Vogue female magazines - Research Paper Example

International Chinese Edition of Popular Vogue Female Magazines' Loyalty by Name of the Student Subject Name of the Concerned Professor 5 November 2008 Table of Contents 1.0 Abstract 3 2.0 The Problem 5 3.0 Background to Problem 5 4.0 Research Objective 9 5.0 Methodology 10 List of References 12 1.0 Abstract The primary objective of this research is to take advantage of my background in public relations, organization communication, international marketing and advertising to pursue an in depth research in the customer loyalty aspect of the Chinese Edition of the popular Vogue Female Magazine. As we know that a magazine is a periodical publication containing articles, photographs, advertisements and other features (Dictionary.com, 2008) that primarily relies on advertisement and sales to accrue revenues. Thus customer loyalty is an aspect of business that is of cardinal importance, so far as assessing and assuring the profitability in a publishing business is concerned. On the accomplishment of a Masters degree in International Management from Loughborough University, I realized that I am immensely interested in the marketing issues associated with customer loyalty and retention. So in this research I intend to combine the knowledge I gained while pursuing my Masters and Bachelor degree to conduct an in depth and thorough research on the customer loyalty and retention issues faced by the International Chinese Edition of the popular Vogue Magazine. All the relevant data will be collected through return mail (on paper or through website), questionnaires and sales figures, which will aid in the sorting out and study of issues associated with the customer loyalty aspect of the publication under consideration. If this research turns out to be successful, it will serve as a rich source of reference for many foreign publishing companies that are interested in entering the Chinese speaking market so as to enhance their global market share. After all Chinese is the second most spoken language in the world and the Chinese magazine market has a vast potential and scope that can be exploited by the foreign magazine companies. I would specially like to mention that while pursuing my Bachelors degree I not only achieved a high score of 87 in the 'Research Methods' course, but also finished a dissertation that was published in the Shi Hsin University's Journal of Graphic Communication and Technology. The topic that I choose for this dissertation was 'A Study of International Chinese Edition of Vogue Female Magazines' Market Segmentation and Positioning'. I preferred to join the Manchester Business School because I am particularly interested in the practical aspects of the business theories and dogmas and the Manchester Business School is an institution that believes in transcending the barriers between theory and practice so as to arm it's students with the right knowledge that will go a long way in ensuring that they become the business elite of the future (Manchester Business School, 2008). Manchester Business School is an institution that is committed to research (Manchester Business School, 2008). I am confident that the topic selected by me fits well into the priorities of the Marketing and Research Centre and Marketing Research Cohort at the Manchester Business School (Manchester Business School, 2008). Especially the Marketing Research Cohort will provide me with a platform for conducting a research in the marketing related issues (Manchester Business School, 2008) and will help me in gaining a rich exposure to the international business and consumer research activities. 2.0 The Problem As already mentioned, Chinese is the second most spoken language in the world and thus the Chinese speaking market has a rich potential for absorbing the female magazines. Female magazines are basically the publications that intend to target women as their potential customers (Chung, 2000). China and Taiwan represent two booming economies where there exists a potentially high demand for female magazines in Chinese. There exist a wide range of local and transnational magazines in the Chinese speaking market that intend to cater to the varied needs of the Chinese speaking women. For example, MaBaby Magazine or OFamily Magazine are oriented around helping women in taking care of their families and babies; Ci Ha Bella Magazine or VI-VI Magazine intend to extend the Chinese speaking women the much coveted advice pertaining to fashion trends and issues (Lai, 1992). The transnational publishing houses being unaware of the cultural, social and preferential issues that determine the preferences and choices of the Chinese speaking women, do often find it utterly difficult to pinpoint the factors that influence the customer loyalty and retention. Also there does not exist much research pertaining to this issue. Hence there exists a good scope for conducting a thorough research to locate the factors that influence the customer loyalty and retention in the Chinese female magazines market. 