This winter saw the publication of the “Pineapple” magazine – a case not anticipated even by Joe Pulizzi: a paper magazine as a test and support for a digital initiative. The publisher, Airbnb, is an international portal offering vacation rentals of homes and apartments directly from the owners in over 190 countries.

According to Jonathan Mildenhall, marketing director, the brand is one of the largest platforms in the world “creating stories” and an essential part of its future strategy is content shut down in a long form. Exactly how long? The quarterly magazine has 128 pages.
In “Pineapple” (the fruit being an international symbol of hospitality) Airbnb promotes a new and inspiring attitude towards travels through the prism of a community gathered around a brand. Each issue focuses on three chosen cities. Why does an Internet website invest in paper? It’s simple – one look at the customers’ behaviour is enough to understand that. It’s true, they buy vacations online, but they experience in reality everything that’s important in them – in the rented homes and around. For this reason, Airbnb stories also function in reality.
The stylish, designer magazine promotes the brand, fitting perfectly the customer’s vision of a perfect holiday residence – a beautiful living room, a coffee table, “Pineapple” lying on top of it. The first issue feedback will help determine the longterm frequency for the publication and develop a content marketing strategy for mobile devices.

Another good example of using the potential of print comes from Zalando online store. As Rainer Burkhardt said at the Szpalty Roku 2012 conference in Warsaw, it was hard to hide the feeling of surprise when that typically virtual company decided in 2010 to publish a printed magazine. Meanwhile, it was a clever and simple way to combine online and offline shopping. It started with 500 thousand copies, to come up to 1,5 million copies with the fifth issue. In just over a year from its premiere, the mag tripled the company’s sales results. Today its 2 million (!) volume is still growing.
As one could have expected from a fashion company, their magazine is a stylish, glossy alternative for a traditional catalogue. In order to emphasize its state-of-the-art, sophisticated style, the magazine cooperates with one of the largest companies specializing in intaglio printing – one that is used for publications abounding in colourful, high-quality photographs. Naturally, the pictures are there to present the portfolio of chosen products and to illustrate style and fashion columns. The content is prepared by the firm’s internal team. The result is the outcome of careful research, choice of illustrations and design.
Despite its meaty content, the mag is light, which makes it environment-friendly and economic in shipping (to customers and to six European countries, where it is distributed). The publication looks professional and luxurious, at the same time keeping its undisputed advantage – it is free. Positive feedback from customers and the media has shown that print works where well juxtaposed content is hard to transfer via other channels.

The Zalando magazine also has its online version as ePaper and a mobile app, and both the magazines described here can be ordered via the companies’ Internet websites. Technology itself does not pose a threat to traditional print. If we want, the two can cooperate within one strategy, making the division into “new” and “old” publication channels irrelevant. As Joe Pulizzi told us, giving up on paper is often the result of a company’s attitude, which does not see the opportunities provided by that media:

“In the US we’ve seen many brands, or even media companies, which resigned from print focusing solely on digital strategy. This has created a unique opportunity for the brands with a printed magazine to force through and grab attention to their subject area. We see print as a real opportunity for the brands which want to target particular recipients with particular messages. The obvious subject area encompasses luxury, but also professional content for B2B decision-makers (more and more trade publications ceasing to exist). Last but not least, print is crucial in data collection. Many consumers will provide information about themselves (contact, personal data) to subscribe for a company magazine. Customers consider printed publications valuable enough to agree for this kind of exchange. Meanwhile, many publishers seem to forget about this.”

Paper appears to be indispensable wherever there’s need for a longer narration and storytelling in a well-developed form. In the times of short tweets and the stream of information from which we fish out information for only a second, a magazine that you can hold in your hands is something that keeps the readers’ attention for longer, allowing them to “bite” the story.