Magazines have lost none of their ability to target a particular audience, integrating a number of channels to deliver campaigns that can transform a brand’s fortune.

When it comes to reaching a certain audience on a certain platform at a certain time, there’s not much that can beat magazine media.

With most major magazines now publishing content through a huge variety of channels, an armoury of choices are available to the brand marketer, who can target either general or niche audiences, safe in the knowledge that their ads will be delivered in exactly the right context, surrounded by top quality content that’s exactly right for the targeted audience.

Given that brands have been advertising in magazines for well over a century, there’s no shortage of success stories, but we’ve managed to choose five of the best from the past few years.

All using the power of the magazine brand, as well as the full range of platform options, to deliver results that would put a digital-only campaign to shame.

Hugo Boss

The trio of Lewis Hamilton, Hugo Boss and Men’s Health is a combination that would excite even the most gym-avoiding, fashion-fearing male, so when the magazine teamed up with the luxury fashion brand to host an exclusive event to celebrate the Australian Grand Prix, it was a match made in marketing heaven.

The event, which featured the F1 champion talking about the hi-octane world of motorsport and sharing his personal style tips, was exclusively promoted across the pages of Men’s Health magazine, as well as the title’s social media feeds and website, all pushing the readers and viewers towards the latest BOSS Mercedes-Benz fashion collection.

With the live stream of the event gaining over 480,000 impressions and hundreds of thousands more viewing content across print and digital platforms, the promotion was a roaring success. In total, the campaign reached more than a million people.

H&M

The international fashion brand wanted to introduce its customers to its brand new ‘Ladylike’ campaign, which aimed to challenge traditional feminine stereotypes by featuring women that are entertaining, opinionated, off-beat, fearless, independent and free-willed.

So they approached the publisher with a clear objective: create ‘intrigue, discussion and currency’ to promote the campaign, driving engagement and ultimately, sales.

Challenge accepted and achieved by positioning H&M within the ELLE brand, whose audience is smart, spirited, sophisticated and stylish.

As the title’s readership value meaningful experiences, the magazine created Ladylike Night, an exclusive event that celebrated women who embody the Ladylike spirit across fashion, creative sport and design.

Held in a H&M store, the event featured a panel of talented women who discussed what the term ‘ladylike’ meant to them in their respective fields.

The event was a huge success, not just for the 300 customers who attended, but the 343,000 who watched the live stream post and a further 19,000 who watched the live stream video.

With content published across the whole range of ELLE touchpoints, including print, online, social media and e-newsletter, the campaign not only proved to be a success on the night, but for weeks after the event.

Showcasing reach and socialisation assets of magazine brands at play.

Campbell’s Soup

The iconic global brand wanted to generate interest and excitement for their range of soups during the winter season, so they turned to NewsLifeMedia’s Taste magazine to create a campaign that would position Campbell’s as the nation’s ‘soup experts’ and increase sales.

Using a series of content and ads published across the media company’s food titles, the campaign yielded some impressive results.

Over 912,000 soup recipes featuring Campbell’s stock were printed out from taste.com.au in a single month, while print and online content increased purchase intent by up to 83 per cent.

The campaign also delivered on metrics such as talkability, with 46 per cent of consumers saying the ads increased their interest in talking to people about soups and stocks, driving the all-important word of mouth.

Myer

As Australia’s largest department store, Myer wanted to be the ultimate shopping destination for the spring horse racing season, so created a content partnership to showcase their fashion and accessory ranges.

Using their portfolio of fashion and style titles, Myer produced a series of editorial content, from a tailored spring racing booklet to exclusive advertorials highlighting Myer’s designers and the hottest trends of the season.

In total, 110,000 copies of the Myer Emporium Spring Racing broadsheet were produced and inserted into the Spring Racing editions of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and The Australian Women’s Weekly, giving a print reach of over 1.2 million readers.

Fashion galleries, native articles and videos were also produced for social media, which extended the reach by over 2.6 million, resulting in a stunning campaign that delivered a fantastic amount of paid, owned and earned media.