Look, over there...it’s a catalogue....it’s an advertorial...no, it’s a brand magazine.

Is customer publishing the new Superman of marketing? We’ve taken a look at the research.

Imagine your customers spending 25 minutes reading a good-looking, well-produced magazine with images and editorial about your company. According to research from the Association of Publishing Agencies in the UK, that’s the amount of time, on average, that every customer spends reading a brand magazine. And the representative for the customer publishing industry in the UK has also found that these titles create an eight per cent uptick in sales and increase brand loyalty by 32%.

They’re the publishers; of course they’ll say that, right? So let’s look at some other data. Companies like Selfriges, Net-a-porter, IKEA, Asos and YSL are all using customer publishing to reach new customers and deepen their relationship with their existing customers. The second largest women’s fashion title in the UK comes from Asos, with an annual circulation of 471,522. Not bad when the word on the street is that print is dead.

Like all industries adapting to technological change, there are gains as well as losses.  The opportunity to deepen customer engagement, the chance to contextualise products with stories and even advice is driving an emerging industry of branded publishing. By the end of this year, it’s estimated that it will be worth £1bn in the UK (Mintel). It seems we may be giving up on expensive glossy mags, but we’re still keen for relevant content that helps us make decisions about how we live, what we wear, even what we eat. 

So let’s look more closely at what we mean by a brand magazine, by starting with what it’s not. In the old days, an in-house magazine might have peppered images and information about your product with some reasonably strong advertorial promoting its benefits. The contemporary brand magazine is a much softer sell. It allows for stronger alignment with the values of your brand, including the opportunity to associate your brand with quality writers, photographers, stylists and opinion leaders. The latest YSL mag, for example, uses the talents of Vogue and Visionaire photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. 

The emphasis is on the customer; who they are, what they want, what they need. Other research from the UK shows that when customer magazines are used in conjunction with online marketing communication, consumers can spend up to 25% more with a brand, because of the open dialogue with potential and current customers. (Royal Mail, 2008)  

Most importantly, the dialogue doesn’t stop. Homewares giant IKEA uses their LIVE magazine to deepen brand loyalty. With interiors advice and inspirational stories, it’s sent to their most loyal members as a reward.  72% of readers keep the magazine for future reference; 80% use it to get ideas for improving their home; 76% say that after reading it, they want to shop at IKEA; and a staggering 97% say they’re left with a positive or very positive opinion of the IKEA brand. (Independent Global CRM Analysis in 2010; 10,000 respondents)

Deciding if it will work for your brand is your choice. We think it has great benefits as a platform to add depth and relevance to your brand in an environment you can control. It achieves cut-through and greatly increases brand engagement, as well as creating fabulous brand alignment opportunities. And it’s a particularly effective medium in gaining trust, in contrast to many other forms of direct marketing where the primary concern is to raise awareness.

On its own it’s probably not Superman, but in conjunction with an integrated marketing and branding strategy, it’s a winner. And Superman was nothing without Lois Lane.

A cost effective answer to the multi-platform question

Tablets, iPads, smartphones, androids – words we use casually today but found bewildering only moments ago. What new concepts and technologies will become commonplace within even 2-3 years?

Whatever the future holds, the next stage in the life of your website is one based on fluidity and multipurpose. Your website must work across most if not all of the many different sized devices – adjusting in look, feel and sometimes in content.

There are two ways to enter this new phase. 

First, is the activity of your site more suited to support a dedicated mobile site (i.e. m.bank.com.au) in addition to a normal site (i.e. bank.com.au)? Larger organisations with a shop front function and complex copy such as banks, real estate portals, employment sites, shopping sites may need two separate sites, catering to large and small formats.

Smaller businesses have an advantage in only have to maintain a single website in order to reach their entire audience. So, is your website within scope to be flexibly adapted to the different devices it is used on? If yes, then you should start looking at a responsively designed site. 

