The MPA comprising of the magazine companies has just issued the MPA Pilot Interim Report in magazine to the ACCC. As we had much to do with this report, we were given an advanced briefing but told not to talk about it until its public release. Which means now.
To recap the events, the MPA went to the ACCC to be allowed to do a study of magazines to improve the efficiency of magazine retailing by doing tests in pilot programs. Well if its going to improve our clients' magazine efficiency, we are for it. So we got many of our clients to join these pilot programs. Overall those that did have mixed reactions to the program, but all found it overall positive.
Our readers will find nothing to amaze them as the conclusions are what I reported earlier here. Not surprising as much of the data comes from us. The only difference is that I used five years of history and worked on departments, while the magazine companies worked on a few months and used actual stock items. Nevertheless, the conclusions are basically the same that a substantial increase in efficiency (20%) can be achieved in magazine distribution within the current models using existing technology and marketing support. That 20% will be a big help to those clients of ours that distribute magazines.
Overall, I think it's been a great success, and I want to thank all our clients, the MPA, Network, GG, the ANF and of course our own technical staff that helped in this pilot.
The interim report is available here for you to read and hopefully soon the full report will be available.
