The Fashion Magazine Industry in the United Arab Emirate - Dissertation Example

? Thesis Contextual Review (RUMOUR Magazine Business Plan) of Introduction As the sayinggoes, you change with the changing situation. This saying applies everywhere including the fashion magazine industry. Technological advancements have significantly changed the way people live and conduct business across the world and the fashion magazine industry is no exception of this. Fashion magazines have over the years served the interest of fashion followers and fashion advocates. This is because they serve as the reference point for most people in deciding on which line of fashion to trend towards. In this UAE, this service has been served pretty well with a number of fashion magazines competing for customers. Due to this prevailing competition, the need to have a competitive advantage has become a necessity and with companies like RUMUOR, the use of technology in gaining this competitive advantage has been a major strategy. There is need for more digital content in specific industry conditions; for example, in UAE digital content is needed more considering that the fashion industry conditions is competitive (London, 2009). Therefore, adhering to new provisions made by the use of technology comes with added advantage for practicing companies. As a matter of fact, the UAE is fast becoming a global tourist destination and so the whole region has come to embrace diversity and dynamic living pertaining to areas of life such as fashion. For this reason, starting fashion magazine that focuses on digital content such as RUMUOR is undertaking is an excelling step towards become a market leader. Market providers are also assured of their own versions of profits and benefits if they stick to the growing trend of going digital because the whole phenomenon has been associated with huge profit base for industry players as it enhances and increases productivity (Mossalli, 2010). As far as the fashion magazine industry in the UAE is concerned, there are more specific conditions that demand that there become a rapid change in order to adapt to the changing global trend. One of such specific conditions is the need for fashion magazines to remain relevant to the larger fashion industry. It would be noted that the fashion industry in the UAE is an embodiment of several sectors and sections of business, of which the fashion magazine business is one. However, because the fashion industry is the larger body that accommodates the other minor businesses like the fashion magazine, it is important that the minor businesses adjust themselves in such a way that they match up the trend being ensued by the larger industry (Ramat-Gan, 2009). Presently, there is a trend in the fashion industry in the UAE whereby the use of technology has become so paramount. For example there has been increase in e-commerce websites in the fashion industry in the UAE over the past decade that has had e-shopping as its major focus (Newswire, 2009). To match up the changing trend and remain relevant, it is important that stakeholders in the fashion magazine market also think of ways of dancing to the rhythm of the industry. It is in the light of this dynamic nature of the fashion industry that it is critical to conduct a contextual review of a fashion magazine of a particular region to come out with ways in which it can respond to the changes in the industry. One of the smartest ways in which the fashion magazine market can catch up with the larger market has been identified to be the need to embrace digitized publishing. It is thus important that fashion magazines have strive to stay afloat in the fashion industry by adopting new strategies such as embracing internet technology in their business. It is high time fashion magazines go digital in order to remain relevant in the fashion industry in the wake of serious competition brought about by the internet technology and which threatens to cripple the business. The ability of the internet and particularly the use of social media on the internet to create and transmit information faster and to a broadened audience have altered the way in which fashion magazines create and transmit their content (Rantisi, 2011, p. 260). Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter should become highly instrumental in the creation and promotion of existing and new fashion magazines brands. On a more positive note, the use of social media under the banner of Web 2.0 should increase the demand for fashion information as people consume more content than ever. 1-Fashion and fashion magazines Even though fashion magazine is an operational market under the larger fashion industry, there are a lot of ways that the fashion magazine market influences the larger fashion industry. If for nothing at all, the fashion magazine market acts as an authoritative source where followers of fashion get access to current and authentic trends, styles and revolutions in the fashion world (Rantisi, 2011). There is no denying the fact that fashion magazines influence the choice of consumers in the fashion world in a lot of positive ways. In a recent research, it was found that about 87% of all first time patrons of a particular fashion line would consult a fashion magazine before making their final decision (Passariello andSallat, 2007). The importance that fashion magazines have on the fashion industry has led to a strong competition among fashion magazines for customers. In the light of this competition, it is important that fashion magazines find ways of creating brand equities that would leave lasting impressions on consumers and ultimately create competitive advantages for them. 1.1-Magazine publishing For RUMUOR to make any positive impact on the larger fashion industry, the very first point of call should be on the publishing of magazines. The publication of magazine involves a lot of important aspects and components that go a long way to influence the image and brand that a given company would create. The first factor that influences global magazine publishing and magazine publishing in the UAE to be specific