October 2011, ‘Magazine B’ an ad-free magazine that presents one brand per issue launched with its first issue covering ‘Freitag’. Running an off-line media solely on sales profit without accepting advertisement was considered to be impossible when the magazine first started. B has been introducing ‘well-balanced brands’ from around the world for about four years. Now, B is a must-read magazine for marketing and branding experts from fifteen countries around the world, being read in business schools and collected by readers who wish to understand a brand.
Thanks to Magazine B, JOH had won This Year’s Graphic Design from Korea Design Award 2012, and Silver Lion in design craft from Cannes Advertising Festival 2016 to be the first Silver Lion winner as a periodical publication. In the magazine market in Korea that fluctuates, Magazine B has published more than forty issues without any paid advertisement or supplement and made itself a stable ‘brand.’
What do you think is the achievement of the publication of 40 issues of Magazine B?
The most significant achievement is that the magazine in such unfamiliar format received the attention of the public and turned itself as an influential medium. I am particularly proud of the fact that the readers of B can express their consciousness and preference by simply saying that they love to read magazine B. Like those who read Kinfolk or Monocle, readers of Magazine B shares some codes at the very moment they say they read it. Obviously, this itself is a different level of branding, I think.
Magazine B may be the first example of an English periodical publication launched in Korea that has resonated in many places around the globe. The English editions are sold in 15 countries around the world including US, UK, Australia, Portugal, and Greece. Tsutaya Books in Japan has displayed Magazine B issues in the separated section in its Daikanyama store.
The beginning of the magazine involved a lot of thinking.
Rather than making good money from the magazine, we thought about what we’d felt we needed: something we’re willing to pay for. We didn’t carry out a quantitative market research or FGI in the planning stage, but we believed that the magazine would be in demand if we stick to the perspective and philosophy of the media. Thanks to our readers’ appreciation, the basic philosophy of Magazine B is maintained until now.
We’ve been thinking about ‘the nature of the magazine’ planning for the magazine covering brands. There are tons of magazines in publication market, but we hardly come across with one that contains its original perspective as a medium. Everybody knows that magazines are in fact collections of advertisements, therefore it’s hard for them to write about their advertisers. Writing about a brand based on the press release produced by the brand itself fills the magazine with too many similar news articles rather than reveal the magazine’s original perspective. Thus, we decided to emphasize the ‘perspective of the brand consumer’ as the most important standard of the magazine. Our principle was to introduce one brand at a time with our own perspective unaffected from any exterior factor. That is why we kept our magazine free of any financial support until now.
In fact, we always introduce Magazine B as a publication lacking two elements. Firstly, we don’t include advertisement, and secondly, we don’t have any ‘past issues’ in its accepted meaning. Even if it had been published two years ago, you can still purchase the issue that covers the brand you wish to understand. In reality, 40% of our sales every month are issues published months or years ago. What the brands that Magazine B has been focused on have in common is that their attitudes and philosophies don’t change over time. This must be the key for Magazine B to remain practical and informative, even if a long time passes from its publication.
How did you come up with the concept of a brand documentary magazine?
Unlike existing media that cover ‘brands’ tend to lean too much toward a theoretical and academic approach advocating the providers’ positions, Magazine B focuses solely on the brand that are received by consumers. The in-depth coverage of a brand’s concept and philosophy bases on the perspective of the brand itself, of course; however, we felt that the true nature of the brand can only be understood by those who likes and recommends the brand; how they met the brand for the first time, and what are the most attractive feature of the brand in their point of view.
Therefore, the contents of the books was framed based on the consumers’ perspective. We recalled the process of being familiar with a brand, starting from the very moment the brand had been introduced to us. Among so many brands you come across with daily basis, a particular product, logo, or color attracts your eyes and arouses you curiosity. Sometimes a brand can be introduced to you by someone else. Then you become acquainted with it by search for some on-line contents or visiting the brand stores, building a relationship with the brand. Like the brand is often compared with a personal character nowadays, becoming acquainted with a brand shares a similar process that happens between human beings.
The process made us call it a documentary. An issue of Magazine B is framed with interviews of those who uses the products or services of the brand. There are many pages that only contains photography and minimal captions by the editors, to respect the communicating effect of ‘image itself.’ The intro and outro that opens and closes the issue is written to play the part of narration in a documentary films.
