Digital replicas should be called ‘enhanced magazine versions’, says Publicitas exec
Lucio Grimaldi, executive director Latin America, Publicitas, USA, spoke to more than 200 attendees today (31 October 2012) at the 4th FIPP Ibero-American Magazine Media Conference in San José, Costa Rica.
Grimaldi gave an overview of the Pan-Regional market and offered his thoughts about the future of advertising there. He detailed some important features about the market, which are an expanding middle class, huge ad spend growth (Brazil is a key contributor), mobile and web adoption is in its early stages and print ad revenues are slowly declining.
Grimaldi then gave some great stats about tablet publishing in the US. “Two per cent of circulation in the US is a digital replica. However, I actually prefer to call those editions ‘enhanced magazine versions.’” Grimaldi said that two years ago, just two per cent of adults in the US owned a tablet device. Today, that figure has increased to 29 per cent.
“I actually think smartphones and tablet devices are different things”, said Grimaldi. “Tablet devices will eventually replace desktop computers.”
Grimaldi finished by quoting Hearst’s Michael Clinton, who recently asked the question: “What is it about magazine media that lets us prevail and lets us see a bright future?” The answer? “It’s our curated and trusted brand content that is our ‘secret sauce’ and secret weapon.”