has to do with content selection. It is said that the true reflection of a magazine is reflective in the content of the magazine (Passariello andSallat, 2007). What this means is that market players must be in a position to identify the right and most appropriate content of fashion trend that match up current demand on the market. Because of the influence of globalisation and because of the fact that UAE is fast becoming a global tourist destination, there has been a development whereby different consumers with different taste of fashion have evolved. Consequently, it is important to be blending the content of magazines to meet the different tastes of customers. The exterior aesthetic quality of magazines is another important factor. This is because it cannot be debated that most people are attracted to magazines by its external appearance. Quality publication that is aimed at giving the finished product an excellent outlook has therefore a household name in magazine publishing. companies that refuse to account for quality appearance of their final works are not likely to succeed even if they have the right content because as it is said, new wine is not put into an old wine sack. Content and product should therefore be interrelated. With specific emphasis on the UAE, one other important factor that can be pointed to in magazine publishing has to do with market definition. It is important that industry players have a good definition of the market in which they operate. With such market definition, they will know the right content to carry in order to meet the expectation of consumers. For example factors such as religion, educational status, social life, and economic demographics must all be considered for the market in which the magazine would sell. Without such a definitive identification of the market, it will be difficult to create a brand and thus brand equity will be absent because there will be nothing to identify a specific magazine with (Socha, 2008) 1.2-Magazine publishing for the 21st century As far as magazine publishing is concerned, experts believe that the 21st century has been most transforming and transcending in history. This is particularly so because of the kind of evolution that technology has brought into the industry. It has already been pointed out that content selection, quality production and market definition are all important factors for creating brand equity. Happily, the upsurge in the use of technology in fashion magazine publishing in the 21st century has made the achievement of all these factors easier and better (Rohwedder, 2004). For example, it is easier to use the Internet to look for new and trendy styles in the fashion world so as to present in magazines. What is more, technology has made the quality of final production of magazines higher because of the advent of sophisticated and advanced equipment in printing. For the 21st century, magazine publishing has been boosted with dynamism and innovation and this is still attributed to technology. With specific emphasis on the UAE market, the most thoughtful intervention is for the whole UAE market to embrace the emergence of digital technology as Liu and Chan-Olmsted (2010) advocates. This is not to suggest that the emergence of digital technology should come to totally swap the existing form of fashion magazine. Rather, it is high time the market looked for some of the best compositions of digital technology that complement the weaknesses of traditional print magazines. In this direction, focus could be directed at the need to add new features and dimensions to print magazine. Such dimensions will make print magazines as useful to today’s generation as digital technology is to most of them. Because the fact remains that the print magazine still remains important and so must be given all the necessary aid to become dimensional in relation to present market demand. For RUMUOR, there exists a trendy challenge for it to include several features that match up with the features of emerging technologies such as tablet PCs and smart phones. It would be noted that makers of these emerging technologies are constantly trying to make them as interactive as possible. To this end, it is important that the digital content presented by RUMUOR have highly interactive features such as video, news feed and social interactivity. Once adhered to, these digital platforms are going to present several opportunities with the most beneficial being that accessibility to the magazine would be increased because there will be many different media from which people can access them. Some of these media would include any of the emerging technologies. 2-The Rise of Fashion 2.0 The use of websites has become more popular and interesting because of the aspect of interactivity that has been introduced into it. Through the concept of web 2.0, website and internet users are no longer limited to passive reception of content but they are offered as much participation as possible (Rantisi, 2011). Indeed, the revolution of website interactivity has not only remained with popular social media websites like Facebook and Twitter alone but with industry based websites such as fashion oriented websites. It is indeed said that the birth of digital magazine could best be attributed to the influence of web 2.0, which has created another phenomenon that has come to be known as Fashion 2.0. With fashion 2.0, fashion websites are no longer places where viewers go to read and view trendy fashion updates but places where they go and interact with industry players and actually do business (Socha, 2008). In other words, fashion 2.0 through web 2.0 has created a business platform for the fashion industry. It is indeed interesting to know that the Internet has now only come to influence digital content but the print magazine industry as well. This is because it makes accessibility to information easier. In the UAE and other parts of the world, the use of the Internet was introduced to both print and Online fashion magazines through the effect of globalisation and the fact that once people travel from different parts of the world to the UAE, they must have a feel of the kind of fashion that goes on in their native countries. 