The UK's media industry is abuzz with expectation following news that Emap is preparing to break the mould of women's magazines by launching a weekly fashion glossy (Marketing, 6 October).
It is thought the title will be based on Grazia, Italy's oldest women's magazine brand. Emap is refusing to confirm that it has acquired the UK licence to Grazia, though Italian reports suggest this has already happened.
Those stories have been fuelled by the knowledge that Emap is hiring a sales team in preparation for a launch next year and is asking media agencies to sign confidentiality agreements.
It is no secret that Emap has made the development of a fashion and beauty magazine a priority. It needs to fill the hole in its portfolio left when it lost Elle and Red two years ago following the closure of its publishing joint venture with Hachette Filipacchi.
Emap's response was to set up a development team headed by two former Elle editors, Fiona McIntosh and Nicola Jeal. Its first concept, believed to be a shopping-focused title, was shelved in April after it fared poorly in research. The team has since been busy creating a concept that has never been tried before in the UK - a women's magazine that combines the quality of a glossy monthly with weekly frequency.
Flourishing market
Heat was Emap's first foray into weekly titles, a market dominated by arch-rival IPC. Since then, the company has passionately embraced the sector with the 拢10m launches of Closer and Zoo. The latter and its IPC rival Nuts have turned the men's sector on its head by creating a vibrant market for weekly titles, and now Emap is trying to do the same in the women's market with Grazia.
Weekly fashion magazines are nothing new on the Continent. Alongside Grazia, Italy has three other titles: Vanity Fair, Gioia and Anna. And in its home country, France, Elle has been published weekly since it launched in 1945, seven years after the debut of Grazia.
Here in the UK, fashion magazines have followed the American model - thick, packed with advertising, with a high cover price and published monthly on top-quality paper stock. There has been a belief that less fashion-conscious British women would have no need of a weekly fashion guide. Instead, British women have had to make do with weeklies filled with knitting patterns, recipes and home furnishings, aimed at improving their skills as housewives.
As a result, it is a market stuck in the values of the 50s. Rejected by modern, emancipated women, UK weeklies were in the doldrums for years until receiving a shot in the arm from the recent explosion in celebrity titles. The growth of this sector - it now accounts for more than 3m weekly sales - proves there is huge demand from young women for a weekly read if the concept is right. The question is whether a fashion-focused title is that concept.
Fast-moving fashion
Julia Bowe, marketing director of Harvey Nichols, believes it may well be. She points to the extended coverage of fashion in newspaper supplements such as The Sunday Times' Style section. These are increasingly being used by fashion advertisers, particularly retailers with promotion-led campaigns.
Bowe points out that fashion no longer revolves around four seasons.
Many fashion chains, she adds, turn over their ranges every six weeks, making it difficult to co-ordinate new stock promotions with monthly magazines' schedules, which require advance booking of at least eight weeks. Weekly titles have booking deadlines of about two weeks, making them much more suited to retailers' mid-season needs.
'Fashion stores have had to become much more reactive in providing fresh ranges,' says Bowe. 'Weeklies allow you to be more tactical in your advertising, which may need to promote special in-store events.'
Most Harvey Nichols advertising is used for brand-building, but even for this purpose, Bowe says she uses Style to supplement the coverage of the fashion monthlies. 'If Emap creates a weekly that hits the right target customer and is the right environment for our brand, it would be a serious contender for our advertising,' she adds.
Missed opportunity
According to Jerome O'Regan, buying director of Red Media - which has Monsoon, Diesel and Jaeger among its clients - an autumn fashion boom, unforeseen by the fashion monthlies, has resulted in advertisers being turned away due to lack of space. 'If a weekly existed now, it would make it much easier to plan our Christmas campaigns, and would be more cost-effective than using television,' he says.
Clare Rush, head of magazines at Mediaedge:cia, whose clients include Chanel, believes there is a sizeable untapped market for a fashion weekly. 'There's lots of room for revenue to be allocated to a new title,' she argues. 'A weekly would provide a great bargaining tool for use against the monthlies.'
Although Grazia - an Italian girl's name - might not yet mean anything to UK consumers, Rush believes Emap will keep the name because its Italian heritage will greatly assist efforts to win designer fashion advertising.
'The problem for domestic women's brands such as Red and Eve is that foreign fashion designers don't know what they stand for. They feel more comfortable with international brands, such as Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire,' she adds. 'Since most of this advertising comes out of Italy, a British Grazia would have a head start.'
It seems that Emap might be on to a winner - providing British Grazia can strike the right chord with consumers and advertisers alike.