Brand Economics Analysis About Chinese Periodical Profit Model

Along with the development of Market economy in China and the reform of the periodical industry, there is a great progress made in this industry with all kinds of periodicals emerging in an endless stream. According to the statistic from General Administration of Press and Publication, There are 9468 kinds of periodicals published in 2007, of which 5068 kinds are belonging to science and technology as well as engineering technology, 4318 kinds are related to social science. The periodical industry has become one of the biggest cultural industries with an over 170 billion annual output. According to statistics, there're more than 200 kinds of periodicals which has strong vitality under the severe competition caused by over 9000 kinds Journals. In terms of digest periodical, although it has great variety, there are only less than 20 of them owning large scale and national brand name. This means that 90% of the digest periodical are unsuccessful, let alone comparing to the periodical industry in the developed countries which has high profit rate and strong competitiveness.Despite of the grim situation of the domestic periodical industry, the western-north established Journal READER created a miracle without any regional advantages and any support from government, ranking the First in Asia and the Fourth in world in terms of its great circulation. With the success of READER, it becomes a symbol of digest periodical in China, just like the Coca Cola to soft drink.As a specific economic and cultural phenomenon, the success of READER once attracted great attention from the academic circle, resulting in abundant literature review. Different researching perspective reached different conclusion and meaning. Among the present literature, there are seldom articles researching the phenomenon from the economic angle. However, economic law plays an important role in every fields of our society and I firmly believe that it is necessary and rational to explain the phenomenon of the success of READER from the economic perspective. In addition, with the emerging of other kinds of journals, people gradually pay little attention the research of digest periodical such as READER. While undoubtedly, the READER is still making continuous progress. And so far there is no other domestic journal surpassing the success of READER. Therefore, it is significant to survey on its success from new perspective. In this article, I would like to make research from the Brand Economics and the Choice Cost Theory, explaining the phenomenon of the success of READER by different method.The highlight of this article is the method used to explaining the phenomenon. From the explanation, we can tell that the reason that customers choose to buy READER is it not only fulfills people's spirit demand for truth, kindness and beauty, but also provides the satisfaction people can not get in the real world. At the same time, the national brand decreases the choice cost of customers and reaches a long term balance with its targeted customers which contributes to the miracle of the READER.