German publishers slugging it out over Polish women

Competition is heating up between arch-rival German publishers Gruner und Jahr Polska (G+J Polska) and Axel Springer Polska (ASP) in the women's weekly magazine segment. G+J's Naj, the No. 2 women's weekly in its category, has recently pulled out the stops to catch up with ASP's Pani domu. After freshening up Naj's content last year, G+J took the added measure of including CD inserts into almost every issue. The strategy paid off, according to Oliver Voigt, chief executive officer of G+J Polska. In the first quarter of this year, Naj's average sales jumped to 511,000 copies from 406,000 in the previous quarter. "While the whole market segment grew by 30%, Naj's growth hit 41%," Voigt said. "Naj is one of our drivers. We're not No. 1 yet. It's a long way (to get there) because the current No. 1 women's weekly is a very good magazine."

ASP's Pani domu sold an average of 491,000 copies in the first quarter of this year. Nevertheless, Florian Fels, managing director of ASP, said "Pani domu" is the market's strongest title because of its editorial concept. "Naj can only achieve higher circulation by giving expensive gifts," Fels said. "It had three CDs in the first quarter while Pani domu had one. If you deduct the CD issues from both magazines and look at the average sales, Naj sold 388,000 copies while Pani domu sold 451,000." G+J Polska, whose biggest revenue generator is Claudia - a women's magazine that sold about 800,000 copies a month in 2001 - started adding CDs to Naj on a regular basis last summer. "I call it intelligent marketing and it's also a reaction to market (conditions)," G+J's Voigt said. "It's not that we started it. It was the competition that started it. Now the whole market is doing it but we're offering things that are reflected in Naj's editorial's content." According to Voigt, G+J will also start a similar marketing program with Claudia. The latest issue of Claudia will carry a language CD.

Sales vs. readership But according to Rafał Oracz, head of the media department at CR-Media, G+J's strategy is unclear. "The increase in sales doesn't translate into a better readership," Oracz said. "Most advertisers and ad agencies pay more attention to readership when preparing the budgets. So it's not a clear strategy unless G+J wants to make sales the main driver of revenue and ad revenue will only play a supporting role." ASP's Fels said that Pani Domu is No. 1 in its segment in terms of readership, boasting some 1 million readers more than Naj. From March 2001 to February 2002, Pani domu had 5.5 million readers and Naj 4 million, according to Polskie Badania Czytelnictwa (PBC). "We should compete on editorial concepts, not with gadgets," Fels said. Apart from sales and readership, the press giants are using another tool to compete for advertising - discounts. "If Gazeta Wyborcza is flexible in its discount policy it means everyone is," Oracz said. "It's too late to talk about discount wars because practically everyone assumes he'll get a discount. It works especially well when you deal with two companies with a similar product. You tell one company that if you won't get a discount you'll simply go to the other one." G+J offered a 50% discount for ads in Naj as part of a January/February promotion. According to market sources, the company continued the offer in March.