2.1-Fashion use of print and digital media in general The world over, fashion magazine publishing has had two major forms, which are print and digital. The availability and use of social media on the internet has had enormous impact on the fashion magazine industry particularly in the twenty first century. Prior to the advent of social media, fashion magazine was primarily in print content. The innovation of Web 2.0 has literally led to the development of Fashion 2.0 that allows interactive dialogue among users in the social media. Social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have been gaining immense popularity (Rantisi, 2011, p. 261). This situation is not likely to change soon as more and more people embrace social media as an integral part of their lives. Since the online content is becoming more preferable compared to the print content, fashion magazines do not have an option but to embrace digital technology in their production and transmission of content. However, they should not entirely abandon the print content, as there are consumers who still prefer this type of content to online or digital content. Like in other industries, fashion magazine industry can derive a lot of benefits from the social media (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst, 2010, p. 168). The Web 2.0 technology brings a new approach to communication structure, social practices, as well as corresponding dimensions of life in the fashion system. Social media has accelerated the speed with which communication can be exchanged and virtualization thereby initiating new types of social identity and interaction. This has had significant impact among the consumers of fashion in the sense that it has increased their urge for faster and detailed communication of fashion trends, customs, and behaviours. Consequently, it has made print fashion magazines to keep pace with the consumers’ expectations. However, the use of digital media remains the proactive platform for meeting growing demands of customers and the general public; and thus an important area for RUMUOR to continue keeping pace with. Today, there are several examples of international fashion media who serve as industrial competitors for RUMUOR. Some of these include Phoenix International Media Center, Accessories magazine, AfroStyle magazine, DeVelo magazine, Jewelers Circular Keystone (JCK) magazine, Supermodels Unlimited magazine, and many other, all of who have adequate representation on the international market (Mondo Code, 2012). 2.2-Fashion use of print and digital media in the UAE It has been established in the previous section that the fashion magazine industry continues to be operated on two major legs, which are the print and digital. As a matter of fact, this situation is no different with respect to the UAE market. More specifically, the UAE market has strived to become a global giant in both the print and digital media aspects of magazine publishing. Over the last decade however, research shows that the digital media market has not done much to match up with global competitors or even the print media (Whiddett and Hollyforde, 1999). This is largely in terms of improving accessibility to people who do not have access to emerging technologies. Most often than not, these marketers forget that there still remain a large proportion of fashion consumers who are not hooked up to emerging technologies yet. As a way of meeting the marketing interest of all these people, it is important that attention be given to the print magazine industry along side the digitial media market. With this statistics, it is important that players in fashion magazine business see digital media and the advent of social media as an opportunity for growth rather than a threat or challenge to success. More specifically, leaders in the print media component of fashion magazine publishing in UAE must be ready to embrace digital media and thereby set up more market forces in the sector. In midst of all this, RUMUOR is also placed at a very advantageous position for the company to establish itself in the market and sustain steady growth because it is presented with an opportunity to closing the market gap with the creation of innovative ideas that enhances and improves accessibility. Some of these innovative techniques could be the need to create applications on emerging technologies such as smart phone, blackberries and tablet PCs so that users of these devices can have access to RUMUOR on the go without having to launch unto the main website of RUMUOR. Digital media can help the fashion magazines to keep up with the increased expectations of the consumers who desire up-to-date updates on the trends and fashion (Bhardwaj and Fairhurst, 2010, p. 169). By doing this, fashion magazines in the UAE would be able to increase their profitability and make valuable connections; a feat that they would otherwise not have achieved if they had not embraced digital media. Another main importance of social media to fashion magazines is that it can help them overcome some of the political, environmental, and social challenges (Rantisi, 2011, p. 264). This is because digital media afford customers of RUMUOR with high degree of benefit especially if RUMUOR will stick to some of the core magazine publishing processes outlined by Woodwing’s Publishing Process that follows the trend of content planning, gathering and creating, selection and editing, managing of content, publishing to social media, publishing to mobile devices, publishing to the web, publishing to e-mails and finally publishing to print. 