• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 10, 2006

As the consumer magazine industry experiences another of its periodic shakeouts, the market for custom publications--including business-to-business publications, magazine-style newsletters for Fortune 500 companies, in-flight magazines, and brand-centered travel, leisure, and health magazines--is booming, according to figures from the Custom Publishing Council, with the total market topping $22 billion after several consecutive years of 15 percent growth.

Many readers may dismiss custom publications as shills for a particular product or brand, but Jane Ottenberg, co-founder and president of custom publisher The Magazine Group, distinguished between low-end "advertorial" content and true custom publications: "We're very much about an editorial--not advertorial--product, simply because people are going to bond more with the brand if the editorial content surrounding it is relevant."

"We're doing a magazine for Hilton," Ottenberg said, "for people who belong to their Vacation Ownership program--but it's a real travel magazine, covering local nightlife and things like that, and it's also engaging people into being part of this travel community." Likewise, she said, "CDW, a huge multibillion-dollar technology company outside of Chicago, sends content-driven magazines to business owners and decision-makers in the federal government who are buying technology." In this context, "outside advertisers are actually partners [of CDW]."

"Going in a different direction," The Magazine Group also produces "a million-circulation magazine for [online health portal] WebMD, to extend its brand into waiting rooms," Ottenberg said. "WebMD is a good example because this is a two-pronged effort--extending their brand into print, but also bringing advertising in and making it a business."

According to Ottenberg, "engagement is key" to understanding the appeal of custom publications, because "we're an ADD society where people are being inundated with messaging, and people want to choose when, where, and how they get that messaging. You've seen that with iPods and TiVo--and in a way, custom publications are providing that choice and control for magazines. On the one hand, people can choose when they want to read it, or even if they're going to read it--but by the same token, when they do, you can engage people with your brand for a longer period of time."