Case Study: NME & MOJO brand

comparison
Loki Huang

In this rapid changing multimedia era, everything could be taken place in a second, especially
for media industry, having innovations and creations for their own brand may be the keys
way for them to ‘survive’ in this ‘victory over the fittest’ world. As one of the most
indispensable media medium, magazine, was inevitably hit by Covid-19 as other industries
does, fast recovering and continually evolving are the main point of how a brand could be a
good business model.

This case study is going to make a comparison on two UK based music magazines, NME and
Mojo magazine, as they both from the same broad market sector. There will be analysis in
servals different aspects of the brand itself such as brand extensions, how they react toward
the changing markets. There are six parts in this case study in general, the first part will start
from briefly introduce the circulation of these two magazines, the second part will be analysis
of their owner and publisher, following the demonstration of their basic streaming
information, the third part of the comparison will be the target audiences of them. Next part
will be the changing market and the brand extension, last but not the least, the final part will
be the online content of two magazines.
Circulation
Circulation is the most direct ways to show if a magazine is successful or not, it is also the
basis for a brand to estimate and reflect on their own market strategy. From ABC’s data, it is
quite clear to see the circulations of Mojo are much more than NME’s as the circulation of
latter is the half of former in comparison. With 20,011 circulation, 261,000 readerships in
2017 for NME and the readerships for Mojo is 210,000, 54,856 circulation for average per
issue.

Nevertheless, as a weekly public magazine, NME, according to Printweek’s report, ABC’s

figures, the magazine started to switch to a free distribution as its paid circulation of just
15,000 in 2014 and then boots to 30,000 in 2016 (Stuart-Turner, 2015). Although the
situation of that can not be compared for each figure of what ABC provided, it could tell
Mojo is leading in some extent, with 28,876 paid circulation in 2020, showing the magazine
attracts huge amounts of audiences as a monthly publish magazine.

‘NME’ circulation ‘MOJO’ target audience

Target audiences

Knowing the target audiences and having investigation of the target market is the first step
for a magazine to build up its business model, after knowing the customer target group,
including competitors, magazine brands could carry on planning their business strategy.
According to the target audience data from ABC, audience type with 63% of male, 37% of
female, 26% of student, the gender balance of readers of NME is slightly unbalanced but far
more different from Mojo.

According to data from ABC, there are 73.1% audience are male and female being 26.9%,
the gender balance of Mojo audiences is extremely unbalanced as male readers are
dominating. The fact of it is logical as Mojo is a rock music genre magazine and rock music
industry being associated with males primarily, and female readers are a minority according
to data from ABC as well.

Additionally, the average age of Mojo reader is from 45 to 54 years of age, I reckon that old
well-known bands more tend to be featured and more optional to be chosen in the magazine.
What’s more, the social class for Mojo is 59.5% ABC1 profile which is almost 10% more
than NME’s, 47% ABC1 profile, this might due to the layout style of Mojo is tend to be more
sophisticated than NME’s, the language and stories it covered may be more complex, which
may not attract readers from lower class. Furthermore, the stories that Mojo covers is very
precise which might be slightly different from NME’s, which shows readers of ‘NME’ may
requires less education when comparing with Mojo’s.

The layout of Mojo is basically tidy and clear, its content is ordered which mostly aligned
with the cover line, usually with one central image. The colour palette mostly limited to black
and white, with a few touches of yellow and darked red tone. In the comparison of NME,
Mojo’s layout are more tend to be stylish, the layout of NME is much more brighter and the
style of it is more formal.

Owner and publisher

NME, New Musical Express, a British music and culture brand which first founded in 1952
as a newspaper, the magazine brand is owned by BandLab Technologies at present. In 2019,
the successor to IPC, TI Media, which used to be called Time Inc UK, sold NME and Uncut
to a Singaporean company, BandLab Technologies (Cooke, 2019). NME editor Charlotte
Gunn, joined NME in 2015 as digital editor which following the closure of the print
magazine, she launched the ‘Girls To The Front’ live, ‘Club NME’ and NME Awards.
According to the editor of NME, Charlotte Gunn, the online only title is a brand new start for
them, “the move ‘feels like a fresh start’”, “although it is definitely tough” (Homewood,
2019).
Differ from NME, Mojo is owned by Bauer Media which confirms as the biggest magazine
publisher in the UK for the whole time. According to ABC’s report, this publisher also
owned other variety of representative magazines such as Q, which is also a giant in music
magazine industry, ‘Empire’, a film magazine remains the highest circulation with almost
50k copies then other competitors in the market.

