Last month Stellar Partners announced the launch of Buzzfeed-branded airport newsstands, with the first two outlets located in New York LaGuardia’s Terminal C. Buzzfeed is the just the latest in a long string of media brands that have lent their names to airport news and convenience stores over the years.
In fact, since the early 2000s, most of the leading airport retail specialists have been attached to at least one media brand:
- Paradies Lagardère, the prime operator when it comes to media property partnerships, paired with TripAdvisor and Today in 2017, Forbes in 2014, Univision in 2012, USA Today in 2008, The New York Times in 2005, and CNBC in 2002.
- HMSHost opened Fox News stores, starting at Dulles Airport, in 2004. HMSHost also owns Buzzfeed collaborator Stellar Partners, which operates independently from the parent company.
- Dufry-owned Hudson Group launched co-branded CNN/Hudson News stores in 2006, designed to capture the atmosphere of a TV studio.
- Delaware North opened its first Sports Illustrated store in the Detroit airport in 2008. More specialty retailer than newsstand-convenience outlet, it sold Sports Illustrated and Golf magazines only, along with a variety of other sports-related products.
Some airports also host shops based on local media brands, such as city lifestyle publications. A shop at Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport features the branding of Mpls.St.Paul magazine, for example.
The typical media-branded shop includes a variety of newspapers, magazines, and books—including the brand’s own publications where applicable—as well as travel necessities such as snacks and convenience items. Some of the shops stock products in other related categories, such as electronics, luggage, apparel, or gift/impulse items. Many also feature products tied to the property owner’s brand, either sourced from licensees or—if no licensees are active in relevant categories—created exclusively for the stores. The retail outlets usually have a look-and-feel that reflects the brand; for instance the décor might look like a TV studio, or news content might be featured in the form of live streams or a news ticker.
Partnerships such as these certainly make sense, given the fit between the brands’ positioning and the concept of a newsstand. Associating with a media property can help the operators differentiate themselves, allow them to catch travelers’ eyes in a crowded landscape, and give them data insights about the brand’s consumers that help shape a successful product mix.
For the brand owners, airport shops can bring significant awareness and generate a new and potentially strong revenue stream. In fact, partnerships in this space started to expand in a big way in the 2000s, when it became obvious that publications’ transition from print to digital, along with increasing competition for both print and broadcast media from often-free online news sources, would cause long-term declines in advertising and subscriptions. Newsstands and other licensed products, services, and experiences were seen as a way to partially replace the revenue decreases associated with the brands’ core content.
Airport retail can be a difficult business, however. To succeed, the licensed shops must generate per-store sales significantly higher than the operator’s generic newsstand/convenience store brands do, to make the royalty payments worthwhile. Several of the brands mentioned, includingTripAdvisor, CNN, Univision, CNBC, and Today, have met that bar so far, and their shops are still going strong. But others have closed. There are also limits on how far a brand can expand within the finite world of airport retail when things are going well.
It will be interesting to see if branded newsstands become more or less viable in the coming years as airport retail struggles to recover from the pandemic-fueled decline in travel. Retail operators continue to be uncertain about when or to what level the public will return to flying. Some consumers continue to be reluctant, and many experts predict a long-term decrease in business travel, now that businesses have become more comfortable with videoconferencing in lieu of in-person meetings in many situations. Travel patterns and the demographics of the flying public are also changing. Meanwhile, the political divisions in the U.S. and elsewhere, which color consumers’ views of TV channels, newspapers, and the like, along with a generally negative view of the media, also could have some impact on this sector going forward.
Of course licensed properties play a role in airport concessions far beyond newsstands, with brands including PGA Tour, EA Sports, Harley Davidson, Rick Bayless/Frontera, Cat Cora, Food Network, and Jack Nicklaus among the many that are linked to specialty retail, restaurants, and entertainment venues at airports.
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