With responsive design, the structure of a site is created with a fluid grid from which content can be scaled, wrapped and folded to the right size for the screen being used. You would have a fixed width website for use on large and medium screened devices; and then a fluid width design to work for the majority of small devices. Responsive websites live up to their name by ‘responding’ and adapting automatically to each device. The other major feature with this option, aside from only having one URL across devices, is that search engines love responsive design – and will generally bring better search results than traditional sites.

To start the ball rolling with a responsively designed site, your site architecture will need to be redesigned to create maximum effect on small devices; design menu items, icons and the grid for touch enabled devices; and a good, constructive edit will help prioritise content and fine tune messages. 

It’s all about usability and a seamless flow in the relationship people have with your traditional website and your new responsive design site.

Visitors to your site will love that you’re leading the charge, so talk to us about your best option – whether it’s a responsive design or a dedicated mobile site.

To chat to us about responsive design or for more information email or call 9416 2566

Grace Camobreco - Creative Director

Above: Starbucks responsive design, one website works across all devices 
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While we wait for a drop in summer temperatures; find a cool spot and catch up on what we've been up to at Taylor & Grace.

Our clients have been testing our flexible approach with a number of diverse projects on the go… from map development to curating artworks to corporate signage to interactive presentations for screen and tablet. The results speak for themselves.
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Making the complex understood.
Client: SAI Global. To launch a revolutionary e-conveyancing product, T&G was commissioned to develop a series of marketing materials to distill the product value proposition and drive sales at a series of trade shows and other touchpoints. The materials consisted of an interactive company presentation for screen and tablet (with an embedded video) and a host of printed materials.
View Project


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Putting Brunswick style on the map.
Client: The Urban Stylist. A map-style real estate promotional brochure – selling life and culture in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. The map uses illustration and highlights interesting and unique amenities and features of the suburb. View Project





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Celebrating Victoria's visual archives.
Client: Public Record Office Victoria. Curation and installation of over 20 visually significant images in the Public Record Office Victoria's North Melbourne site. View Project

Gender Target marketing - The Venus and Mars Question

I know a man who, when he needs a new pair of shoes, puts it off for as long as possible. When someone in his life finally insists that he can’t leave the house because his shoes are so embarrassing, he reluctantly finds a shoe shop, gets in and out of there as quickly as possible with a new pair of shoes and arrives home to imbibe a stiff drink. The whole time he looks like he’d rather be eating glass. I, on the other hand, can happily browse for shoes for hours or days at a time, buying pairs I don’t actually need but I simply must have. One day I will have an outfit that they’re perfect for.



Above: the super sucessful Old Spice ad campaign, targeting "women" to sell products to "men", for insight into the campaign creation click here

We like to joke about it, but a cliché is always based in truth. There really are some major differences between the way men and women behave psychologically, socially and as consumers. So it pays to understand those differences in more detail before committing time and money to your marketing campaign. Especially when you consider that the average consumer receives about 1500 brand messages a day. You have to be smart to stand out.

There are physical reasons for the fact that men are generally more mathematically-minded than women, why women are generally better at managing complexity, why men aren’t that great at talking about their feelings and why women occasionally suck at catching a ball. It’s all about the brain.

Men’s brains are about 10% bigger but it seems, from studies at the University of California-Irvine, that this is because men have more ‘grey matter’, which forms the brain’s different processing centres, while women have more ‘white matter’, which serves as wiring to connect the different centres. This may be why women handle complexity and multi-tasking better than men. And why men are less relational in their thinking. Men prefer black/white, yes/no scenarios while women are much more likely to say “It depends”.







Above: Very clever breast cancer awareness campaign - even super heros get brest cancer, click here for details

Men are also more left-hemisphere dominant, while women have a more even balance between the two hemispheres. So men are generally more task-oriented while women are more intuitive. The part of the brain that controls
numerical brain function is bigger in men, so they’re generally better at maths. (Not fair. ) But women have bigger limbic systems, which helps them get in touch with their emotions. And you can blame the thicker parietal region in the female brain for those ball-handling skills; it means women are less adept at mentally rotating objects and it therefore affects their spatial awareness.

