This time around, I had to wait quite long for my “brand eins“. After all, I had gotten used to finding it in my letter box shortly after the 20th of the previous month.
🙂 Remembering all the fuss they are making about information and data security, I already feared some evil person might have stolen it. How can I avoid getting mistrustful with all this hysteria? Why would the evil “data thief“ refrain from pilfering my letter box of all places? And can you still trust your own family? After all, I am not the only enthusiastic “brand eins“ reader in the family.
Last Wednesday, when I strolled through the newsagents at Munich Central Station in order to buy a replacement (shortly after having dumped my train ticket in the mail drop – see my story), I still saw a thick pile of the January edition sitting on the shelves on February, 1st. Well, that caused me to relax.
And then, on Thursday, February, 2nd, it finally arrived at my home. For the February edition, this is certainly just the right time. Barbara handed it to me in the evening. Again, all my mistrust had been unnecessary.
At first sight, the February edition strikes you because of the aggressive red. It looks quite out of place for the time of year. And then the cryptic question on the title page. A perfect fit for our times:
I Want You!
🙂 It has been a long time since someone said that to me. I am delighted. With respect to my military carreer, however, it was a nightmare.
Underneath, you can read:
More data, more problems – the new world of brand communication.
Yes – more data – more problems. That is exactly how I, too, see it. In fact, I even believe that all those wonderful new profiling technologies applied by Google and Amazon will eventually have the effect that people will only buy what they actually need. If you see it like this, it backfired, didn’t it? To me, that would look like a very positive develoopment, even if it does not seem to increase growth. Or maybe exactly because it does not.
Amazon has every reason to feel quite “relaxed“ about people buying less – as long as they only buy at Amazon. That scenario is easy to imagine.
So now let us take a look at the actual magazine:
It has 172 pages and even the flyers inside are not totally uninteresting. Speaking of adverts: it seems to me that their number increased significantly. That tells you something about the success of the magazine and therefore I am delighted for the brand eins team. You get the impression that now the big ones can no longer totally avoid noticing brand eins.
With respect to my personal habits, I must admit that I still like turning the pages of the magazine, but then I seem to prefer reading the actual articles on my kindle (somewhere at leisure, like in the train). Thanks to Barbara’s PC and Calibre, a few older but nonetheless no worse “brand eins Welt“ articles are downloaded each morning And by now I enjoy reading there a lot more than in true newspapers or magazines.
One reason might be because the articles on my Kindle are (still) free of adverts. Consequently, I do not have to jump channels when reading quickly. That is a little like if you watch a film on private TV – which I stopped doing years ago for precisely that reason. But these are rather personal considerations …
The nice thing about this brand eins is that I discover something new immediately. Or did you know the meaning of the word “Cluetrain”?
I read the wonderful term “Das große Brabbeln” for marketing and see that brand eins is asking exactly the questions about the meaning of marketing that I always ask myself. And they even give some answers.
As I see it, the editors of brand eins understand the internet a lot better than other authors. Reports and comments on “social media” are in a higher league than what I usually read in the press. Because, naturally, marketing and WEB 2.0 go together (or do we already have 2.1, or even 3.0?). And the facebook discussion in the media really turns grotesque these days.
{I must admit I rather like facebook. I even introduced the chronicle and cannot see any problem with it. Why don’t you visit me?).
And especially in modern times, a competent and rational treatment of the occuring change is of great value. So far, I have not been able to find that in any of the sources on the newspaper and magazine market I know.
As always, I would be happy to find comrades in armes – which is why I like brand eins and Frau Fischer more each day.
But, hey, dear readers, why should I do your job? Why don’t you get your own magazine and read it. I promise: you will not be disappointed!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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