I’m sitting with publisher Lianne Burton at 8Ink’s impossibly slick offices above Pigalle, in Green Point. As far as offices go, they’re perfect – vast, airy and sunny, with every employee having acres of breathing room. It’s a white-on-white visual experience, practically a film set. Think double-volume ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, milky-white floors and walls, and brand-spanking-new white desks and chairs. Industrial chic.
Burton is upbeat, perky and in the best of best moods. I’ve known her for years and know her well enough to know this is no act. She’s completely in her groove – loving Cape Town, loving 8Ink and loving her new magazine, Real Simple, which hits the shelves in December. “Jo’burgers love to make snide remarks about how slow Cape Town is. Well, I’d say that depends on your industry. Publishing is centred here,” she notes with the air of the Cape converted, “and I can tell you, we’ve been running non-stop – it’s beyond quick-paced!” She whips me through a copy of the US edition of Real Simple, published by Time Inc. “We also have Greek and Japanese editions,” she says, “but it’s quite a coup for South Africa to be the first English-medium edition outside the States.”
Of course, Burton will need her energy, as she’s not alone in hatching and fine-tuning her publishing strategies. Quite frankly, it’s a jungle out there, a veritable Survivor: South Africa, full of the perversely seductive spectre of glossy cannibalism. Let’s take stock: we’ve seen a flood of new consumer titles in the past few months – Woman & Home, Best Life (by Men’s Health), Men’s Health Living, SHOP!, Lééf, Me!, Your Child and Move – with more on the way. It’s time to outwit, outplay and outlast.
The only editor (or publisher) of a new magazine who can probably exhale at this point is Frith Thomas, editor of Woman & Home, which is off to a roaring start with its debut ABC figures nipping 80,000. “We know Woman & Home has definitely affected other women’s magazines in terms of circulation,” she says, “especially those claiming to cater for older readers, yet using fashion and beauty models seemingly in their teens. It has been refreshing to see, though, that the magazine has brought back readers disenchanted with the magazine market, with scores of readers telling us they had given up buying magazines as they found nothing of interest.”
Thomas’s targeted readership is the new darling market, the 35-plus brigade (as is Real Simple‘s and Best Life‘s). It’s one of the US’s favourite markets – readers who are old enough to have real, disposable income, but who still have enough youthquake in them to be willing to spend it without the brakes of someone who’s saving for retirement. That whole “40 is the new 30” thang.
Says Andy Ellis, editor of Men’s Health and Best Life: “Research done by our US partners (publishers of Best Life) show that this age demographic is a lucrative market and is relatively uncatered for. Over the past three years we have monitored the growth of Best Life in countries like the USA and Germany, and due to its recent success we decided to test the hypothesis in SA with a test issue.”
Just how murky are the waters? Ellis is well aware there’s no point in cannibalising Men’s Health with Best Life, particularly with regards to South Africa’s smaller reader and advertising markets. “Because both titles play on different attitudes to the male lifestyle, we believe that the mags complement one another,” he says. “We’re very sensitive to not have these titles competing for advertising and will make every effort to ensure that this is not the case.”
Real Simple‘s Burton gives a sharp-eyed overview of the publishing landscape’s challenges. “To succeed in this fiercely competitive environment, magazines can no longer afford to be everything to everyone,” she says. “They need to be clearly differentiated in every way. By that I mean making a distinct promise and then delivering consistently on that promise with a unique formula that translates into a unique editorial mix with a unique look and feel that speaks to a unique market segment. The successful launches over the past few years have proved that there’s still room for differentiated magazine offerings in this market. As Starcom’s Gordon Patterson said recently, ‘We don’t need more of the same, but we do need more that’s different… distinct.’ He gives an example of tearing the covers off a number of general interest women’s magazines and asking focus groups to match covers with content. They invariably get it wrong because the magazines all look the same.”
