There’s no such thing as the same old grind at San Clemente-based publisher Grind Media these days.
“We are focused on transforming a traditional media company into a lean-forward, multifocus, multiplatform media company,” said Norb Garrett, Grind Media’s senior vice president and publisher. “We are reshaping and reformatting everything we are as a business.”
It’s a push that follows a 15-title swap with Bonnier Corp. in May (see related story, page 1), and it keys on gaining a dominant position in the action sports media arena.
Grind Media is no longer relying on sales to teen skateboarders who would rather spend the $5 bills in their pockets on tacos instead of glossy magazines—it’s increasingly focused on providing readers content on their smartphone or tablets.
The goal is to sell advertisers on the chance to reach millions of eyeballs each month.
“Those who create great, memorable curated content are in position to be of importance to consumers,” Garrett said. “If you’re of importance to consumers, that means that you got a relationship with the consumers, and that means there is a subset of advertisers that want to speak to those consumers.”
Grind Media is a subsidiary of Source Interlink Media LLC of Irvine, has 220 employees and reaches 41 million consumers a month, according to the company’s promotional material. About 6.3 million people read Grind Media’s 16 magazines, another 27.5 million stem from its various websites, and 6.5 million engage through social media.
Garrett wouldn’t provide Grind Media’s revenue figures, but its parent company, Florida¬¬–based Source Interlink Companies Inc., has more than $1.1 billion in annual sales.
Garrett said Grind Media has seen significant growth in revenue from digital advertising and events over the past year. The goal is to offset recent single-digit declines in print advertising sales and any dips in circulation revenue with the shift to digital.
The new strategy follows a deal Grind Media struck with Winter Park, Fla.-based Bonnier Corp. in May. Grind Media got Bonnier’s TransWorld group of six magazines, including TransWorld SNOWboarding and TransWorld SKATEboarding, which shares top billing in the industry with San Francisco-based Thrasher Magazine.
Several of the titles complemented Grind’s flagship publications, such as Surfing, Surfer, Snowboarder, Powder and Bike Magazine. Others were shut down as part of a “comb-through” of the portfolio.
The focus, according to Garrett, is to offer advertisers a wider audience under the Grind Media brand.
“We want to operate brands that are … No. 1 and No. 2,” Garrett said. “There is no room for No. 3 or below.”
Some early fallout to the strategy: Grind Media folded newly acquired TransWorld Surf magazine, then the country’s No. 3 surf magazine, in June. And Skateboarder’s October issue will be its last.
Online TV
The titles acquired from Bonnier will get additional exposure through online TV, part of Grind Media’s portfolio since 2010, when it partnered with Yahoo! Sports and became its exclusive action adventure content provider. Grind Media’s video production team generates branded skate, surf, and other video content, which is distributed on the Grind TV website and through Yahoo! Sports. Grind TV reaches more than 17 million viewers, Garrett said.
Before Grind TV, “we were irrelevant to a larger potential advertiser,” he said. “Now we have a mass reach platform, [to] provide national advertisers a medium through which they can reach this audience. Those are new dollars for us.”
The company said the strategy is showing results.
The Gillette Co., for instance, recently advertised its Right Guard deodorant on Grind TV.
“Three years ago, do you think I could get Right Guard to even talk to me if all I was saying, ‘Hey, I got Powder and Surfer, are you interested?’” Garrett said. “They’d say, ‘What are you talking about, you’re way too small.’ Now we can walk in and say, ‘Grind TV gets 17 million eyeballs a month.’”
The strategy also is working for Grind Media’s longstanding advertisers from the action sports world, including brands such as Quiksilver Inc. and Hurley International LLC, which now are reaching wider audiences with their ad buys, he said.
Grind Media also runs Physics, a full-service creative agency with eight staffers who develop digital and print ads for the company and outside clients, such as Sony Corporation of America, Oakley Inc., Burton Industries Inc., Fiat S.p.A. and Nike Inc.
Grind Media’s digital advertising media package aims to offset the lower margins that come with digital ad sales. Media buys give advertisers options for whole-page Web ads, branded video, preroll video placements, social media promotion and exposure at events.
“We don’t create magazines anymore, we create content, and one of the ways we distribute is in the paper product called the magazine.”
