It’s not an all-out war yet, but the fight for readers and revenue in the women’s magazine space has escalated into a pretty hostile conflict. The catalyst is the entry of Glamour, launched out of the Conde Nast Independent Magazines stable in March. This is a sector where circulation of the top titles is dipping and the adspend pot is remaining relatively static, so incumbent publishers are hitting back with venom.
And well they should — Glamour has arrived heavily armed. The title draws on the international publishing expertise of Conde Nast, publisher of Vanity Fair, Vogue and the New Yorker. Conde Nast has taken Glamour to the number one women’s glossy spot in country after country across Europe, repeating the A5 “fits-in-your-handbag” formula with habitual success.
In South Africa the title leans on the financial clout of Independent News and Media, deep-pocketed local licensees of the Conde Nast brands. As in the overseas markets, significant cash has been invested in the launch. The operation began in August last year with five presentations to media agencies and advertisers every day for 10 weeks. The roadshow was followed by a series of reader focus groups, all moderated by a psychiatrist with extensive research expertise. Then, presumably satisfied, Independent Conde Nast spent R8-million on a marketing blitz designed to attract the widest possible net of consumers.
Notwithstanding the size of the investment, the result of the launch is still a guess. Company policy is to release sales results as a three-month Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) figure — a policy that’s opened the door to some damning speculation. Glamour editor Pnina Fenster vehemently denies an industry rumour that R1-million was lost through an unsold first-issue print inventory of about 70 000. “Where does this figure come from? It makes no sense at all.” But one thing is sure: that competitors have accorded Glamour an icy welcome.
“Their arrival hasn’t affected us as yet,” says editorial director of Associated Magazines and editor of Cosmopolitan Vanessa Raphaely. “I don’t have to compete with that marketing budget. If you haven’t got 21 years of loyalty, you have to spend that amount on a launch.”
Raphaely argues that Glamour is a “me-too” publication that brings nothing new to an already overtraded market. She asserts that the A5 size has no more than “gimmick value” for the local readership.
“It’s totally transported from the United Kingdom. What’s unique about it? The size has been important to success in Europe because of the commuter market. At the upper-income level, South Africa is not a commuter society.”
Fenster rejects the suggestions. “The view that Glamour is only about the commuter market is very inaccurate. The United States issue sells 2,2-million and is standard size, it’s been around since 1939. Many people after Glamour have copied the A5 format. The size is both stylish and practical, providing superb value and editorial quality in a format that is accessible, portable and contemporary.”
Fenster stresses that Glamour‘s selling point is a combination of size, price and content, and says that the content split between syndicated and local copy is 50/50 — “no more, no less than many magazines”. But on the issue of price, Gisele Wertheim-Aymes, head of Elle magazine’s stable Johnnic Publishing, raises another issue.
“In South Africa Glamour has not mirrored an important aspect of its successful United Kingdom launch. In the UK they came in at half the cover price of their competitors, but here they are only around R3 less.”
Wertheim-Aymes feels that Glamour should be hitting sales figures of 150 000 a month to repeat its international successes and justify its local entry, and that the major barrier to achieving this target will be the R16,50 price. (According to Wertheim-Aymes, Elle is selling an average of 40 000 copies a month, at a cover price of R19,95.)
Again Fenster is resolute. She says that a figure of 150 000 has never been promised by Glamour, and that according to Wertheim-Aymes’s logic the local Elle should itself be in line with sales figures in Europe and the US, “which is clearly not the case”.
Then there’s the issue of the balance between sales revenue and advertising revenue, which Wertheim-Aymes says is edging towards a 50/50 split in a magazine sector where advertising spend is dropping relative to the rest of the publishing pool. For her part Fenster argues that no magazine makes the bulk of its revenue off copy sales, and in a general sense she’s correct. But cover price is still a critical revenue stream for any consumer title, and the signs aren’t great for the women’s magazine space.
“The South African Cosmopolitan makes among the least on cover price of any of its sister titles across the world, and our price is the highest,” says Raphaely. “Magazines are a luxury item here.”
Although her own title has grown over the last reporting period and is sitting at about 120 000, the July to December 2003 ABC figures bear out Raphaely’s assessment. Media 24 is holding the two leading titles, with Sarie (146 257) and True Love (128 708). Caxton’s Rooi Rose comes in third (127 271). Trouble is, between these, more than 30 000 buyers have been shed against the January to June 2003 figures, and that was before Glamour had entered the arena.
For Fenster, “the idea is for the market to expand”. She’s not talking about Glamour‘s projected circulation, and neither is she giving clues about the figures on the first two issues, but she’ll have to deliver some serious value to the reader if she is to buck the shrinking trend.
Kevin Bloom is editor of The Media magazine