Interview: Fiona McIntosh, Grazia magazine (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
The masthead is already proclaiming it to be "Britain's No 1 glossy". But nine months after launch, how far has Grazia achieved its goal of "transforming" the women's glossy-magazine market? Before its £16 million February debut, rivals were openly questioning how Emap could see a business in a hybrid celebrity-and-high-fashion weekly. Not only would that combination repel advertisers, but wouldn't it place Grazia in direct competition with rivals stretching from Now to Vogue?
After an admittedly slow start in enticing high-end advertisers, Grazia, its editor-in-chief declares, is delivering just what Emap intended. "When it was presented to the board, it was seen as quite high risk, but what has been fantastic is to see it working out," she says. With an audited circulation firmly above target at 155,000, and £3 million of ad revenue already banked, Fiona McIntosh says her "faster glossy" is already stepping on the monthlies' immaculately pedicured toes.
"We're now beginning to see that the Grazia reader is substituting it for her monthly reads, and we really do believe we've created a new niche," McIntosh says. With some issues now selling more than 200,000 copies, it is only a matter of time, she adds, before established titles feel the pain. "We're definitely sensing that it's making an impact. Just wait for the next ABCs."
The title has certainly won goodwill in a famously catty industry, earning McIntosh, 39, a nomination as "editor's editor" in this year's British Society of Magazine Editors awards. Rival publishers contacted by the Standard were uncharacteristically generous in praising it as a "strong product" that had "broken a new category".
Yet commercially, it continues to attract what appears to be an unsustainable ratio of advertising - 21 pages, excluding promotions, out of 120 in last week's issue, compared with 214 out of 450 in December's Glamour. It cannot be for want of trying: Grazia's masthead credits 19 names in its advertising department. Agencies have voiced their own suspicions: by relying on paparazzi cover shots and "exclusives" on matters such as Brad and Jen's break-up, high-fashion brands, they suggest, consider the magazine rather more downscale than they were led to believe.
"They haven't cracked the advertising market in any shape that comes close to what they promised," says Simon Kippin, publisher of Glamour. "They started with high-blown attempts to insist on charging rate-card, but my information from the agencies suggests that they're taking a more prosaic view of the market." Another rival publisher claims to have heard directly from advertisers offered £10,000 ad pages for as little as £4,000.
McIntosh, a former editor of Elle, Company and ES Magazine, dismisses such suggestions as "mischief-making". "Everyone is now accepting the fact that what appeared to be a problem at the beginning is now very much established - we are getting those ads," she says, mentioning brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Estee Lauder and LVMH. Grazia's publisher, Abby Carvosso, insists the rate-card is being kept to. "We don't discount any of the advertising, apart from standard volume discounts, but quite obviously competitors will make these suggestions," Carvosso says. "We've introduced something innovative and radical into the market, which takes time for people to understand, but we've proved its effect as an advertising medium - mentions in Grazia are already driving product sales. I definitely think there are monthlies that are losing [revenue] to us. Weeklies are a no-brainer for fashion houses looking to drive footfall in stores."
Again, the claims are disputed by competitors. "They might be premature to claim they've taken advertising and circulation from the monthlies," says Julie Harris, general manager of Hachette's Women's Group, which includes Elle, Red and Psychologies. "We haven't had any advertisers saying I'm reducing your volume as I'm putting money into Grazia, and Red and Elle ad volumes and copy sales have been up since they launched."
Simon Kippin, too, says he has yet to see any commercial impact on the wider market. He is also piqued that Grazia, while "an excellent magazine", insists on comparing its performance with that of Glamour, the market leader, whose circulation is 610,000. (Grazia mischievously claims the "No 1" slot simply by adding its cumulative sales over four weeks.) "I'm flattered but slightly aggrieved by these comparisons," Kippin says. "It's like comparing The Sun with The Times."
But unlike the red-tops, McIntosh considers her magazine the celebrity's friend. "We've managed to break some great stories, with Madonna choosing us for an interview, and Sarah Jessica Parker talking to us exclusively," she says. The only mistake she will acknowledge is the use of Coleen McLoughlin, Wayne Rooney's fiancee, on the cover. Unlike the "famous-for-15-minutes reality-TV chavs" in other weeklies, Grazia draws in "bona fide stars" by working with agents and taking a sympathetic editorial line - even though she refuses to offer copy or picture approval, and insists that she will not pay for a story.