3-Print Vs Digital For long, researchers in the fashion industry have advocated the need to make digital media complement print media instead of making it come to take its place in fashion magazine entirely (Weintraub, 2007). This is because both types of media come with some levels of benefits that cannot be overlooked in any sense. For a new entrant like RUMOUR therefore, it is very important that stakeholders put in every conscious effort to come to terms with understanding and appreciating the best ways of discovering the benefits of the two forms of media and how the two can be made to play complementary roles to the total advantage of RUMUOR instead of making one of them have an undue advantage over the other in terms of organizational attention given to it. This point is made against the backdrop that as a new entrant, RUMUOR needs several avenues of operation that can all serve as important competitive advantage over existing companies that may use their equity brands as competitive advantage (Zhong-Ming, 2003). 3.1-The place of fashion media On the international level, the fashion media is regarded as one of the most powerful, in terms of elements that has the potential of influencing decision making by fashion consumers. Invariably, the fashion media is responsible for controlling the levels of productivity within the fashion world because productivity is directly based on demand from customers, which we are being told they (consumers) make the demand based on what they read and see from the fashion media (Weintraub, 2007). Current research shows that the size of the fashion media has more than doubled within the last three years when the global economic climate started taking shape (Monde Code, 2012). What this means is that the era where people considered fashion as a luxurious want other than a necessity and so they would not spend their limited resources on them is now over because there is generally an improved global economy. What this means is that all industry players in the fashion media who want to create wealth through increased growth and sustainability have been presented with an opportunity to do that now. Presently, some of the major players in the fashion media can be mentioned as Time Warner, Lagardere Group, The Walt Disney Company, and NBC Universal, most of who were previously concentrating on motion picture media but have taken advantage of the boom in fashion media to include fashion in most of their market line (Weintraub, 2007). It is not surprising therefore that most of these media companies who owned print and audio-visual corporations have now had devoted channels and media for fashion. Interestingly, these companies are also recording major successes because they have had the backing of global policies such as those initiated by world trade organisation against piracy and copyright, that protect their inventions. 3.2-The place of fashion media in UAE At the local level UAE, the trend is not very different from the global or international trend. This is because the last three years have seen major surge in the size of the fashion media industry because of the improved global economic climate. This is an important reason why all stakeholders in the industry ought to take advantage, including RUMUOR. One major important factor that serves as a glowing indicator for the need to undertake the present project by putting in place result oriented strategies to make RUMUOR succeed in UAE is that, the fashion media has been tagged by government as an important source of modern day revenue for the larger UAE economy (Socha, 2008 ). Because of this, fiscal incentives and other forms of financial based supports that RUMUOR would need to develop both print and digital media could be made available. Currently, there have been much dominion taken over by local industries like Harper’s Bazaar Middle east and L’offeciel Arabia, both of whom have established themselves as important fashion media players with wide circulation readership. Regardless of the competition that these market players pose, RUMUOR still stand an excellent chance of succeeding because there are some key left outs in the running of the businesses of the local giants that RUMUOR can introduce to serve as competitive advantage. Some of the major fallouts include the fact that there is presently no magazine on the local front of UAE fashion media that deals inclusively in all aspects, such as visually amazing content, proper website, social media presence and an illustrative tablet/ipad app. This is where the essence of the presence RUMUOR comes in by incorporating all of these features of operation to serve the interest of a very large customer base that is not limited to the UAE alone but the world at large through the power of globalisation. Conclusion The contextual review that has been undertaken so far points to changing trends in fashion magazine publishing in UAE and how RUMUOR can take advantage of the new trend to score important market points, especially when it comes to the need to creating a brand equity. Subsequently, the next chapters will present the approach to the research and data collection as well as the findings from major sources that would contribute to decision making. By and large, there is every evident that the need for a business plan to be developed is very eminent. This is because a new industrial trend and phenomenon has been identified and so it is important that practical actions are taken towards inculcating the medium term and long term strategic plans of the organization into the new phenomenon. In the absence of this, existing competitors as well as new market entrants will take massive advantage over RUMUOR and build such huge competitive advantage that would be very difficult for RUMUOR to break through. In the light of the dynamic nature of the fashion industry brought about by technological advancements and increased consumers’ expectations, all players in the industry should adopt and implement strategies that would make them competitive and relevant. It is for this reason that they must embrace new technologies relevant to their industry such as extensive use of social media. The business plan is important in ensuring that RUMOUR magazine has considered all important factors prior to commencing business. The context of the business plan is that of breaking into a new market and therefore reflects ways of overcoming foreseeable challenges and barriers, as well as considers existing and potential strengths and opportunities. 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