But what does all this mean for marketing strategy?

Think about store layout. Men will desire and easily navigate a direct path to a product, women will be happy to browse through the whole shop and go off on tangents. Men tend to buy individual items while women think in ensembles.









Above: Highly contraversal California milk ad campaign that sparked huge debate and critism,
click here for more info

Think about key messages. Men want direct answers about a product; women focus more on how it will make them feel. Men are less likely to remember something from last year; women have better verbal memory and will recall what they’ve seen and heard about your product or a competitor’s.

It can’t be a one-size-fits-all solution. Men really are from Mars and women from Venus. Or, as the French say, vive la difference!

Grace xx
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Further Reading:

9 differences between the male and female brain

Marketing to men

His Brain Her Brain

Life’s a picture

For Melbourne photographer Tania Jovanovic, the turning point in her career came when she stopped being a rock band and catalogue photographer and followed a passion to visit Cuba.

“I’d always wanted to go there,” she told The Graceful Taylor in a recent interview. “I learned the language really fast because I wanted it so much. And I loved it.”

She took a camera, of course, but only as a travel accessory. “I had no plan to be an artist photographer.” Then, back home again and showing others the photos from her trip, she realised that she’d produced some extraordinary images.



“People encouraged me to put them into a book, so I decided to go back a second time with the intent to photograph the people. I wanted to get them working.”

She sure did that. We adore these images, from her first book Cuba Que Bolá, which is now in its third edition.







Tania has a second Cuban book, Retrato De Los Santos, documenting the year she spent living with the people who practise Santeria, or voodoo. “They were poor. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t romantic. It was really hard. It left me with some horrible impressions, but also some amazing ones.”



Her Cuban work is “a few years ago now, but I’d like to go back. I want to take my children”.

Speaking of children, The Graceful Taylor is mightily partial to Tania’s portraits of siblings and school groups. If only there’d been a Tania Jovanovic when we were at school, we’d be tempted to bring out the old school photos with pride instead of embarrassment...





Asked how she gets such honest photos, Tania says “I take lots of shots. And I can feel that moment when they break down from the pose. That’s the moment I want. I wear them down until I get it!”



Although she says she’d prefer her kids went down a less artistic path, Tania finishes by saying that she loves “the people contact. I get to communicate with the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. The best thing about my job is that it changes every day.” Sounds like a pretty good life!

Check out Tania’s body of work on her website. And next time you need a photo to be proud of, you know where to go.

The past is the story of now

Dale Campisi, co-founder of the Melbourne-based publishing pearl Arcade Publications, has just told The Graceful Taylor why he’s so fascinated by the past. It’s “the story of now, you know; it’s the reason why.”

Clearly a fan of time travel, Dale quotes the early 1990s TV show Quantum Leap, with Scott Bakula in the role of a time-travelling Fonzie, as part of the inspiration for Arcade’s focus on the stories of Melbourne’s past. Launched in 2007 with a biography of EW Cole and his book arcade, this divine small press has found a growing niche market for its beautifully designed A6 books and related must-attend events that bring the history of Melbourne to glorious life.

Dale began Arcade Publications with fellow publisher/editor Rose Michael after they’d both spent years in the publishing industry. Keen to find their own path, they brought in designers Michael Brady and Peter Daniel and the distinguishing characteristic of Arcade’s titles took shape; their size.

Like the little gems of stories told within their pages, the A6 size of each book is a testament to the enduring pleasure and attractiveness of small things. They’re fit for devouring. And The Graceful Taylor is partial to the odd devouring...

... We digress. The size is of course a point of difference. “We ... wanted to challenge established publishing norms,” says Dale. “It’s an interesting editorial and design challenge.” The associated events also set this press apart, especially the walking tours of Melbourne that link to their published stories.

