The digital revolution currently sweeping the media world will create “boundless opportunities” for the magazine industry, according to the head of Australia’s newly established Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Vanishing Point Media’s Patty Keegan, manager of the IAB, told delegates at the Magazine Publishers of Australia (MPA) Conference in Sydney this month that magazines and online platforms can “happily co-exist” and there are “real opportunities for a media multiplier effect where one plus one equals three – both for your readers and your advertisers.” She said magazines and online were the “perfect pair.”

Keegan said the magazine industry had to start “clawing back the ad dollars that were moving online” and that the online offering was part of a defensive strategy to start to do that.

She said advertisers were looking for online opportunities and “you (magazines) need to have something in your arsenal when they are looking to buy or they will go somewhere else.

“Online also provides you with an offensive angle in that the money they spend online with you will chip away at some TV dollars. But increasingly, you have to provide value for your readers and advertisers through your brand,” she said.

“It’s not just about selling pages anymore, the horse is out of the barn on that,” she said. “It’s about selling the brand and digital media allows you to extend the brand and give the readers more options and give advertisers new ways to reach and connect with your audience.”

Keegan said research into 71 magazines web sites around the world, conducted by FIPP last year, revealed that “overwhelmingly” magazine web sites attracted significant new audiences, i.e. people who did not read the print brand.

She added that the survey found that the main attractions for visitors to the web site were: time critical information, interactive content, searchable databases, personalised information and free content.

Source: www.magazines.org.au