How do
magazine publishers respond? Basically they say you can't look at magazines alone anymore -- it's all about the media mix. Sally Preston, group publisher at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia,
maintains that the fascination with everything new, along with digital media's emphasis on metrics such as clicks, is overshadowing magazines' influence on readers. Sabine Feldmann, publisher of
Shape, says the results reflect the diminishing power of any individual channel. Magazines that are cornerstones of brands that also use digital and social media are better at brand-building
than ever, she says.
Howard Mittman, Wired publisher, sums it up. "Since most of our programs are integrated, we evaluate our effectiveness across a variety of mediums we offer our
clients. Looking at the mediums individually and assuming that all brands have the same needs seems to undermine the potential usefulness of the data."
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