Unlike Now, she says, Grazia would never have bought photographs of Kate Moss allegedly using cocaine in a recording studio. "A lot of people stuck the boot in to Kate, but she's a star for us. We tried to understand why she got to where she is now, the poor thing. Who'd blame her, a model at 14, never having lived a real life? These crises affect our readers."
But how can she square intrusive celebrity coverage with the demands of luxury fashion brands? "There is a line we cannot cross," she says. "We're not going down the 'sweaty armpits' or ' cellulite' route" - suggesting the more brutal tone of magazines like Heat. "It's about trying to look at paparazzi pictures in a glamorous way again, very much like the picture weeklies did in the Fifties."
Besides, the mix works, she says. Her readers - typically "yummy mummies who haven't given in to middle age", average age 34 - have the "magpie" minds that allow them to flit between what is happening to the A-list and where to find the season's hottest boots. (McIntosh, for the record, is looking elegant today in Sergio Rossi boots, Jaeger and Miu Miu.) Magazines which pretend otherwise are misguided, she says. "It's interesting to read that Easy Living has made a U-turn and hired a celebrity wrangler, which is the right thing to do," she says.
Beyond that, she sees no point in comparing the two titles, which launched the same month with similarly mind-boggling budgets. "The Grazia reader is much more interested in buying shoes than in ironing linen," she says tartly. Hachette's new launch, Psychologies, she considers "well written", but again no competition for the Grazia reader, "who's out there enjoying life rather than internalising it".
As for McIntosh, the mother of five- and three-year-old girls, she now plans to step back further from day-today involvement as editor-in-chief, leaving Jane Bruton, the editor, as the top name on the masthead. ("And we do love each other," she says. "We go drinking together.") Mission accomplished, then? "There is a strong core of loyal readers who use the word ' addictive' about Grazia, and we're expecting significant growth in the next ABCs," she says confidently. "It was a steep hill to climb to persuade people you could have an upmarket weekly, but we're now growing organically. Much more like a slow-growing monthly glossy than a highly fluctuating weekly."
Although not yet one that can pull in the ad pages like the monthlies.
(Evening Standard, November 2 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
The masthead is already proclaiming it to be "Britain's No 1 glossy". But nine months after launch, how far has Grazia achieved its goal of "transforming" the women's glossy-magazine market? Before its £16 million February debut, rivals were openly questioning how Emap could see a business in a hybrid celebrity-and-high-fashion weekly. Not only would that combination repel advertisers, but wouldn't it place Grazia in direct competition with rivals stretching from Now to Vogue?
After an admittedly slow start in enticing high-end advertisers, Grazia, its editor-in-chief declares, is delivering just what Emap intended. "When it was presented to the board, it was seen as quite high risk, but what has been fantastic is to see it working out," she says. With an audited circulation firmly above target at 155,000, and £3 million of ad revenue already banked, Fiona McIntosh says her "faster glossy" is already stepping on the monthlies' immaculately pedicured toes.
"We're now beginning to see that the Grazia reader is substituting it for her monthly reads, and we really do believe we've created a new niche," McIntosh says. With some issues now selling more than 200,000 copies, it is only a matter of time, she adds, before established titles feel the pain. "We're definitely sensing that it's making an impact. Just wait for the next ABCs."
The title has certainly won goodwill in a famously catty industry, earning McIntosh, 39, a nomination as "editor's editor" in this year's British Society of Magazine Editors awards. Rival publishers contacted by the Standard were uncharacteristically generous in praising it as a "strong product" that had "broken a new category".
Yet commercially, it continues to attract what appears to be an unsustainable ratio of advertising - 21 pages, excluding promotions, out of 120 in last week's issue, compared with 214 out of 450 in December's Glamour. It cannot be for want of trying: Grazia's masthead credits 19 names in its advertising department. Agencies have voiced their own suspicions: by relying on paparazzi cover shots and "exclusives" on matters such as Brad and Jen's break-up, high-fashion brands, they suggest, consider the magazine rather more downscale than they were led to believe.
"They haven't cracked the advertising market in any shape that comes close to what they promised," says Simon Kippin, publisher of Glamour. "They started with high-blown attempts to insist on charging rate-card, but my information from the agencies suggests that they're taking a more prosaic view of the market." Another rival publisher claims to have heard directly from advertisers offered £10,000 ad pages for as little as £4,000.
