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Mens

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 5 months ago
The sector that I was given to look at was men's magazines. I looked at 12 magazines to see what was common across the board on their websites, which ones were experimenting with new media forms of distribution and which ones had the best initiatives.

 

Mens Lifestyle Magazine Circulation Figures

 

Arena- 30,886

Bizarre- 54,571

Esquire- 53,537

FHM- 311,590

GQ- 127,886

Loaded- 120,492

Maxim- 107,687

Men's Fitness- 65,366

Men's Health- 238,980

Nuts- 277,269

Redhanded- 30,261

Smart Life International- 19,411

Sport- 317,093

Square Mile Magazine- 32,000

Stuff- 92,793

T3- 55,393

Zoo- 186,732

(www.abc.org.uk)

 

Mens Lifestyle Magazine Websites 

 

Arena (www.arenamagazine.co.uk)

 

Arena magazine was relaunched on Tuesday October 30th 2007, aiming to be the best magazine for men in their late 20s to mid 30s. On the website there is a small article mentioning this, with nothing on the main page advertising the relaunch, apart from a small link to the article. There is no mention of new media intiatives in the article. Of its rivals, only GQ is using new media forms of distribution to attract new readers.

 

Bizarre (www.bizarremag.com)

 

Bizarre is an alternative lifstyle magazine. It's publisher, Dennis Publishing, says: 'We offer our advertisers the opportunity to reach our readers across multiple platforms' (www.dennis.co.uk/dennis_site/about/21century.php). Its best new media intiative is that it offers ringtones and wallpaper downloads for mobile phones, although these mobile features are nowhere near as extensive and it does not offer a 'mobizine', like another of Dennis Publishings' magazines, Maxim.

 

 

 

Esquire (www.esquire.co.uk)

 

There is currently no website for Esquire magazine, just a page with a subscription link and a notice announcing the website's launch this autumn. On the page, there is this message: 

'We know. It's time Esquire had an all-singing, all-dancing, out-of-this-world, info-heavy, user-friendly, interactive website- one that will have all the high standards you've come to expect from the magazine and a whole lot more.' That Esquire does not have a website at all is unusual in itself, considering its American edition has one, and its main rivals, GQ and Arena, also have 'info-heavy, user-friendly, interactive' websites. The fact that it is now launching one suggests that the new media initiatives currently being used by its rivals are succeeding in getting more people viewing their products.

 

 

FHM (www.fhm.com) 1,702,296 users

 

FHM is a monthly magazine targeted at men in their mid to late 20s. It has the same target audience as other 'lads mags', although it is more like the more 'upmarket' mens magazines such as GQ and Arena, in that it features fashion pages, as well as sport and women. 

Some of the best features on this site are-

-There is a function which enables the user to watch the latest goals from the Premiere League and the Football League, in conjunction with Virgin Media.

-‘FHM on your mobile’- for £2 a month it is possible to have videos, downloads, pictures, facts and gossip, games, jokes etc.

-‘FHMTV’ – has 5 ‘channels’- FHMTV (interviews); Entertainment; Girls; Kama Sutra and High Street Honeys.

FHM also has its own TV channel, FHM TV, which timeshares with Q TV, which is also owned by Emap. They both share the same channel. FHM TV plays music themed shows.

 

Front (www.myspace.com/frontmag)

 

Front magazine does not have a website, only a Myspace page, which serves as an advertisement for the magazine. The Myspace page describes itself as 'Male- 25', which can be taken to be the target audience.

 

 

GQ (www.gq-magazine.co.uk)

 

GQ is a monthly magazine targeted at men in their late 20s to mid 30s, and is owned by publishers Conde Nast, who have had interactive versions of their magazines since 1995.

Some of the most best new media experimant on this site are-

-Address Book- Directory sorted into subheadings 
  • Accessories
  • Department stores
  • Designer clothes
  • Entertaining
  • Florists
  • Footwear
  • Grooming
  • Health Clubs
  • Highstreet
  • Homeware
  • Jewellers
  • Services
  • Spas
  • Sporting goods
  • Tailors
  • Womenswear

The address book can be sorted alphabetically or by location. However there is no difference between these two functions, if there was, this would be an extremely useful resource that would stand out as an initiative that could bring more users to the site.

-Bars

This is a very good part of the site as bars are sorted by location:

  • London
  • Birmingham
  • Brighton
  • Bristol
  • Edinburgh
  • Glasgow
  • Leeds
  • Liverpool
  • Manchester
  • Newcastle
  • Nottingham

Under each subheading, there are several bars for each city. Each one has a summary of the bar, which celebrities go there, what time of the week is best to go, what to wear and the bar's Unique Selling Point, as well as contact details for the bar. This is a really useful section to have as it makes it possible to quickly search for a bar and pick one based on its criteria.

-Restaurants

This is similar to the Bars section of the site, however rather than a directory with restaurants sorted by location, they are in an alphabetical list, which does not make it easy to find a local restaurant.

GQ also has a ‘mobizine’ which is free, and once installed, a new mobizine can be downloaded once every day.

