THE BIG ISSUE LESSON 4

Here is a more detailed background to The Big Issue. There is also a template at the end of this document to give you a quick 'cheat sheet' for our set BIG ISSUE covers.

The Big Issue LTD is an indepe­ndent magazine company and is not part of larger conglo­merate. They partner with Dennis Publishing to print the magazine. The magazine operates on a Not-Fo­r-P­rofit basis, using any excess revenue to support homeless people.

The magazine isn't sold through conven­tional means like shops, as you see most magazines do, but sold through vendors which are often homeless people or people living in poverty. Street vendors purchase copies of The Big Issue for £1.50 each and sell them on for £3 each. The street vendors are free to use that money to support themse­lves- the goal is to give homeless people a legal way of making money.

When setting up the magazine they needed to secure external funding and secured a front from The Body Shop- Gordon Roddick (one of the founders of The Big Issue) was married to Anita Roddick, who is the founder of The Body Shop. Handily, The Body Shop granted them £50,000 to start the magazine until it became a self-s­ust­ained module.

After the success of The Big Issue, they wanted to do more and more to help people in need, so they have divers­ified into other areas. In 1995, they divers­ified into more direct support with The Big Issue Founda­tion- providing homeless people with training, workshops, inform­ation on how to get support with various issues such as mental health, domestic abuse, housing.

In 2005, they divers­ified further by setting up The Big Issue Invest, which is a financial fund available for charities and small busine­sses, indivi­duals with ideas for businesses that perhaps have been turned away from other investors due to impove­rished backgr­ounds. TBII are able to provide funds to people with business plans.

In 2016 they divers­ified into retail with their own online shop, including a range of synergetic mercha­ndise. All of that money goes back to helping the needy.

So the Big Issue is an example of a product and company that is NOT all about profit and power, but instead giving back to the community, making it very different to most magazines in the market. Many brands with similar ABC1 audiences choose to place adverts in the print magazine and on the website and this increases the revenue for The Big Issue- they reserve a lot of space for adverts about charities and other community projects but do sometimes go into the more expensive areas for that ABC1 audience.

The producers collab­orate with celebr­ities for cover photos, interviews and even invite some to be guest editors for an issue. This draws in pre-sold fans of those celebs. This includes David Bowie, Robert Downey Jr.
Sometimes they even have collective editions, they work with celebs to create special editions of the magazine which makes it feel more exclusive. This encourages readers to buy multiple copies to try and collect them.

The Big Issue worked so well as a Not-Fo­r-P­rofit magazine in the UK that many intern­ational versions were created- Japan, Australian and Ireland are just a fraction of where they branched out.
So despite remaining an indepe­ndent niche magazine, it has become a globally recognised brand.

In general the magazine industry has suffered due to the decline in people buying print magazines, choosing instead to get inform­ation and entert­ainment online instead. They have moved into digital distri­bution, working with Zinio (a massive company that distri­butes thousands of magazines online). Zinio allows customers to purchase one digital copy of a magazine or subscribe to 12 months upfront. The option to "­try­" one edition of the magazine gives audiences a taste of the magazine without a long-term commit­ment.

Digital distri­bution also helps to target audiences who are online regularly, those who don't have a vendor locally, and those who are avoiding paper copies for enviro­nmental reasons. It also helps them to reach a global audience as Zinio distri­butes to over 174 countries.

The revenue from digital sales is used to support vendors.
At the height of their success in the early 2000s, their vendors were selling 300,000 a week- however, the magazine industry has suffered massively as more and more people are choosing online content instead of print content. As of 2011, they were "­onl­y" selling 125,000 copies a week and so they decided to redesign and relaunch The Big Issue in an attempt to boost sales. The magazine started to feature a lot more content about political and social reform. They also featured more celebr­ities including as regular column­ists.
The rebranded magazine had a slightly higher cover price in an attempt to help vendors make similar money from potent­ially reduced sales. In a world where other magazines' sales continued to plummet, the sales of The Big Issue did eventually pick back up.

Here is the cheat sheet: BIG ISSUE CHEAT SHEET.docx