Improving Not Moving

It’s a well used term by the home interest magazines but it seems to be truer than ever – people are improving their homes rather than moving, and they are using the web to do their research.

With the recent demise of far too many high street home retailers to mention, and the property market still stuck in the mud, homeowners are sending a clear message; they can’t afford to move house and can’t afford big ticket items for their home.

The home magazines have known this for some time, emphasising ‘quick fix’ and ‘maximise your space’ interior solutions and looking to real readers homes for inspiration on a shoestring. You may wonder who is still buying said magazines in light of this consumer hesitancy but circulations are still up and new titles such as Style At Home, from IPC Media, are appearing on the newsagent’s shelves.

It seems that home magazines give us the best of both worlds; we can indulge our nosy natures and see how other people live whilst maintaining our mental mood boards of what we would like to do to our own homes, one small update at a time.

What’s also great to see is how our favourite reads are really making the most of online, communicating with eager homemakers via their websites, blogs and on Twitter and Facebook. Whilst this might not seem out of the ordinary, it has been a long time coming as just a couple of years ago, it seemed the magazines saw online content as their enemy, resorting to only the most basic of websites.

Times have changed and rather than competing against themselves for readership, the key home interest magazines have their own online plan for engaging their followers and providing them with daily inspiration.

One obvious yet shining example of this is the housetohome network. Bringing together content from the IPC Media stable, including Ideal Home, Homes and Gardens, Country Homes and Interiors, Livingetc, Beautiful Kitchens and 25 Beautiful Homes, this online resource is invaluable to the window shopping homeowner who dreams of a new kitchen but will probably settle for some new cutlery for now. Real Homes and Your Home also offer lots of ideas for home improvement to enjoy over your lunch hour.

With consumer confidence in online shopping at an all time high, the home interest magazines had to evolve if they wanted to compete but there’s no doubt in my mind that our favourite interiors tomes will be around for a long time yet. After all, what else is a coffee table for other than displaying our lifestyle aspirations?

Warts and All to be Saviour for Brit Teens’ Esteem

Teenage girls live in a world of comparison, insecurities and media – from the glamour of American teen hits Gossip Girl and “reality drama” the Hills to Britain’s very own Chester beauty queens on Hollyoaks. The pressure to look good impacts on every teenage girl’s esteem – but how much of this is really down to advertising airbrushing?

The Liberal Democrats yesterday launched their campaign to ban airbrushing in children’s adverts. With their latest campaign for “Real Women” it feels as if someone has been reading through Marketing Week, noticed Dove’s award winning “Campaign for Real Beauty” and saw column inches waiting to be capitalised on.

For anyone who didn’t see Channel 4 news last night, it was the battle between Annabel Brog, longstanding editor of Sugar Magazine, and Jo Swinson, the Liberal MP at the helm of this campaign.

Brog justified her corner by saying they used lots of “real girls” and that airbrushing was only used for an out-of-place hair here and a pimple there. Having interned on the magazine a few years ago (under Annabel’s leadership) I can only herald the attitude of the editorial team. They were extremely conscious of their role as an outlet for teen issues and keen to grasp the balance of being responsible without being alienating or judgemental.

Swinson suggested airbrushed advertising aimed at under 16’s should be banned - and for adults should be signposted, literally, with a flagged up commentary. Yes, this beauty is too perfect, too polished and, to be frank, too unrealistic.

But this campaign also seems to underestimate people on a grand scale.
Advertising is not the only arena where this happens and her example of Kate Winslet on GQ’s cover hardly works as an example, with under 16’s clearly not in the title’s demographic.

If airbrushing is really doing us harm why not just ban the use of airbrushing in general? Perhaps it is because we like to see attractive people? Who wants a luxury product advertised by average Jo when by its very nature it is aspirational?

What about those too thin? Too muscly? Those who have had cosmetic surgery? Or those who are genetically gifted?

Teenage girls, and boys, have rising complexes about the way they look but I fail to see how the implementation of this one thing would have any causal effect.

She wants to see girls getting more involved in physical activity and the introduction of modules at school to discuss body image, health and well-being, and media literacy. That’s a lot of pressure being put on the girls themselves – to wisen up! To get fit! To forget what they hear and read and to be themselves! To be individuals!

