The mag nation business started in New Zealand. My uncle and aunt had a store on Queen St in Auckland that retailed predominantly magazines, but also sold Lotto, smokes and other newsagent like products. From those humble beginnings, we developed our concept for global magazine domination.
We are both an Australian and a New Zealand business. One founder lives in Melbourne, the other in Auckland.
Despite having been in NZ for a longer period, most of our “love” comes from Australia. We have far greater brand awareness and our attempts to appeal to the “urban savvy” have been much more successful in Australia than in New Zealand.
Given the size difference, this is surprising. Also, New Zealanders love when local home grown starts to make it on the world stage. Australia is hardly the world, but from New Zealand’s point of view, it is a big market.
Also, the competition is much higher in Australia. New Zealand doesn’t have a newsagent network like Australia has, and when it comes to a good range of air-freighted magazine titles, we have a virtual monopoly in Auckland. No one in NZ has the niche publisher relationships that we have.
So why are we finding it harder to get brand cut through in New Zealand than in Australia? Don‘t tell us that New Zealand doesn’t have urban savvy because we don’t believe it for a second. Both Auckland and Wellington have a thriving creative community and the NZ fashion industry is also alive and well. New Zealand’s population reads more magazines per capita than any other country.
Perhaps New Zealand doesn’t have the same urban shopping culture as Australia. Where are the cool retail destinations in NZ? Melbourne has Greville, Acland, Brunswick, Smith, and Chapel. And the CBD ain’t bad either. Sydney has fewer urban strips, but it still has a few, with Oxford St and King St being examples. Auckland has High St in the CBD but it is quite boutiquey, while Newmarket, K Road and Ponsonby all have their charm, but not much in the way of constant foot traffic. Lambton Quay in Wellington is very busy, but could it be described as cool?
Is this our problem? The lack of a NZ urban shopping culture? Or is our brand strategy right for Aus but wrong for NZ? Why is it that we get such support in Australia from our target markets, but significantly less from the same types of people in New Zealand? And why is that online subscriptions favour Australia in a ratio of around 10:1?
We would love some thoughts from any New Zealanders out there. But then again, if our suspicions are correct, none of you are even reading this and we will remain ignorant of how to better engage you.
I love the feel of pedestrian malls in Australia, and all the mini vendors on many corners selling drinks, magazines etc.
PS I loved your Queen Street store – spent many a great hour browsing (and buying) magazines there
I remember when Magazzino started out in a tiny shop in O’Connell st in central Auckland (just round from High St) – it built up a great following, and was always busy. Our NZ shopping culture you talk about is largely derived from malls these days, which aren’t particularly urban or hip.
Your brand has recently grown in NZ on the back of the demise of Magazzino (and I’m glad to see those stores survive in some form), so I think its unrealistic to expect huge amounts of love for a brand that has only really blossomed in the last few months. Don’t be so needy!
As to “why is that online subscriptions favour Australia in a ratio of around 10:1?” What promotion have you done of online subs? Any signs that they have worked previously in NZ? Why do you think they will work?
As for your claim to have a virtual monopoly in Auckland, there are two excellent niche mags i get regularly – one from a record store (Wax Poetics mag), one from a shoe store (Sneaker Freaker mag), as you’ve never had them in. Just saying….
This is a real dilema for both New Zealand and Australia.
It all boils down to population size and subsequent market size.
Regardless of market size there will always be a percentage of people who embrace new initiatives and a larger percentage who don’t and a break up of everything in between..
Large population will result in a viable market number.
When the group is small then the number of adopters is smaller and thereby not sustainable in terms of commercial viability.
I think consumers need to understand this and realise that if they don’t support and spread the word then these gems will not hang around for long and will spend the money where they get the return.
That is why it is called business right??
I love Magnation and other great retailers who are standing out and working hard ot create a unique shopping experience – show them the love!!
Hey Peter Mac – thanks for your comment. You raise some really good questions, but your comment re-affirms much of what we are saying.
