The glories of Elle in Russia

The March issue of Elle in Russia must have its publishers rubbing their hands in glee. No sign of the credit crunch hitting advertising there. For a start, the issue runs to 460 pages with an ultra glossy cover - and uses just about every device known to print advertising creatives.

Opposite page 362, we have a card insert with spot varnish for Cote d’Or chocolates.

Another card insert by page 202 adds embossed silver ink for Super Slims from Dunhill. The developing world offers the last chance for tobacco companies to ply their wares as mass market advertisers - they are banned from TV and print media in most Western countries and the size of the health warnings on packets is a good decade behind the West.

Cigarettes again, again on a card insert, by page 162 for Virginia Slims with the page using both silver ink and spot varnish.

And Dunhill is not left out of the action. Its ad on page 173 is preceded by a sheet of tracing paper carrying a tailor’s pattern for a tobacco leaf. The advert is on thick card.

But what about gatefold? Tip-ons? Supplements? you cry. Well I’m just coming to the supplements. There are two - a 32-page stapled brochure of Italian fashion, and a magazine-in-itself beauty section running to 356 pages. It has a reverse gatefold with a Winehouse-esque eye gracing its cover.

The supplement has a tip-on sachet of Lancome make-up …

… and a double card spread with gold ink and spot varnish for Carte Noire instant coffee.

Bonuses all round at Hachette Filipacchi Medias.

Elle Russia website

Women’s glossies profiled

Secrets of magazine covers

Make your own magazine cover

Upload your own picture to make a unique magazine cover at Magmypic.com. Here’s my effort from a recent trip to Istanbul.

Secrets of magazine covers

Tariq Ali and the red mac

Snippet from this morning’s Desert Island Discs on Radio 4: Tariq Ali (’I don’t want the Bible’), the writer and political campaigner, was highly visible in the 1960s because he wore a red mac. It turned out he was given this by Ken Thompson, fashion editor of Michael Heseltine’s Town magazine, who had got it in for a photo shoot. The mac’s makers - it might have been Aquascutum - were ‘very unhappy’ at such a radical being seen wearing one of their products.

Sunday’s subject - the Daily Mail’s cartoonist Mac.

A tale of being Tatlered à la Princess Eugenie

Pictures of Princess Eugenie in the Tatler and Telegraph last week again raised the issue of digital retouching, with the poor 17-year-old undergoing the virtual equivalent of Pamela Anderson-esque cosmetic surgery. The Mirror took the story on with reporter Kate Jackson stepping under the virtual knife for her makeover. ‘I loved the inflated pneumatic cleavage and dainty nose,’ beamed the reporter/victim.

Time Out’s would-be mayor

Listings magazine Time Out is backing one of its editors, Michael Hodges, for the post of London mayor.

The moment I saw this, it stretched my credulity - and that was before I saw his ‘Time Out Cake Challenge’ video.

Is this just a publicity stunt for the magazine? Would he just be a stooge for TO’s founder Tony Elliott? If TO withdrew its backing, would it be a Sell Out?

Celebrating the dead and dying

Magforum’s pages mark the death of magazines, but the Dad’s Army-inspired Private Frazer’s blog looks set to positively celebrate them. Should give a few people the chance to get something off their chest.

Standing out on a shelf

Standing out on a crowded newsagent’s shelf is a tricky business, particularly when no titles are shown full-cover. So the left-third of the cover (see cover secrets) becomes vital. Above is how one Austrian publisher chose to do it. The cover has a very high gloss and is printed using reflective metallic inks. Expensive, but it stand outs out among the white covers. Such a shiny treatment does have a disadvantage though - it make the text very difficult to read.

What titles can you recognise on this Zurich airport news-stand?

BBC deal with ACP to take Top Gear to Australia

BBC Magazines and Australia’s ACP Magazines are setting up a joint venture partnership.

The first fruit of the agreement between Australia’s largest magazine publisher and BBC Magazines, the UK’s third-largest consumer magazine business will probably be an Australian edition of Top Gear.

ACP Magazines sold its stake in its UK joint venture ACP NatMag, which publishes Reveal and Real People, to its partner the National Magazine Company.

BBC Magazines profile

ACP Natmags profile

Esquire claims scalp

Admiral William Fallon - the top US military commander in the Middle East - resigned yesterday because of an article in Esquire that portrayed him as going against the policies of President George W. Bush. It said:

‘How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

‘The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.’

 

Eggars and McSweeney’s

Dazed and Confused has a profile of McSweeney’s, the publishing house set up by former Esquire US editor Dave Eggars. Digital edition subscribers can see it here, otherwise, it’s £3.85 in the shops. Madonna is on the cover and ‘reinvention’ is the issue’s theme.