Surely as a teenager trying to find yourself and be comfortable in your own skin is the hardest thing. With their identification with brands they are merely playing with what is out there. Maybe this has been taken too far and the brakes need to be put on a little - but as to how much of a success I can see those classes being, I’ll bite my tongue…

Coverage in the past two day has managed to take us away from Lembitt’s ladylove and handily airbrushed the expenses drama away. Cunning Jo.

That’s “Real Women” for you.

Have you been Shortlisted for your own personal Stylist this autumn?

Breaking news in the world of magazines...

For every woman who’s ever been handed a free copy of Shortlist on a rainy day, only to sit down and trudge through a wealth of sport and gangster film reviews, for every one of us who is forced to splash her cash at the tills for a magazine that thinks Madonna’s latest adoption is the most newsworthy story of the week, or forced to watch Natalie Cassidy’s weight rise and fall...apparently our prayers have been answered.

Project Y has been under operation for nearly 8 months now but with the big reveal today: Shortlist, the free male weekly title, is to distribute a new women’s magazine on Wednesday from late September/October.

Titled Stylist, 400,000 copies will be dispersed over 6 cities, giving you content such as the high-end fashion you may expect right through to travel, people and careers.

We’ve seen this before you might say – revolutionary topics such as “I earned more than my husband so he left me” or “I’m the breadwinner in our house” featuring the obligatory stiletto heels and red lipped smirk. But Chief Exec Mike Soutar of FHM fame seems to be taking this seriously:

“...There are some important things it will never do: it will never publish unflattering paparazzi shots of celebrities looking their worst, never invent spurious stories about stars’ relationships and never cynically exploit women’s body anxieties.”

Sounds like a publicist’s dream – polished images and positive content. But even the likes of Grazia can’t resist a comment or two on the fashion fails and tangoed terrors.

We all get frustrated with the lengths some titles go to chart weight loss – stopping just short of calling them in for a weekly weigh-in. But everyone likes a little comment here and there, something that makes these glamorous celebrities seem human. Kate Winslet has built her career on interviews talking about how much she has struggled with, and learnt to love, her “real body.” Surely a sweat patch here or there or a mascara-teared picture looking worse for wear only helps this?

Targeting “affluent professional women” or as one reporter hilariously put it “20-40 year old women who enjoy 11 years of freedom and career building before starting a family”, Stylist is looking to challenge the Grazias and Marie Claires of this world.

Bypassing the comment that women only have 11 years of freedom (?!), it’s going to be a tough market to crack and I certainly wish editor Lisa Smorsaski (formerly of More) the best of luck.
It’s a step in a different direction – one that men’s magazines such as GQ and Esquire seem to have succeeded in achieving where most women’s magazines have failed.

But from one 20-40 year old woman in the “career-building” time of life who will be handed the title one Wednesday in Birmingham, could we please have just a little bit of celebrity smirking? In the nicest possible way of course...

Goodbye BBC Good Homes

When the news last week that BBC Good Homes is to close after its July issue reached us, I have to say I was truly shocked and saddened.

Established some 11 years ago now, BBC Good Homes has consistantly been in the top five home interest magazines, at least in our clients' eyes, but due to falling circulation (although I don't consider 95,000 particularly low) and reduced advertising revenue it will cease to publish from next month.

Covering everything from abuyer guides to ask the experts and monthly room inspiration, I always felt that this title had it all for the homeowner needing some reliable advice and information on the latest products out there. Add to this the support lended by the 'BBC' brand, and it was one of a few titles that I would actually buy for myself as a consumer.

The shock of hearing the news really was a wake up call. Depsite hearing about how the credit crunch is affecting all areas of our lives, there are some things you expect to remain constant, but with the struggle to keep advertisers on board and keep consumers interested in their favourite magazines, rather than relying on the internet, I'm afraid to say that BBC Good Homes may not be the only casualty for the homes and lifestyle sector.

There will certainly be more competition between brands, and the PR agencies, to gain that all-important editorial space, but it highlights just how important it is for us to understand and embrace the digital age more and more. Magazine webpages, social networking sites and Twitter are all buzz words flying around right now, but it seems that these tools will become just as crucial to PR campaigns as press releases, but I for one will always enjoy the feeling of opening a crisp, new magazine and curling up with a cup of tea to enjoy.

Farewell BBC Good Homes, and hope to see the editorial team very soon.