New Custom Published Magazine to Launch for Walmart Canada

WALMART LIVE BETTER is a new custom magazine for Walmart Canada by Rogers Media (CHATELAINE*, FLARE*, TODAY’S PARENT*.)

The mom-focused publication will amplify Walmart’s brand promise “Save money, live better” with Rogers-created content spanning four key pillars: Food, home, health, and beauty and fashion. Food will be a primary focus in the magazine, said Rosalyn Carneiro, Walmart’s public relations manager. “The food-related content in the magazine will be about one-third, including the front cover.”

The magazine will offer practical information, tips, inspiring ideas and relevant information designed to “help moms and their families save money and live better.”

The content team will be led by Rogers Media’s newly appointed Editor-in-Chief, Sandra Martin. The print edition will be published six times a year starting in April 2013. The issues will be timed to coincide with key sales periods such as the holidays and the back-to-school period. One million copies will be distributed free of charge at Walmart Supercentres across English Canada, with plans to expand into the French market by next year.

Rogers will also produce an iPad version of the publication, while content will also be housed on a dedicated microsite accessible through Walmart.ca.

Can’t magazines do any better?

Where is the creativity?

Pinterest is the hottest social media right now, driving more traffic to websites than even Twitter.  So, after starting our own first board of…what else? magazine covers…we thought we’d look around for inspiration for additional boards.

First we had a ball checking out tons of funny, crazy, beautiful, far-out, sweet, disturbing boards (careful, this site is addictive.)  After losing a couple of hours, we – naturally – turned to the magazines for inspiration.

And…that’s where the fun stopped.

While we didn’t think that the big titles would break away totally from their brand images, we thought that with all the talent they have for hire, they would surprise and delight us.

Nope.

SHAPE* admonishes us to use Pinterest in healthy ways: For example, display your life goals on “vision boards” and create a “gratitude board.”  Its own 29 boards, almost all healthy, seem to do nothing but nag: Healthy Breakfast Recipes, Lower-body Workouts, and Get Fit in 2012.  Most interesting/unexpected board – or at least the cutest: How Puppies Improve Your Health (let’s just hope they get their html under control soon.)

COOKING LIGHT* is clinging close to its editorial brand: Comfort Food, Super Sandwiches, Easter Recipes and Menus.  Most interesting/unexpected board: Blogs We Love (but food blogs, of course.)

PARENTING’s* boards included Stunning Nurseries and Kids Rooms, Most Fashionable Kids, and Halloween Treats and Eats.  Most interesting/unexpected board: Fun with Science was the best we could find.

Even THE NEW YORKER* didn’t dare to divert from its brand; there were carefully selected covers of course, and – what else? – the famous New Yorker cartoons.

TIME*, the newsweekly, is clearly panicking that you won’t remember its name, so it plasters it everywhere, including in all the board titles.  It gets a little repetitious.

Inexplicably, the most photogenic of all the major magazines – except perhaps LIFE – NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC*, does not even have a Pinterest board.  And neither does Life, as far as we can tell.

Desperate to find something exciting, we checked boards from non-magazine media but they also stayed pretty close to the brand: For example, The Weather Channel’s Recipes board featured winter or spring cuisine.  The Today Show had some fun memories in Anchor Antics, but in general, no media strayed too far from the company line.

Is that what we want?

Venerable movie trade publication goes glam

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER is going big, starting next month.  It will now be a glossy, large-format weekly magazine starting next month, reports the New York Times.  Content will be a mix of analytical, feature articles and photo spreads.

The price will increase to $5.99 for the weekly, up from $2.99 for the original daily, and publisher e5 Global Media plans on going on a hiring spree and increasing circulation.

NYT also reports THR’s website has been redesigned, with emphasis on breaking news, and that the daily print edition will now be a daily PDF file.  Richard Beckman, chief executive of e5 Global Media, also told NYT he’s going after more advertising dollars beginning with beauty, fashion, consumer electronics and liquor.

TOWN & COUNTRY to evolve into “a different magazine”

TOWN & COUNTRY Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Stephen Drucker vows “a year from now, it will be a very different magazine,” according to WWD.

