For a magazine that ’dares to be different’, Beautiful Living has a
pretty generic title - an amalgam of Country Living and House
Beautiful.
In many ways, it’s not that different. It’s a classic, glossy, busy,
colourful home-interest magazine with lots of lovely photography,
immaculate accessorised roomsets, beautiful homes and well-scrubbed
children posing prettily in a way my three monsters have yet to
master.
Beautiful Living, the latest entrant to an already burgeoning
home-interest sector, promises a greater lifestyle orientation than its
competitors and aims, rather grandly, ’to inspire you to fulfil your
long-term dreams’.
The dreamy bits are inspirational. I particularly enjoyed reading about
the family that relocated to the Hebrides. However, the slipper and
snowflake bathrooms, ’a shrine to rest and relaxation’, were
far-fetched, even for a Snowball like me!
The title does make concessions to reality and the best features combine
aspiration with realism and humour. Beautiful Living is practical,
offering tips, where-to-buy lists and before-and-after pictures to show
it’s all achievable.
I think it could do more with the cookery section which was pretty
bland; likewise the ’tried and tested’ feature, which reviewed six
duvets but failed to rank them.
Beautiful Living makes some big launch promises. However, it does have
all the right ingredients for a lifestyle title. Whether or not it is
successful will, in my view, be down to whether it will dare to be
different enough to lure readers away from their favourite home-interest
magazines.
Cilla Snowball is the head of client service at Abbott Mead Vickers
BBDO.
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