One of the strengths of custom magazines is that they are a far stronger marketing tool than the internet, when it comes to targeting high-end or high-volume customers.
The reason is that if produced properly with a target audience in mind, they have a perceived value in the mind of the recipient, who knows that a sizeable amount of money has been spent producing and mailing the magazine.
The same is not true of internet marketing.
Bjorn Fjelddahl says: "The process for print and online is very similar, however, the difference with print is that when you receive it, you'll naturally flick through the book and, possibly keep it for future reference."
Chris Fjelddahl adds: "The difference is a push-pull phenomenon. The magazines are pushed into people's hands. But when people go onto the web, they're searching for information, that is, they are pulling in content."
Understanding that difference is, therefore, key to understanding the strengths of the different marketing communications tools available to advertisers.
So where does custom publishing sit in the broader context of the marketing communications industry?
As De Vido puts it: "TVC and regular newspaper campaigns are the appropriate strategy to get new customers. The internet is a great way for quick updates, but the target must be more narrowly defined. Custom publications, with an even narrower target audience, are the best way to organically grow your business with the customers who have already purchased from you.
"As an example, suppose you know that your average customer purchases three bottles of wine a week. If you want to increase sales, it's much easier to target that group to buy a fourth bottle through a special offer than to try to get new customers. It's like word-of-mouth advertising but through the interface of a custom magazine."
But while the business of custom publishing is growing rapidly, Asia is still only scratching the surface.
Educating potential clients, more used to the traditional TVC or newspaper ad, is an uphill struggle. Clients also need to understand that producing these types of magazines is a long-term venture, running over many years.
De Vido said the biggest problem he faced was in getting companies to view custom publishing as one of the tools in the marketing mix.
"Companies typically say the idea is good on condition that they don't pay anything to produce the magazines but that we can earn on advertising sales revenue because they are a big brand name. It's a problem of marketing myopia."
This is one of the reasons why research is so important to the growth of custom publishing.
However, Emphasis with its longer track record is in a different league because it has a significant worldwide sales force. According to Goodridge, the company has more than 50 sales offices globally, which "gives us a unique revenue-generating capability from the largest sales force in the world".
An added challenge is the downturn in the global economy, which has spawned greater short-term thinking. De Vido says the problem is much more prevalent in Hong Kong which, he adds, has a history of possessing a short-term mindset.
"Companies, for historical reasons, just do the same things they have always done or follow others. There are few innovators but we're catching on, so the future looks bright."
Chris Fjelddahl stresses that custom publications had to be viewed in the long-term - five years or more.
"You need the frequency and the continuity to keep the relationship going.
It can't be a one-off or a short-term thing. The other more important point is that if you keep at it, you become better at it because you're learning new things."
But despite the challenges, he says Asia-Pacific has strong upside potential.
"A small country like Austria in central Europe has around 3,500 custom magazines. That's in sharp contrast to the whole of the Asia-Pacific region, which is nowhere near that number. But I'm confident of the potential."
Custom publishing may have been around for a long time - decades, according to Emphasis Media, which is best known for the family of inflight magazines it produces for a number of airlines in Asia - but it's only in recent years that demand has suddenly ballooned.
Airlines, banks and hotels have been the standard business source for custom publishers. But as clutter escalates, new categories are popping up.
Among the latest entrants to the world of custom publishing are a supermarket chain, Hong Kong's ParknShop; a children's broadcaster, Disney Channel; and an internet solutions provider, MSN. Going by what the custom publishers are predicting, other new categories are also opening up.
The greater demand is underlined by the fact that new players are entering the market. Marketing agency, Motiv8, recently set up Motiv8 Publishing and Appelberg acquired a local custom publisher to roll out Appelberg Publishing Agency. And about three years ago, Redwood established a presence in the region.
The growth is fuelled by an increasing desire - not only among the big advertisers but also among smaller players - to close the loop in their marketing communications strategy through maximising customer-retention strategies, mainly customer-relationship management and loyalty programmes.
Maturing markets, an economic slowdown and consumers who are more sophisticated than ever before are the main drivers for this new thrust.
Bjorn Fjelddahl, Motiv8 Publishing managing director, says: "For years in Asia, there was great emphasis placed on growing and gaining customers but these days the focus is on customer retention because it is becoming increasingly expensive to gain new customers especially in markets which are maturing, such as in Hong Kong."
The focus on customer retention has prompted custom publishers to re-tool their trade in order to produce dedicated titles that are finely tuned to what the customer is interested in.