3.0 Background to the Problem Reader's Digest was published in Hong Kong in the year 1995. With the extension of its scope to Taiwan, a huge opportunity was opened for the proliferation of the international magazines in the Chinese language in this part of the world (Lai, 1992). In the early 90s, a plethora of female magazines in the Chinese language hailing from Western countries like the UK, the US and France entered the Taiwan publishing scenario (Chang, 2002). Sometime after 2000, the international Chinese versions of a number of esteemed Japanese fashion magazines invaded the Taiwan's publishing landscape (Chang, 2000). The transnational magazines entering the Chinese market primarily relied on their high brand awareness for altering the existing female magazines market that till now was dominated by many local publications. According to Taiwan's Government Information Office's statistical information of Publication Annual Report (2004), "in 1995, there were published only nine international magazines in Taiwan, but by June 2003 this number increased to 28 international magazines, which included weeklies, female, computer and travelling, etc. related magazines." As per the Kingstone Bookshop statistical information, since the year 2003 onwards, the popular fashion magazines have turned out to be the best selling titles as compared to the magazines dealing with other topics and genres. At present there exist nearly 48 popular fashion magazines in Taiwan, which includes 23 local publications, 8 Japanese publications, 3 American publications and 10 other foreign publications (Books.com, 2008). Chinese version of international fashion magazines is a highly competitive market that is susceptible to varied consumer tastes and preferences and ensuring the retention and loyalty of customers is the pivotal problem that is bothering the publishers in this market. The mainland China is also exhibiting similar propitious trends. In the year 2004, the total number of magazines published in China was 9704, which is increasing at an impressive pace of 200 titles per year since the year 2001 (Business Wire, 2006). Out of these mindboggling numbers, nearly 2000 magazines happen to be commercial titles. In the times to come, the Chinese magazine market is expected to exhibit an exponential growth. Considering the behemoth size of the market for the fashion magazines in the Chinese language, the global players in the publishing business simply do not afford to ignore this lucrative opportunity. This research tends to focus on the Chinese version of the popular Vogue female magazines' prospects in the Taiwan's market. In the last few decades, Taiwan's culture has been greatly influenced by China, Japan and the USA. Taiwan is a country that always leads the fashion trends in this part of the globe, which eventually percolate to the other Chinese speaking markets like the mainland China, Singapore and Hong Kong. The primary reason for this is that the Taiwanese masses happen to be more open minded as compared to other Chinese speaking populations. Therefore, most of the global companies prefer to organize their first market tests in Taiwan to check whether their products will prove to be a success in the other Chinese speaking markets. For instance McDonald Corporation choose Taiwan to test whether their products will prove to be a success in the Chinese speaking markets and established their first McCafe in Taiwan. Thus there is no denying the fact that the Chinese versions of the international fashion magazines represent a massive sale potential. Leading titles in the Chinese fashion magazine segment are attracting top notch brand names and fashion labels that are interested in marketing their products in the Chinese speaking markets. Thus the popular fashion magazines in the Chinese speaking markets stand to gain massive profits in terms of revenues accrued from advertising. Hence this research will prove to be a great help to the global players in the publishing industry that are interested in invading the Chinese speaking markets. Conde Nest came out with the Chinese edition of Vogue in September 2005 following a copyright cooperation agreement with China Pictorial, one of the top magazine publishers in China. China Pictorial is expected to extend its thorough insight and expertise pertaining to the Chinese publishing market whereas Conde Nest is expected to bolster this alliance by extending its years of experience in publishing the prestigious and popular magazines all over the world. So far as the fashion magazine industry is concerned, Vogue happens to be a leading global player. It happens to be the long standing policy of Vogue to employ the local professionals like editors, photographers and writers so as to customize its national publications to reflect the cultural