SPH Magazines’ approach to ecommerce: Marrying content and consumer purchase
Joseph Lee, managing director of new media at Singapore Press Holdings Magazines, shares his views about e-commerce, consumer retail, and digital transaction businesses. The digital media guru in the company, Lee is responsible for spearheading SPH Magazines’ overall digital growth. His portfolio includes the expansion of SPH Magazines’ existing online properties, including the award-winning Hardwarezone.com and HerWorldPLUS, and launching of new ones.
INMA: Digital transaction businesses are all the rage with news media companies — deal sites, local shopping sites, and online catalogues to name a few examples. As digital re-organisation hits each area of business, there are media companies who are ready to pounce. What is your view on this?
Lee: This to me is a natural course of evolution for the advertising community. However, how we engage the audience and via which platform may differ from industry to industry and from product to product.
One thing is for sure: Magazine publishers do have an advantage when it comes to moving readers from the stage of awareness to that of consumption. The trust that magazine publishers have established with their readers, fostering a community atmosphere, will place them in an advantageous position to move them along the purchasing cycle.
INMA: Many publishers have long sold branded consumer products through the pages of their printed products. Now that’s happening online instead, and at a fraction of the cost, as third-party products are re-branded and endorsed by trusted media mastheads.
Lee: Once again, it is so important that magazine publishers only position products that resonate with their readers rather than attempting to pander to whatever they feel can generate short-term revenue for them. Brand equity and trust takes years to build and cultivate, and it would be foolhardy to compromise that integrity for short-term gains.
With the advent of technology, magazine publishers like SPH Magazines are able to now extend the reader experience from not only sharing with them products and services that are deemed relevant, but continuing the process into instant gratification, that is, the ability to not only be informed but to consume.
Source: INMA: Sharing Ideas, Inspiring Change
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