McIntosh, a former editor of Elle, Company and ES Magazine, dismisses such suggestions as "mischief-making". "Everyone is now accepting the fact that what appeared to be a problem at the beginning is now very much established - we are getting those ads," she says, mentioning brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Estee Lauder and LVMH. Grazia's publisher, Abby Carvosso, insists the rate-card is being kept to. "We don't discount any of the advertising, apart from standard volume discounts, but quite obviously competitors will make these suggestions," Carvosso says. "We've introduced something innovative and radical into the market, which takes time for people to understand, but we've proved its effect as an advertising medium - mentions in Grazia are already driving product sales. I definitely think there are monthlies that are losing [revenue] to us. Weeklies are a no-brainer for fashion houses looking to drive footfall in stores."
Again, the claims are disputed by competitors. "They might be premature to claim they've taken advertising and circulation from the monthlies," says Julie Harris, general manager of Hachette's Women's Group, which includes Elle, Red and Psychologies. "We haven't had any advertisers saying I'm reducing your volume as I'm putting money into Grazia, and Red and Elle ad volumes and copy sales have been up since they launched."
Simon Kippin, too, says he has yet to see any commercial impact on the wider market. He is also piqued that Grazia, while "an excellent magazine", insists on comparing its performance with that of Glamour, the market leader, whose circulation is 610,000. (Grazia mischievously claims the "No 1" slot simply by adding its cumulative sales over four weeks.) "I'm flattered but slightly aggrieved by these comparisons," Kippin says. "It's like comparing The Sun with The Times."
But unlike the red-tops, McIntosh considers her magazine the celebrity's friend. "We've managed to break some great stories, with Madonna choosing us for an interview, and Sarah Jessica Parker talking to us exclusively," she says. The only mistake she will acknowledge is the use of Coleen McLoughlin, Wayne Rooney's fiancee, on the cover. Unlike the "famous-for-15-minutes reality-TV chavs" in other weeklies, Grazia draws in "bona fide stars" by working with agents and taking a sympathetic editorial line - even though she refuses to offer copy or picture approval, and insists that she will not pay for a story.
Unlike Now, she says, Grazia would never have bought photographs of Kate Moss allegedly using cocaine in a recording studio. "A lot of people stuck the boot in to Kate, but she's a star for us. We tried to understand why she got to where she is now, the poor thing. Who'd blame her, a model at 14, never having lived a real life? These crises affect our readers."
But how can she square intrusive celebrity coverage with the demands of luxury fashion brands? "There is a line we cannot cross," she says. "We're not going down the 'sweaty armpits' or ' cellulite' route" - suggesting the more brutal tone of magazines like Heat. "It's about trying to look at paparazzi pictures in a glamorous way again, very much like the picture weeklies did in the Fifties."
Besides, the mix works, she says. Her readers - typically "yummy mummies who haven't given in to middle age", average age 34 - have the "magpie" minds that allow them to flit between what is happening to the A-list and where to find the season's hottest boots. (McIntosh, for the record, is looking elegant today in Sergio Rossi boots, Jaeger and Miu Miu.) Magazines which pretend otherwise are misguided, she says. "It's interesting to read that Easy Living has made a U-turn and hired a celebrity wrangler, which is the right thing to do," she says.
Beyond that, she sees no point in comparing the two titles, which launched the same month with similarly mind-boggling budgets. "The Grazia reader is much more interested in buying shoes than in ironing linen," she says tartly. Hachette's new launch, Psychologies, she considers "well written", but again no competition for the Grazia reader, "who's out there enjoying life rather than internalising it".
As for McIntosh, the mother of five- and three-year-old girls, she now plans to step back further from day-today involvement as editor-in-chief, leaving Jane Bruton, the editor, as the top name on the masthead. ("And we do love each other," she says. "We go drinking together.") Mission accomplished, then? "There is a strong core of loyal readers who use the word ' addictive' about Grazia, and we're expecting significant growth in the next ABCs," she says confidently. "It was a steep hill to climb to persuade people you could have an upmarket weekly, but we're now growing organically. Much more like a slow-growing monthly glossy than a highly fluctuating weekly."
Although not yet one that can pull in the ad pages like the monthlies.
(Evening Standard, November 2 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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