When the ANC came to power in 1994, the South African English glossy women’s magazine market had three titles: Fair Lady, Femina and Cosmopolitan. Together they sold around 500 000 copies a month, with Femina at 107 000 and Cosmo at 109 000. Fair Lady, the well-staffed and highly profitable fortnightly market leader, was selling about 280 000 copies a month [calculated by doubling their ‘per issue’ figures].
Then came the internationals: Elle (1996), Marie Claire (1997), Shape (2000) and O (2002). In the first quarter of this year the additional four titles and the original three jointly sold just over that 500 000 mark – Fair Lady (now monthly) and Cosmopolitan leading the group at about 115 000 each. And while the top Afrikaans magazines Sarie and Rooi Rose are both well ahead of their English counterparts (at just over and below 150,000 respectively), their numbers have likewise remained relatively stagnant over the last decade.
Media fragmentation, stiffer competition and the emigration of significant numbers of largely white upper income South Africans in the 1990s have certainly affected the women’s glossy market. Moreover, newspapers have colonised features and added supplements, while contract publications have given them away for free. Taken at face value, women’s magazine publishing looks like a zero sum game.
But there is an instantly recognisable saviour. Black women in South Africa are getting higher educations and entering the upper echelons of the work force in numbers unmatched anywhere else in Africa. Witness True Love. In circulation terms (134 098 per Jul-Dec 2002 ABCs) the Media 24 title leads the English language market and has grown significantly from its 1994 figure of 53 000. In terms of readership (over 3 million as per AMPS), it dwarfs every other women’s title. It has more male readers (over a million) than the other magazines have female readers. True Love readers form 25 to 35 percent of the readership bases of almost all other titles in the segment. So perhaps the future of the women’s magazine market will depend to a large extent on how successful the women’s titles are in converting or sharing True Love‘s audience; or, perhaps, emulating the formula.
Points of Difference
A cluster analysis using race, LSMs, language and educational level reveals that True Love sits quite distinct from the rest of the titles in the women’s magazine segment (excepting O, for which AMPS figures aren’t yet available). It begs the obvious question: aren’t Cosmopolitan, Femina, Elle, Fairlady, Marie Claire and potentially Glamour (the internationally successful A5 format title about to be launch locally by Condé Nast) too similar? Lani Carstens, publisher of Shape, points out that in the USA the glossies have become so alike, in mission statements, image and content, that readers and advertisers often can’t tell the difference. All indications are that things aren’t much different here.
Several editors complained, off the record, that this sector of South African publishing displays a dismaying ‘me-tooism’, with magazines shamelessly imitating ideas from one another so as not to let anyone get a distinctive identity or competitive edge. Nobody gets to keep a USP for long in this market. So is it cause or effect that the usual suspects play musical chairs? Cynthia Vongai moves from Cosmo feature writer to Elle editor; Nadine Rubin from Elle editor to Associated Magazines’ Group Consulting Editor; Pnina Fenster from Marie Claire to Glamour; Suzy Brokensha from Cosmo, via Baby & Me, to Marie Claire; Clare O’Donoghue from Style to Femina and Jacqueline Myburgh from Femina to Style; Heather Parker from Cosmo to Shape. The widespread stable jumping, and willingness of editors to showcase writers working for rival publications, enforces the public perception that the titles are indistinguishable.
Nowhere is the fear of not flying off the shelves, and the consequent likeness in content, clearer than in the covers. It is common to find that the same face appears on more than one cover in any one month. Fair Lady editor Ann Donald agrees with the complaint, saying that in a recent discussion her title was described as far more interesting inside than its cover suggests. Yet there’s the counter-argument – go for a local, let alone black, celebrity and you’ll rue lost sales. When a Renee Zellweger cover of Marie Claire hits the jackpot and ups sales fairly spectacularly, it’s going to be difficult to persuade the editors to follow the path of virtuous local content.
Still, there are exceptions to the rule of the cover: Shape follows the healthy, often anonymous look; O sticks with one celebrity. Most interestingly, in the case of Elle (catering for younger readers) ex-editor Nadine Rubin reports that the colour or even nationality of the celebrity didn’t make a difference to sales. Which could mean that the me-too paradigm will begin to shift as younger readers age, bringing a new culture along into the older market.
