Marketing, Price, price and promotion

LP3.1 Assignment: Ogden Publications Strategy

Integrated Marketing Communications at Ogden Publications

Integrated marketing communications is all about consistency. For some companies, that’s pretty simple—slap your logo on the press kit and you’re good to go. For Ogden Publications of Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s a little more complicated. The small publishing house has 13 titles, ranging from Mother Earth News and Natural Home to Cappers, a magazine about traditional American values and rural lifestyles, and everything from Motorcycle Classics to Utne Reader, a collection of articles about art, politics, and everything in between. In addition to its magazines, the company also offers merchandise and electronic companions to its titles.

It has been difficult to present an Ogden Publications “look,” although brand manager Brandy Ernzen and Cherilyn Olmsted, Ogden’s circulation and marketing director, consider this one of their many priorities as they take marketing at the company to the next level. “Each of the titles is so unique that they have their own brand identity,” says Ernzen, but the common thread throughout all of Ogden’s offerings is that “we tell people how to do really cool things.” For Ernzen and Olmsted, the focus is on raising the bar on promotions, events, and ad sales as well as driving traffic to their Web properties and increasing circulation and awareness for each magazine.

As brand manager, Ernzen leads the charge to help maintain the integrity of all the public relations and marketing efforts at Ogden. It has actually become a pretty big job in recent years. The do-it-yourself trend started about ten years ago and has been energized by the increasing interest in environmentally and socially conscious consumerism and green living. These trends have sparked tons of interest with the company’s core audiences as well as a new, more mainstream, demographic, but Ernzen is cautious.

“I work really closely with all the different editorial staffs as well as advertising and the media,” she says. “You’re making sure everyone on the different [marketing] teams is aware of what’s going on.” She is constantly running between the circulation department at Herb Companion and to the book warehouse to ask about a new cookbook or gardening guide to identify opportunities for tie-ins. She might then look for a green event or seminar on exotic heirloom tomatoes to raise awareness for their magazines, books, and products. That triggers a press release and, before you know it, “you can really maximize what you’re doing to get the most results,” says Ernzen. “There are higher newsstand sales and people are buying that product because it is a full campaign.”

Communicating with consumers is really only one part of Ernzen’s job. “Internal communications is also a big part that a lot of people don’t think about,” she says. The company recently developed an electronic newsletter to let people know what’s going on in the company. “That way, everybody’s on the same page.” Ogden is not publicly traded, yet, like publicly traded companies listed on the stock market, it must extend the same consistency in communications and messaging to investors and the regulatory agencies watching over the market.

As Ogden continues to develop each magazine’s website, a whole new series of challenges await. The websites are really another product rather than a Web version of the print counterpart, and finding an appropriate mix of content, editorial voice, and design style consistent with the branding of the print magazine can be challenging. “We’re trying to have fairly loose standards, right now,” says Ernzen. “Start small and evolve.” The first plan of attack is to nail down the design standards, including colors, fonts, and use of buttons, icons, and layout. A larger Ogden style manual and training session is in the works for the ad sales department, production, the rest of the marketing, and PR team so everyone will be working from the same standard. “Right now, I’m that person,” says Ernzen, “who takes care of everything and makes sure everything is lined up like it should be in terms of what logos we’re using and colors and the whole nine yards.”

From BOONE/KURTZ. Contemporary Marketing, 14E. © 2010 South-Western, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.cengage.com/permissions

• What are some of the key customer touch points for Ogden Publications?
• How does Ogden Publications use integrated marketing communications to provide a consistent message across these customer touch points?
• How does Ogden Publications benefit from using integrated marketing communications to respond to the actions of their competitors?”

The paper must be researched using at least two scholarly or professional marketing resources, as well as the textbook.  The references must be cited and properly placed on the reference page using APA formatting. 

Please send me the references links as well.