First, we are not having a go at NZ. We are asking for constructive suggestions re what we can do to improve in NZ.
We have been operating in NZ since 2000. We re-branded to mag nation in 2006, so we have not just come into the industry. However, your linking us to Magazzino (which did go bust don’t forget) highlights the very point we are making – that we have not been as good at getting brand awareness in NZ as we have in Oz.
We are not being needy. We simply want to engage you better and are asking for your thoughts on how to better to do this.
We have done virtually nothing in NZ to push subs. But the same goes for Australia so a comparison is if nothing else, interesting.
Finally, we are not saying that the occasional niche mag cannot be found in other places. Of course it can. But as a one stop shop for niche mags, there is not much else around.
By the way, we regularly get in Sneaker Freaker (Woody is a good friend of ours) and we also get in Wax Poetics
Hi,
I definitely think it’s your approach. I think shoppers in NZ are much more passive, which becomes quite a challenge in the subscription market. But I’ve compared all the major mag publishers online sites, and your competitors such as ISubscribe and to be honest I don’t feel you’re hitting the mark as well as they are in NZ when it comes to distiguishing your value offer and brand.
For what it’s worth I was fairly recently Subs manager at ACP and our subscriptions were growing by double digit perecentages in NZ.
Cheers and good luck. Keep trying.
Gosh, so I reaffirmed all the things that you say are wrong/problemmatical with NZ. I don’t know why i even bothered to reply to you.
I am well aware that Magazinno went bust – read my comment – i said “I’m glad to see those stores survive in some form”. Seesh.
Re the subs compariosn – its only interesting if you make some attempt to analyse it. What research do you do of your online subscribers?
Finally, you may get Sneaker Freaker and Wax Poetics – But I want them as soon as they come out. Like a lot of mag fiends I’m impatient like that. Both the stores I frequent for these titles are speedy. Can you get them the same month they come out? If so, I’ll get em from you.
If you want more brand awareness in NZ, look around at some other brands you like and see what they’re doing right. Or hire someone in marketing.
I have mostly only seen you guys doing promos at Semi-Permanent — other than that, it’s just the brick-and-mortars way of retailing (and a stamped loyalty card). Thought you had a good thing going with the St Lukes branch but that was shut down.
From the twitter feeds, it just seemed like there are more events and promos happening in Oz than here. So, yeah we do feel a little unloved sometimes.
But you are the first place we’ll hit if we’re on the lookout for a rare mag. And if not, likely that you’ll try and scout it out for us
talking of events, doing something around the arrival of a new issue of say, Sneaker Freaker, might be an idea. Have seen similar events areound the launch of a new sneaker at Loaded (High st) or Qubic (Nmkt) which are hugley popular.
I regularly shop at Mag Nation in Ponsonby, but it took a few visits before I even noticed that it had rebranded from Magazzino. Apart from the product being shuffled about there was no obvious change.
I’ve never seen any advertising of Mag Nation – effective advertising needn’t cost a fortune, but you can’t expect your brand to be well known simply because it exists. Good advertising will not only increase awareness of your brand and product offer, but can help people feel more connected to your brand (hence making them more loyal and more likely to recommend you to others).
Having a blog and Twitter are great strategies, but in most cases you’ll be preaching to the converted. You’ve got to change buyers’ behaviour from buying their mags at supermarkets and bookstores to going to a specialist magazine destination (i.e. you). There’s also an opportunity to increase the number of titles this audience buys as you’ll be exposing them to titles they wouldn’t ordinarily see.
Hi, A few thoughts on my mag habits…….
I like all sorts of magazines and over the years have had subs for Mojo and more recently Cuisine. I find that i am more picky when it comes to spending my cash on import mags. Why buy imported English GQ when it has fashion fromm the summer while im in the middle of winter (of course thats not your fault!) 7 or 8 years ago brought that mag for its general pop culture and general interest articles, i now find i’m sourcing that info online…. the same goes for tech mags.. i used to run to the store in CHCH in ’97 to get the latest T3 but of course sites like gizmodo now give me hourly updates on-line .