The Prospects
For the moment the older market remains highly competitive, and there’ll probably be resistance to radical changes in content formulas for some time. So it may seem that Associated Magazines have taken huge risks by opting for two new titles in this cramped space (O and Marie Claire). Are Jane Raphaely’s group not cannibalising themselves, with the more serious and text-dense Femina (having the highest percentage of book buyers amongst readers) too close to O, and Marie Claire seeming to fish in exactly the same demographic pond as Cosmopolitan?
The differences, according to Associated, are subtle and ‘synergistic’. Cosmo is for the heady 20s, Femina for the ‘second act’ more reflective 30s, Marie Claire for the woman (25-35) looking curiously at the world around her, but not neglecting her fashion, and O the serious read for the woman concerned with her psychological and spiritual well-being.
Getting into more detail on the individual titles, Femina editor Clare O’Donoghue says her magazine has been in a slow revolution over the past year, sorting out its new identity. While circulation is down to an all time low of around 53 000, advertising revenue is ahead of budget – although there is still some way to go before it can achieve any kind of turnaround to profitability.
Then there’s Cosmo, Associated’s banker, which faces what may be its biggest challenge yet in the form of Glamour. Nadine Rubin, who was on Cosmo when Elle and Marie Claire were the new women on the block, doesn’t discount Glamour, but points to the classic Cosmo retaliation: the ‘thud factor’. So watch out for the flagship going thicker and offering readers perceptible, heftable value. (They are also about to up the quality of their paper).
As for O, Associated’s bold gamble has paid off. The magazine has soared, in its bi-monthly form, to nearly 84 000 copies an issue. Editor Taweni Gondwe says initial market research shows that O has 40 percent black readers, and readers’ letters suggest it is reaching an influential black audience. For those used to other women’s magazines, or even the Oprah TV show, the magazine may seem too serious, too unrelentingly worthy, too lacking in self-deprecatory humour. But maybe it suits a country with a strong Protestant ethic of spiritual self-improvement.
Associated’s other new kid, Marie Claire, was taken over from Caxton in April in what was at once a pre-emptive and defensive move. New editor Suzy Brokensha says it’s the first time in years she’s considered coming back to a monthly magazine editorship. One apparent motive for her return: Associated has, its editors argue, the advantages of having an ex-editor as boss, of reporting to someone whose bottom line is quality, not profits. And while there are weaknesses inherent to a family business firm, Vanessa Raphaely’s success with Cosmopolitan suggests that the group will be a major player in the women’s magazine market for the foreseeable future.
As apparent, Naspers will remain Associated’s major competitor in the space. The former’s success with True Love, Women’s Value and Sarie probably means that they can continue to nurture Fair Lady back towards profitability. It’s too soon to know if the formula of mixing up more Cosmo-style spice with serious consumer reports and world affairs will attract new readers or consolidate old ones, but Fair Lady have bounced up some 45 percent from under 80 000 to 115 000 since going monthly (although the example of Sarie, which went up to 180,000 before settling down to 150 000 after they went monthly, suggests there may be trouble holding at that level).
Also in the Naspers stable, Shape, part of Touchline, operates on the most modern profit-driven model with lean staff and a strong concentration on advertising revenue. The question must be how long Naspers will be able to hold different models comfortably in one structure.
For their part, Johnnic Publishing has just the one title, Elle. They have appointed a black editor, Cynthia Vongai, who appears to be going aggressively after the black reader. Will they succeed here without losing their core audience? Elle have advantages: they are based in Johannesburg and have a younger, more fashion-oriented readership that may accept the approach. But some media strategists feel the editor should be more visible if the plan of selling her as the ‘new Khanyi’ is going to persuade advertising firms and the general public.
And so to Glamour. As mentioned, it has become one of the market leaders in almost every country it’s been launched. Editor Pnina Fenster is as yet reluctant to reveal details of price, launch date, quality of paper, and thickness. But if it has a substantial ‘thud factor’ and local Condé Nast representatives and owners Independent Newspapers commit a big enough war-chest for launch and marketing, its slick A5 format may take off. On the downside, the A5 size may suit the typical European mass commuting society. Also, some commentators feel that a young, black, Gauteng-based editor is needed to reach a young and, probably, black market.