Until the last moment, B Has been paying attention to “who” is going to read the magazine. B is not for brand managers only. Rather, the magazine will be there for anyone running a business, big or small, or anyone consuming brand producs. It will present its present its perspective on brands with easy yet sincere tones.
A differentiated approach must be needed in the design part of the magazine.
At first we thought that lack of advertisement would work for the design. We have had a hard job, however, making it seem ‘magazine-like.’ In a way, Magazine B’s unique layout and design style were created thanks to our designers who were not very familiar with conventional designs of periodical publications.
We aim for an issue that make our readers feel as if they just watched a piece of documentary film. It involve a lot of thought to realize that effect with the design, though. Since we began from ‘the brand experienced from the consumers’ point of view’, we try to embody the consumers’ perspective in every single photographs and layout printed on the pages. Often the images in the magazine photographs look better than in reality, thanks to the perfect arrangement of the props, use of the lighting and the digital correction. What Magazine B wants to show our readers are natural photographs that are closest to the actual feature of the objects; It makes us work a lot for the photography; for example, if a photograph well expresses the character of the interviewee, we daringly choose that one even if it is blurred or slightly out of focus. The ideal photograph contained in a Magazine B issue is one that reveals the lifestyle of the brand, but refuses to seem like that of conventional brand catalogue. Sometimes we need to experiment with layouts that break away from the boundary of conventional editorial designs. We may arrange images and texts in a way a filmmaking camera zooms in and out.
Many people wonder about your criteria for selecting a brand.
The B in title stands for both Brand and Balance. Magazine B’s first issue covered Freitag, a bag-maker that uses recycled materials. Especially in Korea, Freitag is usually appreciated as being eco-friendly. What we’ve seen from the brand, however, is the balance of its outstanding practicality, its unique style and sophisticated business operation paired with systemic production and supply chain-the balance that makes the brand so special. We’ve seen the similar value from Rimowa covered by our 31st issue; Rimowa’s market share is relatively small compared to its reputation in the luggage market. The brand’s aspiration, however, is to stay small as they continue to refine the original form. They insist on production in Germany and US. They purse slow growth instead of excessive expansion.
At first glance, these two brands seem very different; still they have something in common: they are brands that balances itself with ‘practicality’, ‘style’, ‘reasonable price’, and ‘original philosophy.’ Magazine B seeks for well-balanced brands rather than those with single outstanding element. We chose New Balance with its ‘B-class sentiment’ instead of Nike or Adidas with fabulous star marketing strategies; we chose Intelligentsia that becomes ‘a part of the community’ instead of Starbucks or Illy with higher market shares and worldwide reputations.
In the process of selecting and contacting the brands, we understand them even more. Sometimes, the impression we get from the contacting person of the brand doesn’t go with the brand’s reputation and heritage at all. In this case, we reconsider about the brand since several experience taught us that the attitude of the person who works for the brand often defines the class of the brand.
Which issue is are the most precious to you personally?
Although every issues are precious to me, there had been some brands that created unforgettable momentum for the Magazine B editorial team. Intelligenstia, the coffee brand, is one of them. In November 2012-the time the Intelligenstia issue was published-they didn’t have any Korean branch. The brand was totally new to Korean public. After conducting some research of the brand, our team visited its head office in US. We were grateful as we had a very positive receptions and close cooperation from the staffs of Intelligentsia during the coverage. We found a new perspective towards the brand and shifted our approach from what we had planned beforehand. Our experience with Intelligentsia, met with our later experiences with other unfamiliar brand we covered such as Ace Hotel, became the driving force of refining Magazine B’s own perspective.
You have diversified ways to communicate with your readers.
Celebrating our 3rd anniversary in the end of 2014, we invited 15 readers that had a special bond with our magazine and other 15 readers who applied with SNS to JOH headquarter office and threw a small party for them. For that day, those who make Magazine B prepared all the gifts for our guests and every piece of flower coordination on their own. We shared the most precious moments of Magazine B, and screened a brief retrospective video clip on the three years of Magazine B.
We asked them about the most impressive issue of Magazine B. Ace Hotel, our 29th issue, won the most votes. In terms of the sales record while the sales record of other issues were about the same level except the Lego issue. The Lego issue, our best-selling one, has a behind-the-scene story; we had to think a lot until the issue was finally published. The Lego headquarter office located in Denmark had rejected any interview unless the interviewers gets permissions of all the contents of coverages before publication. Then we changed our plan to take our own way; we interviewed the former employees of Lego, and asked around for the people who love and collect Legos. We were glad that the Lego issue filled with these interviews was well received by our readers.
