Last week’s Vista Group lunch was brought ahead a week because of my commitments to the Miss (Universe) New Zealand pageant this week, and I was saddened to learn it was the final (for now) that we’ll have with Jim Donovan. Jim’s off to Great Britain in about three weeks’ time, and by the time the Vista Group reconvenes he’ll be enjoying ever-longer days and the bright grey of the British summer sky rather than the dark grey of the winter one. (Yes, I am taking the mick.)
   Jim and I arrived early and chatted about the pageant, and after the arrival of Mark Di Somma (who relayed a comment his Italian father had about immigrants) and Natalie Ferguson (to whom we stared each time we made a comment that we chauvinistically felt could only be addressed by a woman) we did get down to discussing the trade mark opposition about the proposed graphic New York City—you know, the Big Apple—wants to use. The opposition came from Apple Computer, and older readers in Wellington might now think that the old Apple Driving School is now in serious trouble. (Are they still around? You used to see that green ’79 Corolla scooting about.) Jim summarizes our points on his blog.
   We also covered recession-proofing and pricing, as I discussed how the recent New Zealand Post price rises have affected us. Magazines such as Lucire used to cost 90¢ to post. Then last year it went up to $1. On March 28 it went up 100 per cent to $2. I believe that we have to eventually pass that extra dollar on to the consumer as we can’t realistically absorb it. One blog says we should blame TradeMe for the added demand on NZ Post parcel services. I will blame away, as I have neither sold anything nor bought anything via the Australian-owned company.
   Pricing issues are important for the brand thinker and it is probably time we re-examined our latest reader stats to see where we should be positioning Lucire in the market-place. In my mind, with rising inflation in New Zealand (3·4 per cent) the artificial $10 barrier to the price of a magazine probably no longer exists.
   I must apologize to regular readers for blogging a tad less here. I’m afraid Blogger has been harder to use in comparison to Wordpress and Vox, and a few of my recent posts have been a bit more fashion-specific, hence they appeared at Lucire. I am still alive, I assure you! (I even was a “special guest appearance” on Natalie’s blog.) Posted by Jack Yan, 08:08  permalink

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