Conde Nast, GQ’s publisher, says on their website that ‘Conde Nast Interactive has a long history of embracing new development and nowhere is that more evident than in the arena of mobile publishing.’(www.condenast.co.uk/history/mobile.aspx) The Conde Nast commercial team is selling advertising spaces on these sites through interstitials and banners.

 

 

Loaded (www.loaded.co.uk) 206,952 users

 

Loaded is a monthly magazine aimed at men aged 16-30. It is a monthly rival to Nuts and Zoo, as all three are similar in content and target audience.

One function unique to this site is the Casting Couch Webcam, which shows models stripping and being photographed live every Friday afternoon. However there is nothing else in the way of new media initiatives that sets it apert from any other site.

 

Maxim (www.maxim.co.uk)

 

Maxim is a monthly magazine aimed at men in their 20s.

The best new media initiative on the website is Maxim mobile- you can access Maxim’s WAP site, download wallpapers, videos and ringtones. The best feature of Maxim Mobile is the ‘mobizine’- the magazine can be read on a mobile phone, and it can be read without being online.

 

 

Monkey (www.monkeymag.co.uk) 268,348 users

Monkey is a digital weekly magazine that can only be read online. You can register by email for a link to each issue, although it is possible to view the current issue on the site without registering. The magazine is viewed by 'turning' each page over as you would a print magazine, which makes navigation of the magazine easy. Most of the content is video clips of cars, sport, new films and DVDs, disasters and women stripping.

 

Nuts.co.uk (www.nuts.co.uk) 631,467 users

Nuts is a weekly magazine aimed at men aged 18-30. It's main rival is Zoo.

Some of the best features on this site are-

-Listings for football for the next 7 days for Sky, Freeview and terrestrial.

-Archive for photos and videos.

-You can download videos and pictures to your mobile phone, but rather than subscribe like FHM, they can be ordered individually, this is not as good value as FHM, as you have to pay for them individually rather than one one-off payment per month.

Nuts also has its own TV channel, Nuts TV, which runs for 4 hours every evening, with sports, gadgets, cars, music, comedy and news items.

 

 

Shortlist (www.shortlist.com)

Shortlist.com is the website for the new free men's lifestyle magazine, Shortlist. The website is divided into nine sections: Entertainment, Technology, Career and Money, Going Out, Style, Driving, Sport, Travel and Grooming. Each section mainly contains top 10 and top 5 lists such as '10 Famous Animals Available For Hire', as well as short articles. There is a section titled Your Lists, which give users the opportunity to submit their own lists. There is also the option of reading the current issue of Shortlist by downloading the separate pages as PDFs, or browsing through a smaller version. I did not find this part of the site particularly helpful, as the print in the smaller version is too small to read, yet it takes approximately 10 minutes to download the whole magazine as a PDF.

 

Zoo (www.zooweekly.co.uk) 718,486 users

Zoo magazine is a weekly magazine whose main rival is Nuts. Overall, the website has little to offer in the way of new media initiatives, apart from a search engine which consolodates results from search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. This can be downloaded onto a desktop.

 

 

In general, the most common features of the men's magazines that I looked at are-

-Photo gallery of famous women

-Video gallery of women undressing or in their underwear

-Archive of photos and video clips

-Blogs from the magazines' writers

-Subscription pages

-The option to 'build your own profile'.

The best features that I found on the websites that I looked at were the content that is downloadable onto a mobile phone. Of the simpler versions of this initiative, FHM has the best to offer, a subscription service which charges a monthly rate, rather than Nuts' version in which the content is downloaded and paid for individually. However, GQ and Maxim both have 'mobizines', which are versions of the current issues that are downloadable and readable on a mobile phone. These features for mobile phones are good ways of attracting more people to read and possibly buy the magazines.

Overall, the men's magazines that are experimenting with new media iniatives that most are the 'lads' magazines that are targeted at men in their early to mid 20s. It is interesting that the magazines aimed at men in their late 20s to mid 30s do not seem to be using new media forms of distribution as much as the 'lads mags', even going so far as to not have a website at all, in the case of Esquire magazine. In the US, a survey by the US Census Bureau found that the highest percentage of internet users were in the age group 35-44 (http://www.clickz.com/3575136), so it seems that mens magazines aimed at this age range need to utilise their target audience, as they are the ones using the internet the most. By using new media forms of distribution, they could reach far more readers than they currently do.

 

Bibliography

 

www.abc.org.uk

www.abce.org.uk

www.arenamagazine.co.uk

www.bizarremag.com

www.condenast.co.uk/history/mobile.aspx

www.dennis.co.uk/dennis_site/about/21century.php

www.esquire.co.uk

www.fhm.com

www.gq-magazine.co.uk

www.loaded.co.uk

www.maxim.co.uk

www.monkeymag.co.uk

www.myspace.com/frontmag

www.nuts.co.uk

www.shortlist.com

www.zooweekly.co.uk

 

'Internet users show their age'- Enid Burns, January 4th, 2006 (http://www.clickz.com/3575136)

'Arena revamp targets "urban playboys"'- John Plunkett- Guardian Unlimited, Tuesday October 30th (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/30/emap.pressandpublishing?gusrc=rss&feed=media)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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