Pressure From Advertisers
Women’s magazines, the conventional academic and feminist wisdom has it, sell discontent and alienation as their stock in trade. They produce self-loathing, anorexia and depression by publishing endless images of supermodels. They create the beauty myth and a cult of narcissism and triviality – all on behalf of the cosmetics industry. They cause eating disorders and an unbearable shallowness of being. They are weapons of mass psychological distraction, if not destruction.
This analysis, from Friedan and Naomi Wolf on, is, surely, a bit tired and lazy. If we look at the women’s magazine market and see which readers come out on the AMPS figures as the heaviest users of cosmetics, the answer is—? Well, not Cosmo, not Elle, not True Love, not Marie Claire, but — Shape. Shape‘s readers are the wealthiest and best-educated and only a little older than those of other magazines.
The old oppositions between brains and beauty, or between health (inward, exercise, good food, natural, true) and cosmetics (external, applied, unnatural, false) don’t seem to bother Shape readers, or most other women here. In a culture that sets huge store by health and looks, how realistic is it to blame women’s magazines for what is a much wider social phenomenon?
Let’s play devil’s advocate. If one sees the cosmetics industry acting as bankers for the women’s magazine industry (much as the tobacco and alcohol industries acted as bankers for many of the lifestyle magazines a few years ago, or the pharmaceutical industries do for mass circulation magazines and supplements now, without anyone complaining much), one sees magazines that have some kind of freedom to manoeuvre.
The obvious case in point is Khanyi Dhlomo. She started off at True Love as beauty editor, and went to beauty houses to persuade them to advertise in a magazine that would deliver a growing new market. She was so successful that she was made editor in her early twenties. Yet anyone looking through the average issue of True Love should be impressed by the gritty realism and wide range of the issues covered. It reflects, as none of the other women’s magazines do, the reality that its readers are living in the midst of a pandemic that will kill many and affect all.
It seems the more intriguing tension in South Africa lies, as Nadine Rubin points out, between women’s magazines and the fashion market. The standard answer as to why we can’t have a Vogue here (and, surely, part of the reason GQ has found it such tough going) is that there isn’t a critical mass of specialist fashion advertisers ready to bolster the finances and looks of local markets. With an immature and developing local fashion industry, the magazines find themselves caught in a catch-22. They want to help this growth and nurture distinctive local styles, so they give free editorial coverage. Magazines cultivate local fashion and may hope they one day advertise. In the meantime, they rely on big retailers – and cosmetics ads.
The Real Influence
But finally, the real interest of women’s magazines doesn’t, surely, lie in their effect on make-up usage. Market analysts like Research Surveys’ Neil Higgs stress that black women are a highly influential group of adopters, often leading the black male market by some years. If one looks at the reasons for this, one has to give True Love a central role.
When I put this point to Suzy Brokensha, she says that this is surely true of all women’s magazines. Advertisers know that women purchase things, thus they advertise in women’s magazines, then women buy the stuff and lifestyle changes.
On a more academic note. If we follow the most persuasive account of the network society, that of Manuel Castells, we surely have to see women’s magazines worldwide as, if not front-line troops, then embedded journalists in search of the new twenty-first century identity. They’re living through and reporting on globalisation and its discontents, the ending of the patriarchal family as a central social institution, the need to negotiate new models of authority and responsibility in its place, the dissolution of old centres of power. And in South Africa they have to deal with all these and with momentous changes in racial and political status, readers threatening to go global quite literally by emigrating, and the gender politics of HIV/Aids.
These magazines should be judged by how they’ve affected these issues in South Africa, and by how much and how well they help women – and men – negotiate social changes and personal relationships. Looking at the appeal the sector still holds for bright students, they haven’t lost their influence.
Ian Glenn heads the Media section of UCT’s new Centre for Film and Media. He’s writing a study of developments in South Africa’s media industry since 1990. Annabel Cunningham is currently studying for an MA in Media Studies at UCT, with a thesis on South African women’s magazines. She has worked on New Woman magazine in the UK.