preferences of the countries in which they are published (Business Wire, 2004). However, meeting the local competition will not be as easy for Vogue as is expected by some sections of the market. Foreign publications have often been known to be a flop in the Asian markets as they fail to grasp the preferences and concerns that reflect the tastes of the local readers. With female fashion magazines, this challenge gets alleviated to much higher proportions as the preferences of women tend to vary a lot, depending upon the culture of the region which they inhabit. Thus it has become urgent for Vogue and other transnational publications operating in the Chinese speaking markets to grasp the factors that control and govern the customer retention and loyalty in this part of the world. Though this market represents a highly lucrative opportunity, the ground realities are fraught with challenges and pitfalls. The biggest problem is that a major proportion of the Chinese speaking masses live in the mainland China. Thus it is the mainland Chinese market that is expected to yield the major chunks of profits for the female fashions magazines. However, the opening up of the Chinese market has been a relatively recent phenomenon and there exits very little research pertaining to the factors affecting the sales and customer loyalties in the Chinese speaking markets. This research is expected to fill this lacuna and furnish a source of reference and guidance for the international publishers interested in entering and competing in the Chinese speaking markets. 4.0 Research Objective The main objective of this research is to sort out the factors that determine the customer loyalty and retention pertaining to the international Chinese edition of the popular Vogue female magazine and to assess the relative importance and contribution of each of the individual factors culled out by research. Till now the fashion magazines in Taiwan has been resorting to a variety of measures like incorporating visual expressions and classified articles to boost their market share (Lai, 1998). However, there is a stark dearth of concrete research that can be referred to by the international publishers to strengthen their position in the Chinese speaking markets. A major objective of this research is to initiate a much desired trend for research related to this lucrative markets and it is expected to stimulate further research related to this topic. 5.0 Methodology It will be fruitful to focus this research on the Taiwanese readers because of the problems associated with the collection of data from the mainland China. Besides the data collected from the mainland China is expected to score low on the yard stick of veracity and reliability, because of a number of reasons. The strict censorship policies of China mostly make it a compulsion for the foreign publishers to stick to irrelevant topics like sex and relationships (Lowther, 2005). Besides the Chinese laws strictly prevent the foreign publishers from wholly owning the magazines published and circulate in the mainland China (Lowther, 2005). Thus the Taiwanese readers constitute an ideal research sample for this unprecedented endeavour. Both the quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to gather the desired data for this research. As the brand loyalty is determined by a complex array of "attitudes, behaviours and experiences (Maritz, 2008)", hence it is desirable to customize the data collection methods in accordance with the response mechanisms of the subjects chosen for research. An array of methods like return mail (on paper or through website, questionnaires, interviews and sales figures will be used to support this research. List of References Books.com. 2008. Book.com.tw. viewed 5 November 2008 Business without Barriers. 2008. Manchester Business School. Viewed 4 November 2008 Chang, YM. 2002. The internationalization of strategies of transnational magazines in Taiwan: An examination of the stage theory. Taiwan National Chiao Tung University of Institute of Communication Studies, graduation Essay. Conde Nast Publications to Launch Vogue in China. 2004. Business Wire. viewed 7 November 2008 Dictionary.com. 2008. Lexico Publishing Group. Viewed 4 November 2008 Factors Influencing Brand Loyalty. 2008. Maritz. Viewed 7 November 2008 Government Information Office. Republic of China (Taiwan). 2004. viewed 5 November 2008 Lai, Y. 1992. The Magazine Development of Taiwan: 1895-1992. Taiwan National Chengchi University of Journalism, Master degree essay. Lowther, B. 2005. Magazine Boom in Mainland China. WWD. Viewed 7 November 2008 Marketing Doctoral Cohort. 2008. Manchester Business School. viewed 4 November 2008 Postgraduate Research. 2008. Manchester Business School. viewed 4 November 2008 Research and Markets: Conde Nast Circulates Vogue in Chinese- the World's Best Selling Fashion Magazine. Business Wire. BNET.com. viewed 6 November 2008 Read More