Beautiful storytelling will never go out of fashion: Minette Ferreira, Media24

As the Indian Magazine Conference, organized by the good offices of the Association of Indian Magazines, returned to New Delhi after a gap of four years, Minette Ferreira, General Manager-Lifestyle and Community News, Media24, South Africa, gave an absorbing talk on how her company was reinventing its magazine publishing model.

With the theme of this year’s Congress theme being even in the digital age, magazines are the most effective medium for “Building Engaged Communities”, Ferreira spoke to us about the companionship of magazine subscriptions,

“The magazine holds such a unique space in the media landscape, and I think it's because of the unique way that magazines can tell stories and magazines can present the storytelling in such a unique way. As a medium that really makes it stand out and, therefore, I also think that that buys it sustainability and longevity,” said Ferreira.

And then along with that the storytelling element and the luxury that comes with that, is that magazines can connect with communities in a very special way. “So whether you're talking about a magazine that's aimed at a large group (a magazine that publishes at scale) or whether you're talking about a magazine that literally is niched towards a small community, magazines can connect communities around interests, whether it's large or small, and that makes it such an exciting and unique space,” she said.

Ferreira also waxed poetic about the timelessness of magazines, and “I think that ties in with the storytelling; it is beautiful writing, beautiful storytelling. And that will never ever go out of fashion.”

However, given the transient nature of today’s media landscape and the non-tactile, digitized content that is flooding it, is the physicality of magazines going to be an advantage or disadvantage?

Ferreira says, “I think what most magazine media companies are battling with is digital migration and whether we will be successful from a firewall perspective. I believe it will be a combination. I honestly believe that print for magazines is long from over. We've been professing the death of print for so many years and yet here we are, and we are still publishing magazines.”

She doesn’t believe that tactile experience and the luxury of magazines can never be replaced with an online experience. “But can a magazine live in an online world that’s paywalled? I believe it can. And therefore, I think it is a combination of the two. The challenge for us as media companies and as media employees is about what does the digital space look like versus what I'm presenting in my print product? Because I do think it is a different experience.”

“If I go to a website, it is definitely not to lean back. That's not a moment of luxury; it doesn’t have that glossy feel. It’s about finding those opportunities. And I think that again, the answer lies in storytelling.

In my view, the unique things that we can present digitally are the things that we can't do in print, which is telling the story behind the story,” elaborates Ferreira.

This tackles the one hindrance that we do have in print, which is the limited amount of real estate that a publisher has on their physical product.

“Of course, we've got endless amounts of real estate digitally, but it's about what you do with that real estate. So, there's a lot of value for premium content for magazines, in utilizing that real estate more effectively, with content that obviously is going to get people hooked,” she says.

And a lot of that content is going to consist of visual stimulation, whether pictures but especially video.

“I think magazines can really do well with that from a premium content perspective. Who wouldn't want to see the video of the interview with the celebrity cover story right? What happened at the shoot behind the scenes?” asks Ferreira, saying it is a different way of telling the story that the print product went through.

“You're going to have to make it entertaining, to keep the audience engaged. So I do think it's just finding different ways of telling stories in the digital space. What we are experimenting with in South Africa (and I hope to report back in a year or so that it's been successful), is bundling magazines, with newspapers, in a paywall environment. And it really is because magazines play such a different role versus what newspapers do.”

She believes that from a paywall product perspective, by having the magazine voice there, in terms of bringing the lifestyle component (be it advice, fashion, or beauty and other specific content verticals within that magazine voice) along with the immediacy that the news component brings.

“That really can provide a fully-fledged sort of product in terms of keeping your audience engaged. Plus, it gives you the scale and volume that a magazine can't necessarily build by itself. In fact, it's a holistic media experience,” Ferreira concluded.