Ben 10, magazine cover star

Ben Tennyson, Ben 10, features on four magazine covers in-store right now: Kraze Club, K-Zone, D Mag and Disney Adventures.

Ben 10 is a character in a Cartoon Network TV show.  There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to the character and over 4 million website references and 600,000 blog post references.

While chasing down this information may seem obsessive to some, it helps us understand what we sell – we know more about the demographic, what they are interested in and that we can put four titles together in a feature display which might otherwise not happen.

Best of all is the Kids Birthday Parties blog which has ideas for Ben 10 themed birthday parties.  While Coles, Safeway and others may sell one or two of the magazines with Ben 10 on the cover, they will not go the extra step and have information about kids parties and the like.  This is where we can demonstrate our point of difference – leveraging product knowledge to add genuine value of shopping in a newsagency.

Reading some of the material online about Ben 10, it struck me that too often we focus on single titles because that is what publishers want.  Sometimes, a more holistic approach is better for our business.  This is the case with Ben 10 themed product in newsagencies this week.

I am grateful to Jane at Forest Hill for showing me the four covers and the opportunity we have.