Apart from magazine from music and film, Bauer Media also offers glossies, gardening,
hobbies and TV listing type of magazine. In 2017, Bauer Media announced launching ‘Planet
Rock’ which mainly focus on older music lover from 30-50 years old, with Phil Alexander,
the editor in chief of MOJO, Q, Kerrang! (Garner, 2017).

Changing market
With the rapid changes in current events such as Brexit and Covid-19 in recent years, or
earlier challenges for NME in 2014, having the right business strategy for a magazine brand
decides the future of this brand. What’s more, every move and decision the editor makes is
crucial, as everything based on if a brand has innovative practice or not when facing the
changing market. When mentioning about the unpredictable market changing, there are huge
amounts of business were greatly influenced by Brexit last year, as Mojo and NME were also
one of them.

According to a report from Printweek, due to Brexit-related shipping delays, the expected
cover CD of March issue which should have featured Cure cover version of Mojo did not
arrive in time for distribution, even while the magazines are printed (Francis, 2021). John
Mulvey, the editor of Mojo tweeted about the new issue, and apologized for this
inconvenience for readers.
However, according to ABC’s figures for UK magazine circulation, newsstand sales of UK
magazine were predictably hit by Covid-19 lockdown which closes lots of non-essential
retail. The year-on-year % change for Mojo magazine under the pandemic is surprisingly 3%
while many other competitive magazines such as Empire, Men’s Health and BBC Science
Focus, were below zero (Tobitt, 2021). What’s more, with the influence of the changing
market, NME first became a free publication in 2015, after a temporary good sight, the
magazine made a shocked decision which is shutting down in print in March 2018.

Brand extension
Brand extension is playing an essential part for a company, especially for a magazine brand,
only having the print issue may be restricted for a brand. Company relies on the brand loyalty
of their current customers, a brand extension could help a company reach a new
demographics, increasing the sales of magazine, expand brand’s customer base and even
make the brand boost.

For continuously extending NME’s brand style and expand its appeal, according to
Marketing Week’s report, NME launched a 24 hours TV channel on Sky Digital channel 377
for the latest offerings from the UK’s alternative and indie music scenes, which with content
heavily based on the charts in 2007. However, unlike NME, Mojo did not launch any TV
channels but it did also launched broadcasts.

According to Mojo’s official media pack, there are few multi-platforms it offers.
MOJO4MUSIC.COM, the online companion to the world’s greatest music magazine which
helps readers discover more classics by updating articles, artist guides and playlists. There are
also other multi-platform for Mojo magazine, the UK digital edition and Mojo Bob Dylan
vinyl edition.

In addition, NME also launched its radio section in 2013 which presence with two new DAB
digital radio station – NME1 and NME2. According to NME publisher’s interview from
Press Garzette, NME 1 will champion new talent on the title’s radar and NME 2 is going to
feature a range of artists and NME classics in the future (Mayhew, 2018). Due to the
changing market, NME’s last digital radio, NME radio closed five years later, satellite
television station NME TV, also closed in 2012 which have been through 14 months on air.
Comparing with NME, Mojo launched its first radio show even in a much earlier stage than
NME, ‘Mojo in the morning’ first launched on February 21, 2000 on Channel 955 in Detroit.

For expanding the market, NME recently announced launching its site NME.com/asia, which
initially focus on Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines, as reported by Billboard, the launch
may be an attempt to continue last year's success as NME expand their brand into Australia in
2019 which attracts over half a million monthly unique audiences (Brandle, 2021).

Apart from brand extension in multimedia platform, NME also launched its exclusive
discount code for various hits brands in the UK such as NIKE, Converse, ASOS, Pandora,
Footlocker, M&S, etc. NME also hold music gig such as ‘Girls To The Front’ series, ‘NME
lock in’, ‘Radar Session’, ‘Under the Radar’ gig, ‘Club NME’, and some Guitar lives. What’s
more, NME also presents awards ceremony such as ‘NME Awards’ and ‘VO5 NME
Awards’, on the contrary, Mojo did not hold that much music gigs as NME did in recent
years, there is an annual awards ceremony hosted by Mojo, The Mojo Honours List, the
opportunity to venerate those timeless legends and genuine heroes of music while celebrating
the best releases of the year.

According to Music Week’s report, Mojo celebrates its 300th issue by launching the White
Album collector’s edition and exclusive CD in 2018 (Garner, 2018). This anniversary issue
priced £5.99, which also featuring U2, Noel Gallagher, Arctic Monkeys and Paul Weller.
Similarly, NME have also published its 50 years of anniversary special edition as well when
the magazine brand still publishes print issue.

