OK, so if you’ve read the new ABC figures for the men’s magazine
sector, you could be forgiven for thinking the party’s over. And yes,
Esquire has suffered a pretty big drop. However, I’m peculiarly relaxed
about the situation, because I knew it would happen. In fact, I made it
happen when I took the step (shock) of taking the bikini- and
lingerie-clad girls off the cover and replaced them with portraits of
celebrities, including (horror) men.
Now let’s get this straight. I do know how to sell magazines. The two
I’ve edited, Arena and Esquire, have both enjoyed their highest sales
under me. So the reasoning for the move was as follows: Esquire was
losing its point of difference and eroding its quality brand values by
making sex its unique selling point. Therefore it would be a better
long-term strategy to make the magazine really different from the mass
of lads’ mags dominating the men’s market - to produce a broadsheet in a
market of tabloids.
We would go for a more sophisticated reader. We would therefore expect a
smaller, more focused circulation. We would make extra revenue through
selling ads to those advertisers who were finding it harder and harder
to recognise any synergy between their upmarket products and the
increasingly downmarket men’s magazine market.
And what happened? Well, when we came out in January with a black and
white David Bailey portrait of Johnny Depp on the cover, 30, 000
teenagers who were expecting Caprice in a bikini stopped buying the
magazine. And subsequently, George Clooney and David Beckham didn’t woo
them back. Even when we periodically put beautiful headshots of women on
the cover, the absence of cleavage meant the sales stayed the same.
However, our readership changed - the ABC1 profile went up dramatically
(from 65 per cent to 80 per cent), making us by far the most upmarket
men’s magazine; interestingly, the DE profile went down too, making us
the least downmarket. We got shortlisted for a clutch of awards, and the
advertising did start to flood in. Existing clients increased their
commitment - Prada trebled for the year, Armani quadrupled - while
absentees returned, and lots of new business (Boss, Jaguar, Burberry
etc) booked.
New readers and old wrote in to congratulate us. We also reaped
editorial benefits: big name writers and photographers such as Martin
Amis and Tom Stoppard wanted to work with us; Brad Pitt asked to be on
the cover and Cameron Diaz chose Esquire over a rival publication.
In fact, my only complaint would be a personal one: the rather strange
way in which some reported the move. I have been described by a few as a
kind of shaven-headed Mary Whitehouse (yuk) who took ’a vow of chastity’
to produce ’no nudes Esquire’. I never said there’d be no sex in the
magazine, just that we’d not make it our raison d’etre.
So please don’t paint me as a prude - it’s starting to upset my
girlfriend.
But what about the sales? Well, it depends how you judge the health of a
publication. In the women’s market, success is not exclusively linked to
circulation: there are prestigious titles (Vogue, Harpers) with
relatively modest circulations and great ad revenue. Why can’t the same
be true of a men’s magazine?
Have your say at www.campaignlive.com on channel 4.
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