Ultimately, custom publishers are looking to balance the need to provide a good read with the subtle brand and advertising message delivery to a specified target audience.
Redwood Asia-Pacific director, Jim Marett, notes: "The editorial material must be relevant and appropriate. It must speak properly to the target audience. The tone cannot be going over or under them."
While journalists on staff have continued to provide the editorial philosophy that influences the magazines' look and content, the emphasis today has moved to producing magazines that follow the client's brief. Marett describes the process as "an art and a science".
"We have to understand the client and the brand values and positioning of their products and services. Then we have to translate that into editorial which is informative and entertaining but at the same time subtly convey the advertising message as well produce a product that is visually appealing.
"Everything has to be aligned with the client's business objectives but being subtle through the presentation of useful content is key. If you have alignment but content that the reader feels is not useful, then you've lost the greater part of the battle and you might as well not even bother."
Motiv8 managing director Chris Fjelddahl agrees. "You must stay true to journalistic ethics. That includes talking about the bad with the good but also placing the emphasis on presenting problems and then the solutions."
Emphasis Media editorial director Peter Morgan adds: "For our inflight magazines, we will look at the branding and the positioning of the airlines but of equal importance is the demographics of the travellers. Generally speaking, the magazines are a product of these things."
But the extent to which clients become involved in the production of the magazines is a matter of debate, especially given that custom publishers emphasise a journalistic writing style to ensure readers view the content as credible and unbiased.
Morgan says: "Some clients are more hands-on than others but it's a balancing act because the editorial must have integrity. If not, readers would be turned off."
Adds Emphasis chief executive for the region, Barrie Goodridge: "We believe that there should be a separation of church and state. The best clients understand this because if you put the reader first, everything else will flow from there."
However, this is also a function of how long there has been a working association with a client.
Appelberg managing director Roberto De Vido observes: "The longer the association, the less likely the client will be actively involved but only as long as there is a good track record and the client is satisfied with your systems and processes."
However, it is not an uncommon phenomenon to find clients which insist on signing off every page before the book goes to print.
Measurement of the effectiveness of a magazine forms part of the systems and processes that clients look for to ensure that they are on the right track.
Because of technological advances, an evaluation and assessment of a particular campaign within a known group of customers has never been easier.
All the custom publishers say that they welcome this development of effectiveness research since this paves the way for fine-tuning and improvements of the publications themselves.
That research has also underlined the effectiveness of custom publications is an added bonus, they add.
Chris Fjelddahl advocates "mini-surveys
in every issue such as gift coupons or special offers with a major study on an annual basis.
"It will keep us on our toes to ensure that both we and the client are on the right track,
he says.
Marett highlights ParknShop magazine, which is given away to shoppers spending more than HK $100 (about US $13) per shopping trip, as a case in point.
ACNielsen recently conducted a readership study on the supermarket magazine and found that compared with non-readers, readers were four times more likely to have increased the amount they spent at ParknShop after reading the magazine.
ACNielsen also found that in one issue, which featured an article on hot-pot dining, readers were more than 10 times more likely to increase purchases of frozen food.
Said Marett, "Producing these magazines isn't cheap and the aim isn't a simple public relations exercise. It's got to appeal to the people they are targeted at.
"But, at the same time, we have to see if it's having the desired effect, whether it be brand awareness or pushing products. The magazines, therefore, have to be measurable and that suits us because we need the research to hone the product."
A unique point about ParknShop, which is published every two months, is that it has a print run of 800,000 copies, with a claimed circulation of around 650,000 households across Hong Kong, making it the biggest publisher in the territory.
The magazine is being audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and official figures are due out in the next few weeks.
David Durnford, ParknShop marketing director, said that the supermarket chain never set out to be a publisher at all.
"Being a publisher was a by-product of our business objectives. The main priority was to build a stronger relationship with our customers, who, research shows, have wide-ranging interests.
"It's not just about groceries. It's about cooking and health tips. It's about meeting the needs of people and part of that includes the introduction over the past few years of a sushi section and wet-market facilities."
The impetus for the magazine, according to Durnford, was the need to cut through the clutter by strengthening the bond with its typical shopper - housewives, mostly working mothers aged between 25 and 44.
The supermarket has diverted some of its advertising budget to ParknShop, but it has also begun selling advertising space in the magazine.
Its March issue had a double-digit number of pages booked by advertisers, including Amoy soy sauce, Lee Kum Kee, 3M, Brand's and Harpic cleansers.
The idea is that ParknShop magazine will eventually pay its own way and even turn in a tidy profit.
