There aren't many people in this business who can offer to bake you pre-interview biscuits and make it sound like a sane, reasonable and almost mundane proposition. But then Liz Kershaw -- Lizzie, she usually insists -- is a one-off.
She lives in a world of effusive gestures and possesses an ebullient eccentricity fuelled, it seems, by boundless enthusiasm. In fact, she sometimes comes across as a slightly tweedy version of the Jennifer Saunders character in 'Absolutely Fabulous'. Or a robust take on Joyce Grenville, with dialogue courtesy of PG Wodehouse.
She's very hard to pigeonhole. Is she unreservedly posh? After all, she can handle a shotgun and you can imagine her slapping fellow sportsmen on their Norfolk-jacketed backs after a good day's shoot. A game bird herself, she likes all sorts of sports and will talk knowledgeably on anything and everything from horseracing to football - betraying her Yorkshire roots in her ability to dissect the woes of, say, Leeds United.
Yet, at one stage, she describes herself as "perfectly ordinary -- a single mum living in South London". Meanwhile, she is regarded by many as one of the most talented and driven people in the publishing business. A cosmopolitan media industry sophisticate, no less.
She has also, improbably but almost inevitably, found herself firmly centre stage. Improbably, because she is the executive group publishing director of the Good Housekeeping and Country Living Group at The National Magazine Company -- not, in the past, the sexiest of positions.
But, as the rival publisher Conde Nast prepares to launch Easy Living next year, the market inhabited by Good Housekeeping is redefining itself. The industry's most important battleground over the coming months will be grown-up magazines for grown-up women.
Last week, Kershaw announced three appointments -- not, she insists, in preparation for the campaign ahead but (sorry: not her choice of words) as routine good housekeeping. Tom Long, currently the associate publisher of Good Housekeeping, will be promoted to the role of publisher, reporting directly to Kershaw; David Parker, the advertising director of Country Living, will move up to become the associate publisher; while Kirsty McElhayer becomes the commercial events and sponsorship manager across both titles.
Launched in 1922, Good Housekeeping is a very British institution -- it even has its own domestic science institute (where the biscuits get baked) right by Kershaw's office. The threat now is that Easy Living will appeal to women in the same age group -- and, in offering them something slightly more glamorous and racy, it will make Good Housekeeping seem terribly fuddy duddy, all jam-making, bring-and-buy and sensible shoes.
As one media buyer puts it: "We know from the newspaper market that heritage products are losing readers -- and Good Housekeeping will have to become attitudinally younger if it wants to attract attitudinally younger readers. And people's attitudes in this demographic have changed. The teenagers of the 60s are now in their fifties. They still have Beatles-era attitudes plus their parents were part of the big expansion in home ownership, so there's more wealth filtering down too."
Another buyer says she feels Good Housekeeping needs to sharpen up its act. Not a lot -- "no need to throw baby out with the bathwater" -- but she reckons Conde Nast will get a dreadful surprise if it underestimates Kershaw. "The bottom line is that she is an outstandingly accomplished businesswoman and is remarkably focused and clear," she states.
Is Kershaw herself stiffening the sinews for the battle ahead? Good Housekeeping's circulation is a healthy 415,000 but Easy Living will aim to capture a sale of between 150,000 and 200,000 when it launches in the first half of the new year. It will have a substantial marketing budget behind it -- and its editor, Susie Forbes, previously the deputy editor of Vogue, has already been drumming up bags of media coverage.
Is Kershaw already feeling the pressure? Not really, she reveals. "I haven't seen it [Easy Living] and in my experience there's very little you can say about a title until you've seen it." And, she adds, the hullabaloo surrounding a new entrant to the market will be good business for all concerned. Conde Nast is, after all, the acknowledged master of launch hullabaloo. But no one at NatMags is panicking quite yet. "While our circulation continues to grow, we feel we're not doing too much wrong," Kershaw concludes.
The Kershaw file
1985 Harpers & Queen, several positions rising to publisher
1993 Good Housekeeping, publishing director
1998 Cosmopolitan Group, publishing director
2000 NatMags, executive group publishing director, Affluent Group
2002 NatMags, executive group publishing director, Good Housekeeping and Country Living Group
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