New York, NY (June 6, 2008)—Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) has published a variety of new research findings in the 2008-2009 edition of The Magazine Handbook, the most comprehensive source of facts, figures, statistics on all aspects of the U.S. consumer magazine industry. 

The user-friendly guide, featuring the latest information about magazines’ editorial diversity, readership, reader engagement and circulation trends, also offers greatly expanded sections on magazine accountability, showcasing the effectiveness of magazine advertising, and magazine-digital trends.

This edition’s Accountability section provides new independent data that show magazines’ superior performance in consumer’s purchase decision process, i.e., the “Purchase Funnel.” A number of independent researchers confirm that:

• Magazines scored significantly higher than TV or the Internet on all six key engagement dimensions, including “trustworthy” (59 points higher than TV and 21 points higher than the Internet) and “ad receptivity” (77 points higher than TV and 57 points higher than the Internet).  (Simmons, 2007)
  
• Magazines lead in communicating the benefits of auto brands (PointLogic, 2008)
  
• Magazines exert significant influence on auto purchasers (BIGresearch, 2008)
  
• Home improvers look to magazine editorial and ads as the preeminent resource for projects (CNW Research, 2007)
  
• Magazines boosted purchase intent the most—nearly double that of TV and triple of online (Dynamic Logic/Millward Brown, 2007)
  
• Magazines lead TV in recall and actions taken for direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads (Affinity, 2007)

The Magazine Handbook also provides information on the magazine-online relationship. Highlights include:

• Comparing full-year 2007 to just the first 3 months of 2008 alone, the number of magazine websites has already grown 8% (Oxbridge Communications, 2008)
  
• Magazines’ website audience is growing more than three times the rate of the overall U.S. Internet audience (Nielsen Online, 2008)
  
• Despite the abundance of online content, few consumers see the Internet replacing the print version of magazines in the next five years (MediaVest, 2008)
  
• Magazines are used more frequently than the Internet for category-specific information, such as info for entertainment/celebrity, fashion/beauty, health/wellness and food/cooking (MediaVest, 2008)
  
• Magazines excel in driving web search across gender and age (BIGresearch, 2007)
  
• Consumer exposure to magazine ads led to a more than 40% lift in web traffic to advertiser brands (Marketing Evolution, 2004-2007)
  
• When adding advertiser URLs to magazine advertising creative, visits to the advertiser websites tripled (Marketing Evolution 2004-2007)

The Magazine Handbook is utilized by advertisers, agencies, publishers, financial analysts, retailers, members of the press and the general public. The 2008-2009 edition is now available as a PDF download from www.magazine.org/handbook and will be poly-bagged with June 9, 2007 issue of Advertising Age. Printed copies are also available by request via email to: promotion@magazine.org.