Hello!, the original celebrity magazine, celebrates its 20th anniversary in the UK this year - a celebration that coincides with the title's efforts to overhaul its brand across the country.
The brand is banking that a redesign of its flagship magazine and the launch of two 400-page spin-off titles will arrest its circulation decline, lure new luxury advertisers, and snatch readers from competing titles.
Driving the changes is London-based editorial director Eduardo Sanchez Perez, the 33-year-old son of Eduardo Sanchez Junco, founder of the original Spanish magazine Hola!, from which Hello! was born.
Sanchez Perez, who relocated to London at the start of the year, says: "Celebrating 20 years is a fantastic achievement, given that the brand has lost none of its quality. We are increasing our presence in the market and launching the extensions now because the competition makes this the right time."
The two 400-page spin-offs - Hello! Ready to Wear and Hello! Haute Couture - are priced at £6, and will be sold biannually on newsstands nationwide. The redesign will feature an overhaul of sections and a new approach to content.
Whether these changes will prove successful remains to be seen, with some critics arguing that Hello! would do better to focus its efforts on securing exclusives with big-name celebrities, and to ditch its long-standing obsession with European royalty.
Maintaining standards
While the magazine has moved to increase its mass-market appeal, boosted by the appointment last November of former Daily Star associate editor Kay Goddard as editor, Sanchez Perez says Hello! will not move further in that direction.
He says: "Most of the other titles are showing content that we would not consider good enough for Hello!." Although Sanchez Perez will not name particular titles, he describes some rivals as "not upmarket or glamorous, and a bit nasty".
He has ruled out attempting to lift Hello!'s circulation by reducing its cover price (following regional tests), by changing the frequency of the magazine, or by becoming more news-focused. The magazine's latest ABC figures reveal Hello! is outperforming a number of rivals across a generally disappointing six months for celebrity weekly titles.
Hello! sold an average of 405,615 copies in the second half of 2007, down 1.7% year on year, and 3.4% period on period. In contrast, Bauer Consumer Media's Closer fell 11.2% year on year, to 536,186, while its stablemate, Heat, dropped 12% year on year, to 515,934.
However, Hello!'s closest rival OK!, is charging ahead. The Northern & Shell title outsells Hello! by more than 300,000 copies, following a 21.8% period-on-period lift in circulation.
Charlotte Stockting, publishing director at Hello!, claims OK!'s recent success is due to the fact that it itargets a different demographic to Hello!. Other industry commentators suggest that OK! has simply had bigger scoops than Hello! of late.
While the UK is the focus of Sanchez Perez's attention in the short term, his remit includes overseeing the performance of the title's 13 worldwide editions in countries as far flung as India and Russia. There are plans to launch the Hello! brand in two more countries, likely to be outside Europe, in the near future.
International branding
Sanchez Perez claims that Hello! has been successful in every country where it has launched. He says: "Hello! is a brand that can go anywhere, and this is the message we want to send to the market."
He began work at Hola! as director of its online division, Hola.com, in 2001, and was responsible for launching the English and Spanish versions of the title's website.
After three years, he was promoted to his current role of editorial director of Hello!, where he works closely with his father. He says: "We have good communication. I have learnt a lot from him, particularly instinct."
As an example, he points to his father's decision to launch Hola! when "he was the only one who said it was going to be a success".
The challenges facing Sanchez Perez are significant, and it seems the days of selling 850,000 copies are long gone. Hello!, unlike OK!, does not have a reputation for scoops and this is what drives sales across the sector. OK!'s owner Richard Desmond shows no sign of tempering his bidding for big exclusives.
However, Sanchez Perez says that Hello! has an advantage over its rivals, and claims that some celebrities, for example Tom Cruise with his wedding to Katie Holmes, insist their nuptials are photographed by Hello! and not one of its competitors.
Hello! is one of the publishing success stories of the past 20 years, and, in Sanchez Perez, it has an ideal figure at the helm of the business.
But whether launching brand extensions and overhauling the magazine's content will be enough to revive sales of the veteran title is still open to question
CV
2004: Deputy director, Hello! and vice-president of Hola!
2001: Director, Hola.com.
Feature
Family man aims to give Hello! a facelift
Eduardo Sanchez Perez, son of the founder of the international Hello! brand, tells John Reynolds of his plans for the celebrity title and why he believes now is the right time to expand its market presence.