To get me back buying those mags is not a brand awareness issue, its the culture of mag buying.
I live in Ponsonby and I can read all the imported mags i want at many of the local cafes. And at 4 bucks for a coffe so i should!
good luck
Peter, PMS?
@Tee, ha ha, now get me some chocolate, damn you. Grrr. [joking]
oh yeah, @Magnation, if you want to get a better level of engagement, taking a day or two to answer someones question about a magazine on Twitter is generally viewed as a poor level of engagement. And apologies for the earlier typos!
i don’t know anything about business, but i am a magazine buyer who is also foreign (though now a nz citizen), and no, i’ve never heard of you; probably because you are not in the small province where we live.
why don’t i buy overseas magazines from nz suppliers? simple: price. it’s cheaper (and timely-er) to have my family send my subscriptions over (i pay postage & buy subscription). i’m not going to pay $NZ25 for one $US4-6 magazine. i’m sure there are lots of reasons the prices are so high, but the combination of lower wages and significantly higher costs of living impact how and where i’ll spend my money on what i want. and as much as i’d like to support my local businesses, i have to consider how far my dollar will go.
ps: one of the things i like about nz is the lack of shopping “culture”. :O)
If I’m being perfectly honest (and really, I love you guys), a lot of your blog/twitter posts regarding marketing etc makes you guys come across as amateurs, even though I know you’re not. I’m no marketing guru, but perhaps you need to engage someone who specialises in this – like people above have said, polling people on blogs or twitter is pretty one-sided, as you’re only targeting a small percentage of the population, and are in a way preaching to the converted.
Actually, I like the way you come across on Twitter – you keep it real, and I can relate to that better then to some slick marketing speak. Anyhoo, I mentioned in Twitter earlier on Tuesday that I had not heard of you at all in NZ – I had heard of maggazino tho. I honestly can’t comment more on how to reach the audience over there tho – I think the comments above are all useful. Regarding shopping centres in NZ however, I love the shopping! In Auckland, what about Sylvia Park – I know its not boutiquey but so what, theres plenty of mag readers there Im sure. Also, Nuffield Street? – Kingsland? – Grey Lynn? What about Tauranga? – and as for Welly, my goodness, that place is so hot! – Lambton Quay is only one area of many that would be good for Mag Nation. Sorry If Ive not added much to the debate. But I saw an NZ shopping diss, and I jumped!
I live in Auckland and spend a huge amount of money each week on magazines (most of them foreign, therefore expensive) so consequently I spend a huge amount of time in magazine shops. I love browsing and checking out new mags so I favour the kind of shop environment that encourages it (Borders being a good example), but If one shop doesn’t have what I want then I’ll go elsewhere else – saying that If I’m in the CBD I’ll go to your Queen St branch first because you have such a great range – but for me to be engaged with your shop rather just the magazines I would want somewhere maybe to browse the magazines without blocking other peoples view (seats) and ideally get a coffee at the same time. Oh and wifi, free or not would be nice too. The Queen St branch does none of these things. Sort that out and I’ll never step foot in Borders again.
Remember how i mentioned that “if you want to get a better level of engagement, taking a day or two to answer someones question about a magazine on Twitter is generally viewed as a poor level of engagement”? Example: just saw someone I follow on twitter get an answer to a question about whether you had a mag in store – you took 18 hours to reply. Doesn’t inspire brand loyalty.
Hi Peter – you have to be kidding don’t you? I run a business here. I am not sitting on Twitter all day long waiting for people to contact us. Try any of the big magazine stores and they don’t even have an IT system to look things up. They will resort to a paper system contained within a folder, and can’t tell you whether something is in stock, but only whether they get it in.
The customer in question asked about a mag at 5:40 in the afternoon. Rather than simply just say “not in”, we thought it better to say when it will be in. So, we call our suppliers to find out. They are not hanging around on a Wednesday evening waiting for us to call. They go home at nights. So, they get back to us the next morning. We chase down where the mag is and then let the customer know – “due in today or tomorrow”. Why can’t we be more specific? Because it depends on the trucking department of the supplier.
