I have started feeling that this is the only fate left for B2B magazines in India. All the B2B magazines, well, most of them have a few commonalities among them. One- most of them are fairly good in terms of respective domain information and two- all are just thoughtlessly structured and designed very reluctantly. A great magazine is not made on the basis of information only but how that information is structured, how it is designed, how it is presented, how it packaged… that makes a magazine really a great magazine!Sure, most of them are doing well, their information is appreciated and that is why they are managing to survive. They survive because there is definite need for that kind of information. They can do even better, they can be much appreciated and perhaps they can have much larger readership if they are structured sincerely, presented attentively. Unfortunately those are the areas where these magazines are neglected and they face the situation in which they are currently. And if the outlook of publishers & editors towards these magazines is going to remain same, these magazines deserve to be like this only.
‘Brand Licensing’ is latest entrant in the latter category of B2B magazines which I discussed in the beginning. ‘Brand Licensing’ as its editor in chief- Lajwant Singh claims in his first edit note, is first-of-its-kind of magazine in India that will help & educate entrepreneurs and companies to setup or expand their business via licensing. ‘Brand Licensing’ is launched by franchising & retailing group- Franchise India Holdings Ltd. (www.franchiseindia.com) who is also publisher of two more B2B magazines- ‘The Franchising World’ and ‘Retailer’.
Content
Again a fantastic & very niche vertical to be in but executed badly. Being a publication from Franchise India, content of BL is obviously rich and informative but it is scattered and disorganized badly across the magazine.
In most of the B2B magazines there is one very fine line which divides it from B2C. It is very easy for editors/writers of these magazines that they can cross it and land up into B2C domain if not controlled very-very cautiously. Same is happened with BL, though information provided for the business people are good but at some places it starts getting into consumer’s space. Solid & definite editorial structure is missing though out the magazine, articles are scattered illogically in the magazine and that is why magazine in totality looks very complicated to navigate.
Because of lack of planning, there are lots of errors left in the magazine that also puts the credibility of content on stake.
Design
It is same as the content structure…very amateur and unprofessional. Only thing is clearly visible about the design is that designers have no clarity what needs to do present in what way. Selection of typefaces, color palates, illustrations everything is used just like that…there is no reasoning behind selecting any single element in the magazine.
Printing
It is mediocre…if not great or even bad! Lots of photographs are taken from web and that is why the output is poor. Because of lesser LPI, even good photographs are printed badly.
Product
‘Brand Licensing’ is launched as quarterly magazine and priced at Rs75. It is an eighty page perfect bound magazine which gives a decent look to this magazine.
Finally, information given in BL is fairly impressive and definitely helpful for its target readers but it can be improved drastically by putting same information in better way.
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