NME – THE BEATLES – SAME ISSUE-13 DIFFERENT COVERS

NME – SEPT 12, 2009 ISSUE

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John Bezzini

This post has some overlap with an earlier post that I did on the blog dealing with the marketing campaigns that promote Beatles magazines that have cover variations designed to enhance sales and to encourage multiple purchases of the same issue of a magazine. Some collectors welcome this. Others despise the practice. I have to be honest with you. I often substitute better financial judgment with a completist collector’s mentality. This judgment does not extend to all cover variations differences though. For example, I refuse to collect multiple vinyl color variations of an LP release by any of the Beatles. In that circumstance, I cry out for new material instead of rehashing the old!

The dilemma faced by the magazine/ print industry is that newspapers, magazines, and books face serious challenges from internet, phone, and computer technology to greatly reduce the impact of any print media on the culture. Many print media are facing extinction, bankruptcy or simply fading into oblivion. Environmental issues have also stepped into the picture as the cutting down of trees to secure paper products is sneered at by many individuals and groups.

This trend is a continuation of what is also happening with the music industry where streaming has become the main (stream) source of sound and profits rather than physical media like CDs, DVDs, or vinyl records. Well, I am in the minority as to me there is no substitute for holding a book or magazine in my hands in a warm living room tactfully (yes a pun on tactile) turning the pages rather than having my eyes fixated or mesmerized on a screen before me.

Using the same logic, I could never purchase groceries Online as I would want to personally view and examine what I was buying to consume!!!

Collecting print material has its own unique qualities that are not all positive though:

Marketing strategies based on past successful campaigns can promote such practices as reissuing the same magazine with different covers or issuing the same magazine with a couple of extra pages but advertising it as a completely new issue.  

The completist mentality:

Often magazine publishers through demographic and previous sales analysis determine that certain iconic figures like the Beatles seem to sell more copies of a particular magazine so they repeatedly use the Beatles on the cover to sell more copies of the magazines. Sounds like a good business proposition

Here is an example of a successful campaign as it applies to my personal collection.

New Musical Express (NME), a UK music magazine, in September of 2009, issued a Beatles campaign of 13 separate Beatles album cover issues containing the same content within. Other than the cover, the contents were the same. As an added incentive to collectors, they made one of the 13 issues (Magical Mystery Tour) as a limited edition of only 1,000 copies, appealing to the completist collector who needs to have ALL of the issues or face the psychological possibility of feeling they are missing out on something. Many if not most people decry this type of marketing strategy as they see it simply as a money-generating ploy meaning you are paying 13 times for the same content with the cover photo being the only difference.

Collecting and completist psychology does not always extend universally across specific types of collectibles. I have no personal desire to collect multiple color variations of the same vinyl release in order to possess the 250 color variations of a vinyl release. Print variations in books and magazines have a far greater appeal to me as a collector. One enticement marketers use in the sound collecting arena is when they include a single bonus track (not available elsewhere) in a package that forces you to repeatedly buy a very expensive package in order to secure that single bonus track. This strategy forces collectors to often buy multiple copies of the same album they already have several copies of in order to ensure having all of the variations of the recorded work by the artist.

THE NME – EVERY BEATLES ALBUM REVIEWED

The following represents a marketing strategy that was successful with yours truly. The 13 issues of NME featured below are from my personal collection. If someone were to ask me which one was my favorite issue of the 13, unsurprisingly, I would have to reply with the Magical Mystery Tour issue because of the limited number of copies printed of that issue. Was I being manipulated by the publishers? Most likely, yes, but it was a decision I readily made which pleased me at the time and I do not regret it. However I am fully cognizant that some of you viewing this will say that I wasted my money. Also being retired now and on a fixed income, I need to be more judicious about where funds are outlaid.

Hope you enjoy the various covers of this September 2009 issue of New Musical Express:

MOJO MAGAZINE

Also in my print collection:

MOJO Mag UK July 2001-Four different cover variations of the same issue of the magazine:

My favorite separate cover of the same magazine was a foreign issue of Rolling Stone Richard Avedon Beatles covers

A SPECIAL BEATLES RARITY FROM SPAIN

A few years ago, my good friend Jordi Melgosa from Spain was able to inform me of a Beatles rarity only available in his native country. He told me that the Richard Avedon Beatles photos only appeared as a set on the cover of Rolling Stone in Spain. The same dated issue would have each Beatle pictured on the cover. It was a great marketing scheme because if you wanted the complete set you would need to buy 4  copies, assuming they had all 4 Beatles covers in stock.

Jordi also said that the most difficult cover to find in the set was the Ringo cover. I asked him if he could locate a set for me to purchase for my collection. He had no trouble finding John, Paul, and George, but like he had said, it was a considerable amount of time before he was able to find the Ringo cover. After he had completed the set, I paid him for the issues, and he mailed them to me in the States. I will always be grateful to him for his kindness, his persistence, and  the courtesy of making me aware of this special rarity!

UNCUT MAGAZINE

Recently, a friend of mine from the UK, Seamus Hayes informed me of another marketing strategy for Beatles-related magazines. This is a recent issue ‘The Ultimate Music Guide of the Beatles” issued by UNCUT magazine in the UK. It is in magazine format with a picture on the cover taken from the Beatles Mad Day Out photography shoot from 1968.

The magazine which is large at 172 pages has many beautiful photos and is impressive. This is followed by a unique strategy aimed directly at Beatles collectors. Uncut magazine decided to take their Ultimate Music Guide of the Beatles and print 2 hardcover editions with much of the similar content that also appears in the magazine with the Mad Day Out cover, one with a red background and one with a blue background featuring two different early Beatles photographs.

The size of the magazine and books are also not identical. My psychological justification for getting all three was now complete as being in hardback format, I was now securing two more hardcover Beatles books for the collection. Furthermore, it was another collector oddity that I enjoy. A book and magazine combination. I know that many if not most of you feel that I am wasting my money, but none of us is going to take it with us. Also, a collector needs only to justify to themselves what they buy. Living in the States, I was cursing at the international postage costs but Seamus Hayes, my collecting buddy in the UK has helped me significantly in helping me deal with this situation. As fellow collectors we help each other out in our collecting obsession! A mutually beneficial situation, indeed!

MAGAZINE/BOOK MARKETING STRATEGY:

Here is the 2024 magazine put together by Uncut magazine in the UK:

Hardcover book- the blue cover version of the above magazine

Hardcover book- the red cover version of the above magazine with a different photo:

TV Guide – Nov. 11-17, 2000

All 5 covers that were marketed separately and also as a package containing the rare White Album cover issue of the magazine:

TV Guide Week of August 14-20, 2005–the Shea Stadium cover variations

READER”S DIGEST COVERS FROM: A rare set of Reader’s Digests from Australia from Dec of 2005

My favorite set of TV Guide covers.

This is a rare set from Mexico of their equivalent of TV Guide Magazine manufactured in 1973 with the White album photos:

In closing, for those collectors out there, what particular collecting peculiarities do you have in your own collecting pursuits? How do you personally approach your own collecting habits or interests? Do you dislike completist collectors? If so, why?

Thanks for your input!

Happy hunting!

JOHN “BUZZ” BEZZINI

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