For god’s sake man, give us a break. If a 24 hour timeframe is not good enough for you (especially when the request comes in during the evening and we get back the next morning), then I don’t know what else to say. If brand loyalty is to depend upon such unreasonable standards of turnaround, then we and most other brands who have to live in the real world which is ruled by practicalities and physical constraints are doomed to fail.
You asked how to better engage your brand in NZ. I’m telling you. I see Vodafone NZ respond to hundreds of customer questions every day. If you want to engage via Twitter, get the resources to do it properly. I could say more but you don’t seem to like feedback
look, you make a fair point about it being 5.40pm, your time. Obviously you can’t call your suppliers, as its after business hours. But rather than leave your customer hanging, get back to them via twitter right away and tell them you’re looking into it, and will call the supplier first thing in the morning. It’s all about communication, which is what your blog is about too.
Peter – We openly want feedback. How many tiny stores open themselves up to public scrutiny and ask for your thoughts as we do. As for comparing us to Vodafone… I am not quite sure what to say. It is very easy to say “get the resources” but this completely ignores the realities of small business.
I think you will be interested in our next post which has just gone live.
I also like the book/mag/ store/cafe idea I know you did it in St Lukes however opposite a starbucks is not easy
the wireless internet idea is great
perhaps somewhere a little more in need of it.
I think a culture as a brand is a great idea for Magnation – I do love that when I go in the gorgeous girl at the counter knows my name and says I have that Paris Vogue here for you.
I used to get it by subscription only it was in paper envelopes and well in NZ rains a LOT.
Our magazine (KAREN) gets a much better reception in Australia by far we sold out in Sydney in CBD in 6 days last issue. Yet it is hard to get that support from the locals in NZ if all mags came with free stuff I think it is what gets the attention – I think it is the only way and perhaps us publishers can work with you on that. !?
Also I am not crazy about black interiors for some reason they do not make me want to hang out, if that is any help x
cheers
Marian
great to see such a heated debate !! at east there is passion
well, the Vodafone NZ twitter feed is manned (mostly) by only one person, their external comms manager (in addition to his main duties), as he is a fan of Twitter. Is there someone in your team who can take it on? Maybe localise it, get someone who is into twitter say in your Ponsonby store to set up an acount for that?
As far as marketing, I understand you are a small operation with limited resources – how about getting in touch with a marketing tutor at AUT or similar and making growing your brand a class porject for their top students? Gives them real world experience (good for their CV), and you get cost-effective (free) marketing.
And sorry for taking up your time. I appreciate you are a small operation etc…
From experience (building online brands in NZ/AU) you cannot treat them the same way, assuming you can is a fatal assumption. Sure there are some commonalities but (for example) Sydney’s population is equal to the whole of New Zealand. Especially when you are talking urban population and culture.
Also to be honest, it is much easier to grow a brand in Australia as you are such a small fish, in New Zealand you can grow to be a relatively big fish much faster. Being a big fish in a small pond can be very hard to sustain.
I’d be happy to sit down and have a chat sometime. Either way I think go back to your key assumptions and question them.
Nice post, glad you’re asking the question. I’ve got to agree with most of the other commenters on this thread and say I don’t really notice the brand of magazine shops. I know there’s one on Queen Street that has lots of magazines, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name (is that you guys?)
The exception to this is Borders, I think because of the overall experience with Gloria Jeans and the odd in-house performance by Luke Hurley. They’ve worked with partners to create an overall experience, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re right next to the movies.
It comes back to one of those perennial marketing questions: what are you really selling? What’s the experience you sell? (eg. chilled out, geeked up, glamorous, library-like, etc) How can you partner with other companies that also supply that in a different way?
Ooh, and events wouldn’t hurt if you’re looking to tap into specific niche communities. And while you’re at it, come to a tweetup! They tend to be happening a lot lately around the Auckland CBD.
Thanks Marian!