Marí Lategan, publisher of Media24’s women’s magazine division, acknowledges the challenges, but remains upbeat. “Magazines are the place where consumers can seek and find intimacy and inspiration to realise their goals and dreams. My personal feeling is that we are attracting new readers from groups who never really had money to spend on luxuries. The current economic situation allows people to indulge a little – and magazines become part of this indulgence. The trick is for us to ensure that we hook these new readers in for life. We cannot ignore the fact that fragmentation of the market is taking place – with each new launch other titles lose out. But in the end more people are reading than in the past – and that is the exciting part.”
When it comes to winning readers, strategy is key. Real Simple‘s editor, Kerryn du Preez, says: “Real Simple‘s editorial integrity and graphic art direction sets it apart quite clearly from its competitors. It’s not a celebrity-based title, so you won’t find celebrities on the cover or in any features; it’s not trend-based, so we won’t use a trend to give weight to an article; and it doesn’t pay lip service to products or services to glean advertising or fill pages. For example, we road test every beauty product we feature; if it doesn’t score, well, it doesn’t get published.”
SHOP!‘s strategy is thoroughly commercial. Lategan says it’s “South Africa’s first magalogue – and a title we believe that will redefine the way urban South African women go shopping—It is a title where we will try and accommodate advertisers’ needs as far as possible, while providing consumers with the best shopping advice available.”
On Lééf‘s brand essence, Lategan says the full title encapsulates the positioning quite clearly – it actually reads Lééf met hart & siel on the cover. “Media24 spent a lot of time and energy researching this magazine. We are absolutely confident that we have managed to put together the perfect read for the Afrikaans woman who is searching for more spiritual depth in a woman’s glossy. Lééf met hart & siel does not target a specific age group, this is about a specific mindset. Family, health, money matters and travelogues are some of the remaining content pillars. This is a vehicle through which advertisers will be able to reach a broad range of Afrikaans women – they take the time to put quality back into their lives and they have money to spend.”
Lééf ‘s main competition will most certainly be finesse, out of Carpe Diem Publishers. And this group has just launched Me! – the English take on that title – where again we have a magazine going after the spiritually aware older female. As publisher Coenie Schoeman recently explained: “The success of our other titles – finesse is currently at an ABC of over 87,500 and growing nicely at nearly 7 percent – caused me to look at the gap in the English-speaking women 30-plus age group. As the first inspirational women’s magazine seven years ago, finesse addressed the Afrikaans female market. With today’s focus on a more introspective look at oneself, the time couldn’t be better to launch a monthly magazine for the English women’s market.”
And, just in case you thought the only potential new lifestyle option for men was Best Life, Touchline Media may be offering another in Men’s Health Living. Says Ellis: “The female magazine market in SA has been seeing many launches, with varying degrees of success, but now it is time for other genres to make it to the newsstand – like shopping titles, teen titles, male titles and home titles. We are particularly proud of our latest test into innovating inside of this SA context – Men’s Health Living, a practical décor and home mag for men. The first issue of Men’s Health Living was a huge success, both as a business and as a service to readers. The response to the idea was overwhelming – [we presented] it to our US partners and it now has the potential as an option to publishers of Men’s Health around the world – pretty much how Best Life started out of Germany. Our editorial creative director, Piers Buckle, has spent time in New York fleshing out a clear editorial template – the fruit of which will be published in a second issue of Men’s Health Living in March 2006. Watch this space.”
Ultimately, the South African consumer benefits – as will the strongest and most focused players in the publishing game. No worries there. The real challenge, of course, might be for the country’s media planners, who’ll need to be up-to-the-minute in touch with their clients, SA’s burgeoning magazine landscape and its über-niched markets. In short? It’s a consumer’s – and publisher’s – dream, but a slacker’s nightmare. Let the games begin.
Josef Talotta is a Johannesburg-based communications consultant and lifestyle journalist who’s written for many of SA’s leading publications, including Condé Nast House & Garden, GQ, Sunday Times Lifestyle, Eat Out and Time Out; his UK writing portfolio includes Condé Nast Traveller, Spruce and Wallpaper. Talotta also has monthly columns in Style and Business Day Wanted.