Dennis Publishing’s online brand Monkey is further proof that online brands can exist without print offerings, however, managing director of Monkey Richard Downey, said that in order to succeed, the brand must have a clear understanding of what it sets out to do.

Downey said:  “What we do on Monkey certainly has elements of being a magazine, it has virtual pages you turn and editorial, however the content is not the same as in traditional magazines because it doesn’t set out to be a magazine.

“Monkey exists purely in the digital world and therefore does things it could never do in print such as using videos and interactive content and channels – therefore we could not replicate it in print.”

Downey adds that if publishers are going to be online, they must deliver something that can only be achieved online.

However, NatMag’s online brand Jellyfish failed last year after just two issues as the publisher tried desperately to enter the teen market.

At the time, NatMags blamed “distribution challenges” and its failure to become a “sustainable business model.” Downey said its failure was linked to the fact it was the first time NatMag’s had attempted to enter a market it had no print experience with and therefore no brand experience.

Expertise

The continued success of these sites and e-zines lies in the fact that publishers have created something new in the market that relies on the expertise of their own magazine brands. But many publishers are still using the magazine brand to springboard into websites. 

Simon Kippen, publishing director of Glamour and glamour.co.uk, said: “Online is very important, we talk with one voice about accessing Glamour online or print and launched the website at the same time we launched the magazine.

“While they can exist without the other, online cannot exist without a magazine brand behind it. Brands are still very important whether its press, web or online, brands have values attached to them.”

Publishers have invested heavily online over the past year and if the business model proves lucrative, investment will continue, especially as a means of extending magazines as brands.

Publishers have been quick to launch online platforms, and a number of which including nuts.com and zoo.com have been highly successful with an ABCe figure of 945,790 and 911,838 respectively. But not only does a magazine site serve to extend the brand but also to cushion falling circulation figures. Other brand extensions act in a number of different ways including building brand awareness, another revenue stream through advertising and to target new readers.

A good example of a strong multi-platform brand is IPC Ignite’s Nuts, which launched in 2004. Nuts quickly became the number one selling men's lifestyle magazine in the UK, accounting for two out of every five men's lifestyle magazines purchased, according to publisher IPC.

Despite being popular for its topless celebrities and ‘glamour’ girls, these brands have apparently become something with which lads want to be associated. Therefore IPC has taken the bold step of extending the brand with not just the website but also NutsTV, a joint venture with Turner Broadcasting.

Eric Fuller, publishing director of IPC Ignite, also points to the Bedroom Babe video podcasts it’s selling on iTunes and a popular off-portal mobile channel as further evidence of where the Nuts brand is going.

"Nuts is rapidly becoming a modern men's media brand," he said. "It sells almost 1.2 million copies every day. Add to that the growing nuts.co.uk online proposition and the vast audience that NutsTV will deliver and it's clear the brand is fulfilling its potential."

Survival

Jo Smalley, publishing director at IPC of Nuts and Loaded, said; “Strong brands that deliver multiple audiences will survive. The challenge isn’t about print versus other mediums, its all about the brand and creating new touch points.”

He said that brand extensions are quite often a snippet of what is offered in the print version of the magazines and believes that the magazines that do extend their brand don’t do it to ensure their survival.

Bauer, formerly Emap, takes a similar stance, pointing out that while its ABC figures may have dropped, FHM is still a very powerful multi-platform brand. According to Marcus Rich, managing director for consumer titles, it still engages with one in four British men through its various platforms.

"We really believe that digital is where we need to be. We recently did some research and it seems that our footprint online is bigger than in print now. I believe that this is because we were quite early in the game."

IPC’s dedicated music magazine NME has also been extended with a website in 1996 and gig nights, the NME awards, music festivals around the world, TV and CDs, all under the NME brand. However, NME’s ABC figures for the last period were down by more than eight per cent to 68,151, despite its strong presence as a multi-platform brand.

Problems

Publishers including Bauer and IPC have continued to push the line that digital is the future for all these brands. But are such enormous publishing houses capable of negotiating the ground-up rebuilds that many of the brands need to succeed as digital entities?

No one can deny that these companies have done some good work online, a fact reflected in the ABCe figures for their magazine websites. But observers are unsure they've done enough to offset the problems with their print brands.

Every one of these traditional brands will try to expand its presence into other spaces. The trick, though, will be monetising the initiative. Driving their readerships onto mobile and the web is a significant commitment and requires some new thinking.

Dan Pittman, head of press at Universal McCann, said: “For magazines, the big issue is declining circulations, so magazine publishers are extending brands to build brand awareness, which in turn will drive people back to buying the magazine.

However, people are leaving print and those who already have a brand are extending it to build up an audience across other platforms that can be accessed by millions of readers. Unfortunately, these are not particularly revenue generating.” 

Whether it's a lads' magazine like Zoo or a design-focused magazine like Esquire, the men's market appears to be focusing its attention squarely on digital and the web as the area of growth for the future, although fashion publishers and advertisers that buy space in magazines like GQ and Esquire do like to see their ads in glossy magazines.

That's not to say the advertisers don't believe in online, but the platform is still evolving as it works to complement the magazine brands rather than stand alone.

Last year Condé Nast introduced a new digital presence for Tatler with the launch of a Tatler Restaurant Guide. This is part of the publisher’s wider plans to roll-out a similar strategy across its other magazine sites after making a decision to avoid providing a news service.

Condé Nast commercial director Serena Privett said some of the major challenges facing publishers online is keeping up with the latest developments, knowing which sites are the most popular right now and being able to compete in a very competitive market, whilst offering exclusive and engaging content.

Struggling

Most magazine publishers who have been slower to go online are struggling to offer genuine added value in their struggle to catch up. Online is not just about competing with other publishers, but with social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

Smalley said: “Print is still an incredible strong place for advertisers and is a strategic platform in getting audiences.”

Therefore, from an advertisers’ perspective there is a need for brands to better integrate their online and print offerings.

Privett said CondéNet, the online arm of Condé Nast, has two completely separate editorial teams - print and online - for each brand, who communicate regularly as it’s important to maintain the added value offering of the website.

While multi-platforms of magazines are profitable ideas they are only worthwhile if they sit with what the brand stands for, according to head of press at Mindshare Vanessa Clifford.

Clifford said: “Multi-platforms are definitely worthwhile as long as they don’t exist just for the sake of it. They have to give consumers something more and add to the experience otherwise there is no point.”