Oh My Ford, You’re In Print

myford-nlWhat a fantastic time to be in magazines.  As brands turn to print to engage with their customers, magazine industry professionals are finding entirely new vehicles (yeah, pun intended) in which to contribute.

Take the writers at Ford’s new quarterly magazine, for example.

“… the current issue includes a travel piece titled ‘Escape to the Low Country,’ with rich sensory moments in the lead such as: ‘The Gullah have a word for those who were born and raised in the Low Country,’ writes Waynette Goodson in PACE. “’They call them ‘bin yahs,’ people who have been there and know the land—how it smells on the water; how the cicadas start to teem and hum at sunset; how the first frost of the year sweetens the local greens.’ Nice!”

(For the record, that great piece on the Low Country was written by Reed Jackson with photography by Roark Johnson.)

“Ford has a great start for what could be highly effective custom content,” Goodson notes. “By digging deeper and concentrating on the details, honing the copy and the design, and by versioning the publication to target certain demographic groups, the magazine could become even more useful, and especially, more entertaining, for all proud Ford owners like myself.”

The key to engagement is to think beyond marketing and to position your publication as a lifestyle enabler, a trend that hasn’t escaped notice of Chevrolet, as they launch their New Roads lifestyle magazine.

“The magazine fuses car content–like a track test of the new 2015 Corvette Z06 and a preview of the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt – with other staples of the lifestyle magazine, like the familiar home-renovation-on-a-budget piece or the ever-popular ‘spring grilling guide’,” notes Drew Singer in GM Authority.

As mass market publishers continue to try to reinvent themselves, consumers still want print magazines. Brands are getting better and better at engaging their reader base with some awesome brand titles, and it’s great to see the automotive industry being a part of this.