Magazine thinking in the post-magazine era.
By: Kevin Peaslee
Tags: Brand Strategy, Content Strategy

Photo by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash

When I was a wee lad, magazines were my everything. Skateboarder Magazine in the summer, Powder Magazine in the winter. Down Beat, Rolling Stone, and Musician Magazine told me what albums to buy, GQ and Esquire told me how I should aspire to dress, Wired and Red Herring told me how I should connect. I read magazines across the newsstand, Vogue to Iron Horse, New Yorker to Muscle & Fitness.

My first real job was as an associate editor with an in-house magazine publisher. It wasn’t a glamorous gig, working in a windowless room on a bottomless slush pile and endless rejection letters. But it was glorious. Carol, the editor-in-chief, deeply valued good content, could intuit what would resonate with various audiences, knew how to nurture writers, had the ability to morph content for various uses, and understood where and when to place content for greatest impact.

So content marketers, strategists, and creators, does the above sound familiar? Of course, those of us who are long of tooth tend to lean too much on “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Because the truth is much of the content world isn’t the same, not even close, no matter how much we elders hope otherwise. But to ignore the commonalities across eras is every bit as silly. To butcher Led Zeppelin: the specific mediums may change, but the song remains the same.

Wisdom from editors of yesteryear.

As the NY Post points out, with the flush days of glossies going down the drain, so too are editors’ cushy perks. And fact is, more and more publications don’t even do print editions anymore. Just the other day, after eighty-plus years, Glamour dropped its print edition. (Caveat: my opinion is there’s still a place for print, as digitally native brands such as Airbnb and Away have recently demonstrated.)

But those old-school star editors approached content in ways that will always be wise. Graydon Carter, longtime editor of Vanity Fair, offered up in his farewell to the magazine this simple but powerful description of what makes for interesting content:

I believe that the best magazine articles have at least two — and better if three — elements to them: access, narrative, and disclosure. That is: on-the-ground reporting; a story arc with a beginning, middle, and end; and revelations that move the scholarship forward. A great magazine article must also always have at its core a measure of conflict. We never did studies as to what our readers wanted. My simple philosophy was that, if we found something we were interested in, you might be interested in it as well.

And those old-school editors were often wise about branding. Even if they never called their publications brands, their publications were often the epitome of strong brands, with powerful and clear personality traits to differentiate from rivals and nuanced traits that spoke clearly and connected deeply with their audiences. Clay Felker, founder and editor of New York magazine, said this more than twenty years ago— but it could be lifted nearly verbatim by a brand strategist today:

Magazines vary not only by specialty but by attitude. Values and attitudes are one the the central services that a magazine brings to its readers. Although Spin magazine and Rolling Stone both cover the music field, they have different attitudes. A magazine’s subject matter is interpreted through the values and attitudes of its audience.

Hot-off-the-presses advice from digital-era editors.

As Anna Wintour says, “It would be ridiculous to ignore the speed and possibilities of the digital landscape.” Of course, it would also be ridiculous to ignore the mindset of the digitally native editors rising up through the ranks today. And one quality many of these next-gen editors have is a commitment to addressing important current issues — and they determine what’s important by listening to their audience.

For example, Vice’s editor-in-chief Ellis Jones has shifted that publication from its high-shock roots to meaningful discussions on topics most valued by their audience. How do they find out what’s valued? By asking.

In putting this issue together we took a cue from the VICE Voices survey we conducted in the US and UK at the start of 2018. The survey asked thousands of young people what they think about the future — what issues are important and what’s at stake. [] We homed in on these feelings and perspectives to help shape the content, format, and design of the issue.

These digitally native editors also are entirely comfortable working across different mediums — social, digital video, even experiential. As the press release announcing Lindsay Peoples Wagner as the new editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue says:

Condé Nast today announced that Teen Vogue alum Lindsay Peoples Wagner has been named editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, where she will oversee content for the brand’s digital, social and video platforms and manage experiential tentpoles, [emphasis mine] including the highly successful Teen Vogue Summit series.

That sort of versatility is a necessity for publications to survive. But it’s also a necessity for brands. Which means that the editor-in-chief mindset, no matter whether anyone has that title or not, is what we should adopt as content strategists. And it’s why I often find myself looking back to those days in magazines, grateful that those lessons still matter — despite the fact that there’s nearly 0% chance anything I do from here on out will never end up on a magazine rack.