Media group e-tailing it for the blokes

By SIMON HENDERY

Tim Connell obviously knows that the day blokes stop being driven by sex will be the day that ... well, the day pigs fly.

Many observers were left scratching their heads last month when the 36-year-old magazine publisher revealed that his company, IT Media, was buying the fledgling e-tailer FlyingPig.

The 12-month-old book, video, DVD and stationery retail site has proved a bit of a dog when it comes to making a profit, but Mr Connell expects he can turn that around within eight or nine months.

As well as making the operation leaner, his plan involves marketing FlyingPig through the company's paper-based and online magazines.

"One of the biggest advantages that we have as a media company is that our cost of acquisitions [getting new customers] is quite low," he says.

"We have in excess of 700,000 people who read our magazines or see our TV shows so there are opportunities for us to advertise to those individuals and gain new customers.

"The costs are negligible to run ads for fishing books in our fishing magazines or rugby books in our rugby magazines so that's where the real opportunity for us is."

Mr Connell has a degree in management from Waikato University and first ventured into publishing in the late 1980s when he launched an Auckland dining guide. After time in Britain, he returned to Auckland in 1990 to establish Box Office Magazines, which published video, movie and computer game review titles.

He sold out of Box Office in 1997 and set up a new company which published NZ Rugby Monthly.

Today, IT Media's stable of niche magazines comprises NZ Rugby World (formerly NZ Rugby Monthly), NZ Fishing World, teen mag Creme and music title Rip It Up.

IT Media also runs male-oriented website fire-engine.co.nz, youth site toast.co.nz and rugby television show Off Side.

A key to the business' future success will be wider exposure via online magazines, Mr Connell says.

"The problem we have in New Zealand is that the market is so small that for a magazine to generate income in itself just as a publishing entity is very, very difficult, especially in the niche market side of things.

"To actually make any money we have to take that same content that we are using in fishing and in rugby and bring it onto the internet."

This is where things start to get rather bloke-ish.

"The things that drive men are very, very simple. We're very simple. It's not hard to work out, which is great."

Enter IT Media's latest internet presence: fire-engine.

Sponsored by, among others, a beer company, the site is a celebration of sport-loving, skirt-chasing manliness - all done in the best possible taste, of course.

Mr Connell says the site has made money from day one through its sponsorship deals.

"While the girls are very popular, the health site has proved to be easily the most popular. The type of questions that are being asked aren't the type you'd ask your family doctor."

Log on to read "Dr Bruce's" answers to questions such as: "What are the likely side-effects of a vasectomy?" and "Is it wrong to have sex when the girl is pregnant?"

Mr Connell says that although the site is generating money, it could make more through management of the user database it is building.

Men who check in are encouraged to leave their contact details. Registration for fire-engine is obligatory.

Mr Connell says IT Media will launch sites that are similarly linked to its other publications in the new year.

Another plus for the company is that print and cyber publishing merge well for many of IT Media's 30 staff, Mr Connell says.

"A lot of our designers will work on the magazines one day and work on the internet the next day."

On the decision to buy FlyingPig, Mr Connell says IT Media saw the site as an opportunity to quickly establish itself in e-commerce.

"It's a strong brand. When people think of e-tailing, the first name that comes to mind is FlyingPig. ... It's doing huge cashflow far more than its Australian counterparts."

The bulk of FlyingPig's original investors, Advantage Group, Blue Star and businessman Paul Meier, sold the controlling interest in the company to IT Media three weeks ago.

Listed appliance retailer Pacific Retail Group retains a 10 per cent holding, but says it has its own plans to launch store-specific websites for its Noel Leeming and Bond & Bond chains.

The original FlyingPig backers invested heavily in advertising to stake out a market identity, Mr Connell says.

IT Media does not have the money to do that, but is working out which product lines make a profit and which do not.

"We are very price-conscious and very profit conscious.

"We will definitely be looking to cull those [products] that don't make money and we will be attracting those that do," Mr Connell says.

In the long term, the company wants to take its niche publishing concepts overseas.

Part of last month's deal included access to Advantage Group's Sydney office.

"We want to be the biggest niche publisher in Australasia.

"We've definitely got plans to go into Australia. There is an opportunity to do there what we've done here." he says.

"We are also talking about replicating fire-engine in Australia."

Links


FlyingPig

Fire-engine

Toast