM [Customer Relationship Management], then who better to provide their own focused catalogues or advertisements to get their message across in their own managed environment.

Naturally, those who have confidence to produce their own magazine or mega-catalogue have a large business and successfully managed database. In fact, an Australian fine jewellery brand that has done this extremely well, and recently launched their first flagship retail store in King Street, Sydney, is AUTORE (AUTORE Magazine). AUTORE have a large international wholesale business and launched their magazine a few years ago, successfully showcasing their own products, extremely beautifully and subtly amongst other fashion and fine jewellery and interesting articles. Click here to view the AUTORE magazine.