With each issue, our subscribers receives a postcard contains the contents that would be covered in the next issue. In addition to that, you can visit us at Facebook, Instagram and twitter to read selected articles or interviews that were not contained in the issue due to the limited space. We present short video clip that talks about the brand for each issue on our YouTube channel.
What made you launch B:ALANCE?
Celebrating our 3rd anniversary, we wanted to revisit the brand we covered in past issues and see how they changed. We also wanted to ask numerous opinion leaders we’ve met through Magazine B interviews about the ideal balance of a brand and about their personal interests.
The first issue of Balance mainly deals with insights on brand and lifestyle; we also asked our previous interviewees for Magazine B about new brands that attract their attentions. Some of the interviewees for the issue were Duan Sorenson, the representative of Stumptown who we’d met in Portland for the Ace Hotel issue, and Toru Imai, CEO of Snowpeak covered in the second issue of Magazine B.
It also deals with the values and philosophy of each brand covered in Magazine B issues. We wish to inspire the readers who are conceiving their own brands in particular. In fact, Magazine B doesn’t analyze a brand’s growth factors or its key to success; instead, we want to focus on the attitude and awareness of the brand-lovers, the reason why they love it and the way how they feel towards it. Each brand we’ve selected takes its own path to make itself as a good brand; therefore, it’s no use trying to follow or copy the logos, uniforms, or promotion strategy of the brand. Rather, you have to focus on the attitude and philosophy. Balance is a medium for people who are willing to learn from those attitudes and philosophy of the band.
What does Magazine B mean to JOH?
JOH is a company that wish to realize the lifestyle we want. Our lifestyle is suggested by creating ‘brand’ and ‘places’ in the fields of clothes, food, shelter and information. Magazine B covers brands which are worthy of notice, which JOH wish to emulate, and which deserve to be signposts that propose the direction for many others including JOH.
In fact, Magazine B plays a pivotal role among the staffs in JOH. For a company like JOH which develops broader range of business at a rapid pace, Magazine B is almost a real-time R&D center. During the interviews, we meet so many persons worth talking to. Exploring the legacy of good brand around the globe, and learning from their achievement after numerous trials and errors, we feel JOH is the one who gets the biggest benefit from Magazine B itself and we are grateful for this.
I believe more and more businesses will try to do the right thing. Instead of just focusing on promotion and marketing at the moment of purchase, they will try to increase the attention given to the people who make their products. In this way, companies will be more like producers who reveal the brand’s strengths from the inside out. That’s what I imagine an ideal business to be.
What are your future plans?
We’ll expand our range of coverage by exploring extended types of brands. Our focus is not solely on the products: Champions League or Google covered in our previous issues can be good examples of the brands that do not produce tangible products but still are used by consumers all over the world. The same is true for Helvetica, our 35th issue. There would be people who refuse to regard a typeface as a brand. In our opinion, by the way, Helvetica is a very fascinating brand in itself.
Financial assets do not create value however loved and cherished by its owners. On the other hand, a brand asset can grow and enhance its value if it is nurtured and refined over time. The authentic images and brand values of cities like Berlin and New York cannot be imitated by any other no matter how much money is invested. More and more people will see the immaterial values a brand possesses and find it worthy.
We’ve been thinking about developing business operation involves the brand and the public, in forms other than a magazine, but in a way only Magazine B can realize. Like we highlighted the sensitive aspect and cultures of brands, we’ll keep exploring what the ‘balance of a brand’ means to contemporary lifestyle by doing various forms of activities. The exploration will be, we believe, not only about the balance of a brand, but ultimately about the balance of our lives.
"It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.”
Establishing a good brandㅡa sustainable brandㅡis similar in many ways with the process of becoming a good person. For me, “being a good person” means the following things. First of all, thinking for yourselfㅡit might generally be desirable to be just and get along well with other people, but that’s now always the case. Second, consistencyㅡpeople around you should be able to see that you’ve been consistent from the past to the present and believe that you will be consistent in the future, too. Third, the courage to stick with your ideas and maintain consistency, even when it sometimes seems like there might be an easier path. People are not won over be the way a person looks at one particular moment, and no matter how hard you try to mimic someone you think is alright, your real self will eventually be seen.
