Hello! and Mail take on OK! / Express

Hello cover

Celebrity weekly Hello! has signed a distribution deal with Daily Mail owner Associated Newspapers so it will appear in newsagents on Monday, a day before arch rival OK! – owned by Richard Desmond alongside the Daily and Sunday Express - and its other competitors, including Bauer’s Heat and IPC’s Now!.

Publishing director Charlotte Stockting tells the Observer it should boost Hello!’s 420,000 weekly sale by 20,000-30,000 copies.

Celeb mags have long fought using cover price, and by buying up big wedding exclusives; now it’s a race to get on the shelves.

New take on lack of black models

The opening up of the Eastern bloc in the 1990s spelled disaster for black models and their images on magazine covers, according to a report about a Women’s Library meeting. ‘The tall, willowy, “bland” blue-eyed look of models such as Natalia Vodianova became the aesthetic of choice for couture designers,’ says Nell Frizzell at Journalism.co.uk.

Women’s glossies A-Z

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Tyler Brule keeps focus on Monocle

Monocle May 2009 - issue 23

Tyler Brule has castigated newspapers for their lack of confidence in the face of the web onslaught. And according to a Times interview by Dan Sabbagh, he is showing them the way to go, with sales for his international monthly Monocle at 150,000. However, the piece fails to point out that this is the same figure quoted a year ago.

The strategy for ‘the ridiculously upmarket, black, perfect-bound monthly’ appears to be to find fans and then give them lots of ways to fill the magazine’s coffers – they can step into Monocle shops or pay extra as a subscriber or buy lots of branded products by post to demonstrate their continent-hopping lifestyles.  Newspapers, by contrast, fail to build on their ‘fan base’:

Compare this model with the way in which newspapers go about their business. Paying readers have a real emotional tie to the titles they buy – the fact newspapers are used for dating demonstrates that – but online the industry seems seduced by a different measure. The perpetual chase for monthly unique users makes the mistake of valuing each visitor equally, when Dorothy, a teenager from Kansas, reading a story about Britney found via Google News is not worth the same as Brendan from Brentwood who visits every day. And yet, all that is known about the loyal readers is their internet address, unless they have had the willpower to complete an online survey. It is daily unique vistors that really matter.

The piece exudes confidence on the part of Brule despite the stagnant sales. At least Monocle is still on the shelves while all around competing current affairs magazines are having a hard time – Conde Nast has closed Portfolio in the US and weekly Vanity Fair in Germany while Spectator Business has dropped its monthly frequency to quarterly.

Monocle launch and current affairs magazine

Now it’s virtual Buck for men

Pyjama style from Buck

Steve Doyle sank a chunk of his inheritance into launching men’s monthly style title Buck last year. But the cash ran out after three issues, the revenue wasn’t there and nor were any new investors. So he announced it was going twice yearly, but that plan has been dropped and instead the Buck team ‘decided our efforts would be better realised in a new-look website’.  Now, Buckstyle is the place to go.

Men’s magazines A-Z at Magforum

IPC puts finger on mercenary loyalty

IPC men's research

IPC has just put out research on men’s behaviour – Today’s Man. It covers brands and purchase decisions and includes the statistics:

• 48% are less likely to be loyal to brands since the credit crunch
• 79% agree they are now more likely to buy a brand if it’s on offer

and gives another example of the way marketing subverts and destroys language and meaning.

‘Loyal’ should mean ’showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution’ yet here it adds the rider: ‘as long as you pay me to be’. This mercenary attitude is best seen in ‘loyalty cards’.

You can add this to ‘housing estates’ – not long before the word ’sink’ creeps in;  ‘business parks’ – where’s the recreation in that?; and the claim that because people buy or use something, it is their ‘favourite’.

No wonder so many MPs seem to think ‘expenses’ means ‘part of my salary’.

Hard times for magazine sales

WH Smith, Britain’s biggest magazine retailer,  saw a fall of 8% in magazine sales over the past year. So in one way it’s no wonder the PPA has cancelled this year’s Magazine Week promotion, which was scheduled for September.

However, you can understand the reaction of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, which told Retail Newsagent it was  ‘astonished that at a time when we need to push magazine sales  … that they have dropped it’.

WH Smith said: ‘The magazine market continues to be challenging, particularly for monthly magazines and partworks where we are traditionally strong.’

The company picked out exclusive titles such as Jamie Oliver, from the laddish TV chef, TV spin-off Heartbeat and late steeplejack’s Fred Dibnah as supporting sales and said sticker collections were still strong.

Wired and the perils of a magazine launch

part of Wired's June cover

While subs and editors pore over cover lines and the ad department curses the flat plan, the real determinant of success for a launch like Conde Nast’s Wired in the UK can come down to where newsagents put it on their shelves.

Three comments in Retail Newsagent (17 April issue) sum up the issue:

1. ‘We haven’t seen anything at all,’ says bridget McNulty of the Paper Shop in Honiton.
2. ‘I didn’t realise they had launched a British version … I have shelved it with the music magazine,’ was the reaction of Omar Bhatti at the Wishing Well Newsagent in Falkirk.
3. ‘It has been fantastic … initial supply sold out on the first day … we managed to get some more, we sold out of that as well,’ enthused Peter Wagg at News on the Wharf in London’s Canary Wharf.

Of course, Wired is the sort of title that  should do well among tech-literate men in city centres. Peter Wagg adds an interesting point:

‘I think part of the success lies in the demise of the lads’ mags. people who were into Loaded and FHM have grown up and now Wired is catering for a more mature lad.’

Just what Conde Nast would want to hear.

3 US papers in Kindle DX link-up

The New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post plan to offer a larger version of Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader, the Kindle DX, at a reduced price this summer as part of trials to boost digital revenue,  says the FT.

The larger version of the device (9.7 inches deep) comes with Adobe Acrobat, making it able to show complex layouts.

Digital magazines evolution

Lloyd’s List publisher Informa to flee Britain

The website of Lloyd’s List publisher Informa states:

The founding inspirers of the Philosophical Magazine and Lloyd’s List would probably have been unable to imagine where their products would be sitting more than 200 years later, but we believe they would have been pleased.

Would they pleased with the company’s  latest news though? Informa is creating ‘a new parent company that will be listed in the UK, incorporated in Jersey and tax resident in Switzerland’ to reduce its tax bill, says the Guardian.

Could Edward Lloyd be turning over in the great coffee shop in the sky right now?