MARKETER'S PERSPECTIVE
Five marketers on why they choose custom
FRANK BERMAN
Senior VP-Marketing
Bloomingdale's
Publication: Little Pink Book
Frequency: Annual
Audience: Bloomingdale's best customers, among others
Circulation: 300,000 print copies
Publisher: Rodale Custom Publishing
Our Little Brown Book was started in November 2005 as a way to recognize our best customers by giving them insight and access to Bloomingdale's, its designers, fashions and lifestyle.
We had an ongoing relationship with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and thought we could do something more. Why not a Little Pink Book?
Vendors were happy to participate, and our first Little Pink Book debuted in October 2007 to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was incredibly well-received and fully funded by advertising. Our "Pink" campaign came to life in the pages of the publication and in our store with the Little Pink Boutique and Little Pink Gift Card sales.
The Little Pink Book raised $406,000 for the foundation and generated more than 31 million media impressions.
We published our second Little Pink Book last October and got smarter with our Web presence. We e-mailed the entire book to 2 million bloomingdales.com [registered users], made it available for the month of October on bloomingdales.com and positioned the Little Pink Boutique online.
Rodale Custom Publishing has been a fantastic partner; it really understands the Bloomingdale's brand and has contributed not only editorially but also financially to making the Little Pink Book a complete success.
This year we plan to keep building on that success. We may look at a viral component with video and interactive ideas.
ROGER HYDE
VP-Creative Services
DirecTV
Publication: Access DirecTV
Frequency: Monthly
Audience: DirecTV's best customers
Circulation: About 750,000
Publisher: Meredith Integrated Marketing
Access DirecTV is similar in format to the television guide we've had for some time, but about 18 months ago we decided to relaunch it as a premium product to reflect our premium brand. We wanted to make Access DirecTV something people would keep on top of their coffee table instead of beneath it.
The magazine's content is varied to cover different areas of interest among our subscribers. Readers have access to a who's who of the television world—athletes and personalities.
We enjoy an open dialogue with readers and have organized focus groups to collect feedback on how they like the articles as well as to get their responses to the look and feel of the magazine. When readers told us it was difficult to decipher our television guide, we made it easier and more appealing. We reformatted the guide, highlighted areas of interest and color-coded them. We ran banners through the center of the guide to highlight key programming.
Meredith has been our publishing partner for six years now, and it has been able to elevate the magazine to match our premium brand. It has risen to the occasion by assembling a stellar editorial team that hits every issue out of the ballpark for us.
The only current online presence for Access DirecTV is "highlights," which appears on directv.com. We're considering a bigger online presence and are working on the best way to proceed. Right now, it's full steam ahead with a print publication that we're really proud of.
JOE PULIZZI
Founder-Chief Content Officer
Junta42
Publication: Junta42.com
Frequency: Daily
Audience: 50% corporate marketers, 50% publishers/agencies
Circulation: Approximately 15,000 unique visitors per month
Publisher: WhiteSpace Creative
When I left Penton Media's Custom Media Division in March 2007, I was obviously a big believer in custom publishing. But I always believed the custom sales process should be easier.
I got the idea of developing an online product matching marketers with custom publishers. To get the word out about the new product, I wanted to use custom content myself. We launched Junta42.com in beta in August 2007 as a mix of original and aggregated content. The idea was to create a vertical search of information related to content marketing and custom publishing. We believed if we drove enough interest around the topic, we could launch our online matching service, Junta42 Match, on the back of it.
WhiteSpace Creative helped us develop the Junta42 Web site as well as determine content strategy and architecture. We tried to keep costs low and do things the most efficient way with the technology available.
Junta42 continues to evolve. We're considering adding sponsorship since we've been approached by a number of companies that want to sponsor the site. We're also planning to add more expert commentary and more original content.
All organizations today need to create valuable, relevant and compelling content to drive their marketing programs. If we want to be the evangelist for this practice of content
marketing, our content strategy and distribution practices need to be among the best.
JOHN BEHLING
VP-Global Marketing
MasterCraft Boat Co.
Publication: MasterCraft 40th Anniversary
Frequency: Commemorative book
Audience: MasterCraft enthusiasts
Circulation: 10,000
Publisher: D Custom
Although we've done quarterly publications in the past, this was our first commemorative book. Every five years MasterCraft puts out a limited-edition anniversary boat. Last year, for our 40th anniversary, part of the package which came with the boat was custom luggage, a garage floor mat and an anniversary book, which was also offered for sale separately.
There's an enormous heritage and loyalty behind the MasterCraft brand name: The whole chronology of the industry—the evolution of boating, waterskiing, wakeboarding, the athletes—makes interesting reading. The people surrounding the business are amazingly passionate.
Our internal marketing department worked with D Custom to produce a hard-bound, coffee-table book with a dust cover whose graphics play off the design of the 40th anniversary edition boat: The traditional gift for a 40th anniversary is a ruby, so both the boat and the book are ruby red.
The book was sent out last July to boat buyers as part of their package, and it was made available for purchase in our retail store online and in dealerships.
D Custom was very pleasant to work with and very efficient, which was key to the project's execution. They did an excellent job with copywriting, and the design team was fabulous. D Custom understood our vision and our product, which can be challenging for anybody new to the industry.
SHELLEY TAVENER
Manager-CRM
Mazda Canada
Publication: Zoom-Zoom Magazine
Frequency: Three times a year
Audience: Customers who have purchased a Mazda within the last five years
Circulation: 325,000
Publisher: Redwood Custom Communications
Zoom-Zoom Magazine was launched in September 2007 as part of Mazda's initiative to publish a global magazine with a consistent brand message and vision. The magazine gives readers insight into the company and makes Mazda owners feel part of a global community.
Zoom-Zoom Magazine is also a lifestyle publication that tries to convey information that resonates with customers and the brand; it's one of the core pillars of our CRM program. Zoom-Zoom Magazine has featured passionate car collector Jay Leno as well as the person who builds rotary engines by hand. There are stories on places to go on road trips, an indoor surfing complex in Japan and the "river-bugging" phenomenon. We invite readers to send us their photos that show the essence of Zoom-Zoom, and we showcase collages of these Zoom-Zoom moments from around the world.
In publishing Zoom-Zoom Magazine, we have reaped the benefit of Redwood Custom Communications' automotive knowledge, and its office in Toronto helps us develop localized content. Redwood did a strong lifestyle piece on the Mazda 6, with incredible beauty shots of Toronto and models reflecting the car's core demographic; it spoke volumes to people's experience and living the brand. Redwood brings our brand to life and deploys a lot of metrics so we can continue to evolve the magazine.