Online content
A successful magazine brand may not just focus on their print issue or broadcasting, having
the online contents is the key to be able to expand and interact with more potential
consumers. In this social media predominating generation, fans foundation is especially
important, with 366k followers in Instagram, 288k subscribers in Youtube, 907.2k followers
in Twitter and more than 883,000 likes on Facebook, NME is obviously a successful business
model when comparing with Mojo about the online content. Mojo magazine is heading 8300
followers in Instagram, 4.89k followers in Youtube and 124.5k followers in Twitter, these
data demonstrated NME have a stronger fans foundation.

Conclusion

All in all, Mojo magazine gains more readers from middle class and working class based on
its layout and ABC figures, with an extremely unbalanced audience gender, which also points
out the target audience are mainly for adult and readers are over 35 years old. As the
magazine positioning is rock genre, stories it covers and artists it features are tend to be
timeless legends, who owns a large number of diehard fans. Nevertheless, Mojo is less
influential in social media aspect than NME, NME owns a much larger fans foundation
comparing with Mojo which might due to its print issue closure, its online content and other
brand extensions may requires younger age of readers.

Having a rich multi-platform content for a magazine brand also matters, NME owns much
more platforms than Mojo, for enriching its brands variety, such as awards, broadcastings,
TV channels, even discount codes. On the other hand, Mojo is more focus on ‘classic rock’
which already a representative label for the brand. Overall, two magazine brands both have
their successful aspects and fields as they both have the business strategies to keep up with
this competitive market.
References:

Brandle, L., 2021. NME Launches In Asia. [online] Billboard. Available at:
<https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9436511/nme-launches-in-asia/> [Accessed 29
February 2021].

Cooke, C., 2019. NME and Uncut sold to former Rolling Stone owner | Complete Music
Update. [online] Completemusicupdate.com. Available at:
<https://completemusicupdate.com/article/nme-and-uncut-sold-to-former-rolling-stone-
owner/> [Accessed 31 February 2021].

Francis, J., 2021. Mojo mag hit by Brexit delays. [online] Printweek. Available at:
<https://www.printweek.com/news/article/mojo-mag-hit-by-brexit-delays> [Accessed 28
February 2021].

Garner, G., 2018. Mojo celebrates 300th issue with bespoke White Album collector's edition
and exclusive CD. [online] Musicweek.com. Available at:
<https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/mojo-celebrates-300th-issue-with-bespoke-white-
album-collector-s-edition-and-exclusive-cd/073942> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Garner, G., 2017. Bauer Media launches Planet Rock magazine. [online] Musicweek.com.
Available at:<https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/bauer-media-launches-planet-rock-
magazine/068137> [Accessed 29 February 2021].

Homewood, B., 2019. 'We can take more risks': NME editor Charlotte Gunn on the title's
new era. [online] Musicweek.com. Available at:
<https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/we-can-take-more-risks-nme-editor-charlotte-
gunn-on-the-title-s-new-era/074886> [Accessed 26 February 2021].

Mayhew, F., 2018. NME to stop publishing weekly print magazine as it turns focus online -
Press Gazette. [online] Press Gazette. Available at: <https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nme-to-
stop-publishing-weekly-print-magazine-as-it-turns-focus-online/> [Accessed 29 February
2021].

Stuart-Turner, R., 2015. NME to boost circulation to 300,000 in switch to free distribution.
[online] Printweek. Available at: <https://www.printweek.com/event/article/nme-to-boost-
circulation-to-300-000-in-switch-to-free-distribution> [Accessed 26 February 2021].

Tobitt, C., 2021. Magazine circulation UK 2020: Breakdown of UK mag sales by genre.
[online] Press Gazette. Available at: <https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/magazine-circulation-
uk/> [Accessed 28 February 2021].
Bibliographies:
http://nme.com

https://www.mojo4music.com

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/542191242640013856/?amp_client_id=dK-
44HIxTnqRYPSMnBBn3_94wUgOb8449dTdQz2W5yRzeLGeaiqyXK4K-
wYGPFHE&mweb_unauth_id=b5f7d082&amp_url=https%3A%2F
%2Fwww.pinterest.co.uk%2Famp%2Fpin
%2F542191242640013856%2F&amp_expand=true

https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/abc-results-publisher-reaction-15166

https://www.bauermedia.co.uk/uploads/MOJO.pdf

https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/abc-results-publisher-reaction-15166