The company now allocates 60% of their marketing budget to digital media, which the Financial Times reports as 3x the market average. Considering the disparity between how much magazines make from ads, and how much the average blog makes from ads (hint: nowhere near as much as magazines with similar audience levels do), that’s a very significant shift. Granted, the focus of Burberry’s online efforts seem to be social media, but the shift is promising for digital publishers of all types. Part of the reason that online publishers can’t command the amount of money that print publishers do comes from the way budgets are allocated. If the advertising budget is comprised of 80% print ads, spread across 20 magazines, that leaves hundreds of blogs, social networks and various websites competing for the remaining 20%. You don’t have to be a star mathematician to understand the disadvantage that places online publishers at.

Print ads, in spite of the fact that they can’t be measured or tracked in any of the ways that online ads can, have long remained the holy grail for advertisers. Vogue has roped a few up and coming bloggers into their “Influencer” Network, Glamour is adding QR codes to certain ads and trying to increase interactivity, but these programs usually launch with 9 or 10 brands willing to try something different. And the remaining 200 or so ad pages are filled with companies who typically spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on an ad format that hasn’t changed in a century or so.

That’s not to say Burberry is abandoning all things traditional media: they aren’t. The upcoming Body fragrance, which launched on Facebook, will have accompanying television ads – but they’ll premiere on YouTube.

Even more notable is that the company admitted the Facebook campaign, which offered a free perfume sample to fans, wasn’t any less expensive than sticking a scented flap in a magazine. Judging by the numbers though, we’d have to say it seems that they’ve gotten more than their money’s worth.

Out of 500,000 new fans (the Burberry Facebook page currently has more than 8 million fans), 250,000 registered for a sample with “the majority” giving permission for Burberry to contact them in the future. We can’t think of any magazine that can deliver that.

Burberry has long been a bit of a maverick when it comes to how they promote themselves online, so it’s too early to call this an industry trend, but we like the direction they’re going in.

“You have to be totally connected to anyone who touches your brand. If you donâ€t do that, I donâ€t know what your business model is in five years.” – Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts

Fashion magazines: not dead yet

Fashion blogs are undoubtedly part of fashion’s future, and give a platform to everyone from the intelligent young teen to the photographer who sees editorial opportunities on the street. Without worries about publishing costs, newsstand placement, licensing costs and salaries, blogs in every category are leaner operations than magazines. Blogs don’t have legacy costs, but they’re nowhere near print magazines in terms of revenue either.

When it comes to numbers, few individual editors or writers can compete with the most popular bloggers. Mario Testino may be more established, but in terms of sheer numbers, Scott Schuman reaches more people looking for style inspiration on a daily basis. Though they’ve captured respectable fashion audiences, bloggers have yet to capture the advertisers.

Allure, one of the few fashion magazines to show a year over year decline in revenue and ad pages, still sold more than $33 million of advertising in the 3rd quarter. People Style Watch, a relatively new title that focuses on celebrity fashion, brought in $15 million. That’s one quarter, or 3 months. Granted that the 3rd quarter includes September, when fashion magazines often receive the most ads; still, it would be difficult to find a single fashion blog that brings in $15 million in advertising in one year, probably even two or three.

Part of the allure of many fashion blogs is an alternative point of view that’s not tied to how many ad pages a company controls. In an industry where legitimate criticism can result in revoked show invitations and snubs, the outside status of bloggers is seen as more trustworthy. So much so, that the FTC created specific regulations for bloggers that don’t apply to the people who write for print publications. Especially in fashion, where there’s rarely a hard hitting look at business practices and it’s commonplace for editorials to feature many of the same products that appear in paid ads, it may also be what keeps fashion blogs from ever becoming big business.

In fairness, it’s not only bloggers. Style.com, owned by Vogue publisher Conde Nast, is well established and well regarded. For years, it was backed by both Vogue and W magazine, yet even that hasn’t been enough to draw the kind of revenue that the print publications command. Vogue claims a readership of 1.2 million, while Style.com claims 2.3 million. Yet a 1-page color ad has an estimated CPM (cost per thousand) of $125 while the last media kit to include rates has Style.com commanding a $30 CPM – which is actually fairly high for online display advertising. Vogue increased both ad pages and revenue by more than 30% in the 3rd quarter. The raw numbers? $109 million in revenue in 3 months, and over $255 million from January through September. There’s no single fashion site online – including Style.com -  that even comes close.

3rd Quarter Fashion & Women’s Magazine Revenue