With so many fabulously quirky characters populating Melbourne’s past, The Graceful Taylor is keen to know: does Dale have a favourite? EW Cole rates a strong mention, and so does the devilishly handsome and possibly narcissistic choccy maker Macpherson Robertson. Anyone who makes chocolate gets our vote too. And, just to show that history can also be recent, the singular Don Dunstan, former South Australian Premier, appeals to Dale for the delightful fact that he resigned after sleeping 40 hours straight. And because he wrote a cookbook while being Premier.

At least it wasn’t called Sh*t on my Hands, the aptly named parenting guide which is a recent publication. We’re keen to learn what’s afoot in 2012 and excited to discover that there’ll be a title by culinary author Charmaine O'Brien on Melbourne's nineteenth century cafe scene, a verse history about a baby farmer by the inimitable Judith Rodriguez, and a biography by Jenny Sinclair about Edward Oxford, a man who tried to assassinate Queen Victoria, then moved to Australia after 20 years in an insane asylum. We did attract the right sort of people to our shores, didn’t we?

If you’ve not discovered Arcade Publications, The Graceful Taylor respectfully suggests that you hot-foot it to the website now. As Dale says, “...history for me is vivid and fun and memorable - as life should be. “ Bless.

The key to Grace

We’re very proud that Grace has just been included in a new book, Conversations with Creative Women, published by Creative Women’s Circle. So if you’ve ever wanted to know what makes our talented creative leader tick...

The Graceful Taylor even learned a few tidbits about Ms. G that we didn’t know – like there isn’t anything she can’t tell you about rubber car hoses.

Now we bet you’re interested! The book’s available in limited edition. Check it out here.

And go go Grace!

Grace asks: does colour really exist?

Well, yes and no. The banana in my fruit bowl is yellow to me. But it might not be yellow to you. In fact, neuroscientist Beau Lotto says that, when it comes to colour, we’re all delusional!

Light is real. It can be measured. But colour doesn’t actually exist. It’s completely manufactured in our brains. We use our memories to help us know what colour something is, and we have strong emotional associations with certain colours.

For example, in an experiment designed by Beau Lotto, nearly every adult assigned yellow to happiness, blue to sadness and red to anger. (Kids were similar, but a bit less predictable.)

There’s also an emotional association between colour and sound, with most people, including kids, thinking of lower notes as dark blue and higher notes as bright yellow.

Even though these relationships don’t exist in nature, human beings have, over time, developed a kind of memory that this is the case.

And we can use that to our advantage in branding and marketing. When you want to create an emotional association with your brand, it pays to think about the colour of that emotion, and the sound of that emotion.

For more info, and to read the full description of Beau’s experiment, head to the BBC website.

iIllustration by Gwenola Carrere

Why the right branding is critical

The mere exposure effect is not a Hollywood blockbuster starring Matt Damon (although now that we’ve had the idea…)

It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon that says humans prefer certain things simply because they’re familiar. Anyone who’s tried to make headway a market dominated by one or two brands will know what we mean. Creating familiarity through repetition is critical in the marketing mix.

This was proven in a fascinating study, published in the British Medical Journal a few years ago. The study looked at whether branding could actually make a difference in how effective people thought their headache tablets were. No prizes for guessing – it did!

The women in the study reported that their headaches were relieved more effectively by the branded tablet that they knew and trusted than by the unbranded one, even though some of the branded tablets were actually placebos and some of the unbranded ones were real headache tablets.

In other words, the brand had an analgesic effect on the women as powerful as the active ingredients in the actual headache tablet. And while you might think that, after some time the headache would reappear, the effect was actually even stronger when more time had elapsed.

So next time you’re thinking about your own branding, think about the mere exposure effect and the power of the mind to preference what we already know.

To view some examples of the Taylor & Grace branding work click here

Campaign below designed by the very talented Christine Wisnieski for the The 34th Cleveland International Film Festival