I’ve received my second issue of Spin magazine since a recent relaunch. It’s gone from being a youth-oriented slightly alternative music magazine that featured (one of my writing heroes) Chuck Klosterman (in an ever-declining role) to a youth-oriented slightly alternative People magazine.
I wasn’t exactly in love with the old Spin, given my rural lifestyle (i.e., Portigal Consulting world headquarters is just blocks away from an alpaca ranch), but I admit I found it strangely comforting to read about Coachella and Death Cab for Cutie even though there’s little chance I will go to the first or listen to the second. I want to say “I’m too old” but it’s really not a matter of age, I have always liked reading about this stuff, but I never felt part of it. Reading Spin a couple of years ago was an attempt to shake off the depressing feeling that Classic Rock Radio (and Rock Marketing) has been giving me for many years.
But I can’t stand this new magazine, it’s replaced attitude with vapiditude. Spin will certainly lose me as a reader. I’m not sure that’s a problem for them. I’m probably not a customer for their advertisers and therefore not a valued reader.
It does raise some interesting questions about how to “re-launch” or otherwise evolve a brand. I know this is not the first time Spin did this (at one point they were vaguely hard-hitting, big format, run by Bob Guccione, Jr., the Penthouse scion). But there’s no transpanecy in this process. Where is Klosterman? Why all the pictures of hotties? Parties? Hot parties? I’m asked to consider it as the same Spin, even though it’s not, and it doesn’t feel like it.
In this case, the entire experience has changed, it’s not a new ad campaign or new bumper graphics, old stuff is gone, new stuff is here, the editorial voice has been revamped.
Contrast with newspapers that change features all the time (newly designed stock tables, new font, new page format, you name it) and typically will explain the heck out of it, what was done, how it was done, and why it’s better. They know that when you have a comfortable relationship with a paper, you’ll be shattered if changes slightly without you knowing a little bit in advance.
A recent study we did around some commercial software that was used aggressively every day all day found that the management of inevitable changes is crucial, the software is “their” software, just like Spin is “my” magazine. The consumer/producer split has an emotional component that producers don’t always get. As one of the software users told us (paraphrase) “I don’t come to your office and change how your system works!”
That’s sort of how I feel. Spin didn’t ask me if I was going to be okay with this, and I’m not. I hate this magazine and I want my old one back. And Spin is probably all right with that reaction, but it’s easy to identify other cases where it’s not so cool to piss people off so much that they leave.
No pat solutions here, although maybe others have examples of good or bad to contribute here.
Tags: brand, chuck klosterman, consistency, evolution, klosterman, magazine, media, newspaper, publication, relaunch, spin, spin magazine
SPIN lost it so many years ago. As the format became smaller, so did the aspirations. Remember when Legs McNeil used to write for them? When they would spend some $ and get William Vollman to write about prostitution in the Far East? It’s become the doppelganger of Rolling Stone. Looking for intelligent writing about music and pop culture? Check out No Depression. These are people who are passionate about music, politics and finding great BBQ.
Comment by fierceblackhat 06.19.06 @ 10:58 am[...] This post from Own Your Brand! reminded me of my Spin/brand riff earlier today. Knowing all this, I�m still puzzling on the pieces of a pattern I experienced last night at a local Taco Johns� [...]
Pingback by Portigal Consulting 07.14.06 @ 2:17 pmI, too, was flabergasted with the new design. Sure, they haven’t been great for a long time. List issues were rampant. But, it was still SPIN, and who doesn’t love Klosterman? The new design an content is god-awful. Can the celebrity body-language REALLY be sans irony. Oh dear.
Comment by Casey 07.27.06 @ 9:07 am[...] I bitched about Spin magazine and questioned the notion of relaunch vs. loyalty vs. targeting in a previous post, only to read in Wired (in a piece by Chris Anderson excerpted from the just-released The Long Tail”) that “money-losing Spin magazine was just, well, spun off for a fire-sale sum.” Wikipedia sez [Under the direction of new editor-in-chief Andy Pemberton] The [May 2006] issue’s format took a dramatic turn to many readers’ disgust. The new style has been compared to celebrity gossip magazines such as Us Weekly, even going as far as to have a cover story and picture on Kevin Federline. Prior to the issue’s release, much of the staff quit or were fired. [...]
Pingback by All This ChittahChattah : Blog Archive : Spin story 10.01.06 @ 6:58 pm