What to expect at the 7th Indian Magazine Congress

BY admin

A heads-up on the important sessions and galaxy of national and international speakers at IMC 2013, to be held in Mumbai on February 14 and 15

On December 31, 2012, Newsweek hit the stands with its final print edition. The renowned magazine’s decision to stop publishing the print edition after nearly 80 years, though not unexpected, was to shift focus to the digital space. This move highlighted the problems faced by the print medium and magazines as more and more consumers preferred to access content on their mobiles and tablets. The falling circulation numbers had many soothsayers predicting the death of the print medium. Though the scenario in India is different, with new magazines hitting the stands ever so often, it is a given that Indian magazines will have to gear themselves up for the future. In this context, the Indian Magazine Congress (IMC), the annual conference organized by the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM) to be held in Mumbai on February 14 and 15, puts the spotlight on the Indian magazine industry and we give you a whiff of what to expect at IMC and some of the sessions which should not be missed.

The theme this year is ‘New Directions, New Opportunities’ and the conference will explore how magazine publishers can generate revenues from new streams by building sustainable and scalable models. ‘The new business model’ will be the topic taken up by keynote speaker Peter Kreisky, Founder and Chairman of the Kreisky Media Consultancy. Kreisky, a renowned expert on strategy in media and entertainment who has advised many organizations including Time Inc. He will share his thoughts on new business models and operating processes and how they can have a very positive impact on the bottomlines of magazine publishers.

The first panel discussion will focus on the contentious issue, ‘Church vs.State - Has the wall between editorial and business been breached?’ wherein the panelists will delve into how editors today are not just looking into content but also increasingly getting involved into the business part of the publication. But, does helping advertisers reach their target audience come at the cost of compromising on content? This will be deliberated upon by a panel comprising Indrajit Gupta of Forbes, Hormazd Sorabjee of Autocar India and Krishna Prasad of Outlook. Moderating the session will be Pearson’s Khozem Merchant.

If you have been wondering how some classic publications have successfully transformed themselves from just being in print to being present across multiple platforms today, then the session ‘Case Study: Developing a multi-platform magazine media brand’ should be on your agenda. Arnaud Saint-Simon of Psychologies Group and Fabrizio d’Angelo of Burda Holding International will examine case studies on how magazines leveraged their brand strength to gain revenues from multiple streams after transforming themselves to become a multi-platform brand.

The session ‘Advertising creativity and magazine media’ will showcase how advertisers work with magazine media companies to innovate and engage their target audiences in the most entertaining and effective manner. The power-packed panel for this session includes Sonal Dabral of DDB Mudra group, Satyaki Ghosh of L’Oreal India, Samrat Som of Louis Phillipe, Aditya Birla Group and Lutz Kothe of Volkswagen, India and will be moderated by Tarun Rai of WWM.

The final two sessions of IMC will have heavyweights from the media industry sharing the stage. The penultimate session will discuss how the magazine medium which has very high engagement levels with its reader can be leveraged better. The panel for this session includes the who’s who from media agencies including Sam Balsara of Madison World, CVL Srinivas of GroupM, Ambika Sirivastava of ZenithOptimedia and Ashish Bhasin of Aegis Media. Moderating this heavy-duty session would be Tarun Rai of WWM.

Like they say, ‘leave the best for the last’ - the final session of IMC 2013 is the ‘Power CEO’, with the biggest names from the publishing space taking centre-stage. You can see and hear Stefano De Aleessandri of Mondadori International, Torsten Klein of Gruner + Jahr International, Ashish Bagga of India Today, Paresh Nath of Delhi Press Group on the same platform moderated by Chris Llewellyn of FIPP. So make sure you are there at the 7th Indian Magazine Congress!

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