With that in mind he lured former VOGUE contributing editor and columnist William Norwich to T&C.  Norwich will cover social and cultural trends as well as upper class socialites and their parties.  In the WWD interview, Drucker said, “He won’t just be a columnist or contributor.  He’ll help me construct a new, more exciting Town & Country.”

The Hearst publication will continue to focus on America’s upper class.  Drucker told WWD that T&C reportage will be more in the style of the late Charlotte Curtis, New York Times columnist and former editor of the family/style section.  Curtis was known for treating whatever she wrote as hard news, often delivered with rapier wit and backed by meticulous research.

Drucker added, “You will start to see small changes, but it won’t be an overnight change.”  Check out the magazine’s website here.

Changes at W magazine shake up fashion print industry

W Magazine is the latest fashion print publication to see a change in editorial staff and content direction.  And what a directional shift this is.  In a stunning announcement, new Editor-in-Chief Stefano Tonchi shook up the fashion world by naming New York Magazine photo director Jody Quon as W’s new creative director.

In a WWDMedia interview, Tonchi said his pick of Quon, “‘confirms, a little bit, the direction’ in which he plans to take W, which means ‘moving to a more lifestyle approach to fashion – a lifestyle magazine, and not just a women’s fashion magazine.’”

A month ago when Tonchi was leaving T: The New York Times Fashion Magazine for Conde Nast, he said, “…probably just make it more of a general-interest style magazine, and less of a fashion-obsessed publication.”  In the more recent interview, he added that T Magazine is a blueprint for what he has in mind for W.

According to Tonchi, “September will be the first issue where some of the new content and point of view will start to show, but we count on delivering something more every month.”

Condé Nast also recently announced that it will be moving W from the trade-oriented Fairchild group to the consumer Condé Nast group.

Does Family Circle Want to Be Good Housekeeping?

FAMILY CIRCLE has unveiled a “GOOD HOUSEKEEPING seal”-like award for use by advertisers.  Unlike the GH logo, there is no product testing or guarantee; but “our Circle of Excellence awards go to food, beauty, and household products that wowed us editors and you – we sent samples to readers throughout the country to test.  Only items that earned across-the-board raves made the final cut.”

The new program is really aimed at boosting ad pages.  The magazine is allowing marketers to buy the rights to use the seal in their own promotional efforts or buy incremental print ads if they want to use the seal in those placements.

The food products named on the magazine’s website as having earned the “Circle of Excellence” are: Skinny Cow Low-Fat Ice Cream Sandwiches, Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crusts, Arnold Select Sandwich Thins, Al Fresco All-Natural Chicken Sausage, and Mazola Pure Cooking Spray.

The Horse would like to know where he can vote for his carrots and apples.

Major Canadian Magazine Becomes More Optimistic

CANADIAN LIVING, a Canadian lifestyle magazine, is celebrating its 35th anniversary with a makeover.  It has redesigned its logo and changed its tag line from “Smart solutions for everyday living” to “Inspiring ideas for everyday living.”  And the April edition launched with an introductory price of $1.99, temporarily down from the usual $3.99.

The front-of-the-book has added a new section called “Everyday Matters.”  Content is now grouped under one of five “pillars,” including beauty, health, lifestyle, home and food.  However, in keeping with its more “optimistic” brand personality, these sections bear the headings “Beauty is everywhere,” “Health is happiness,” “Life is for living,” “Home is pride,” and “Food is love.”

The re-branding also extends to its websites and e-newsletters.  The editorial calendars of the print, website and e-newsletters have been combined into one standard platform for closer integration.  Canadian Living will also be encouraging its readers to participate in the online magazine via blogs, forums and contests.

Published monthly by media giant Transcontinental, Canadian Living has a circulation of just over half a million.  Editor-in-Chief is Susan Antonacci, santonacci@canadianliving.com.

More Magazine Wagers on Beauty More Than Brains

MORE chose actress Lauren Graham as their cover girl, errrrr woman, to usher in their redesigned March issue.

Does the “Gilmore Girls” actress epitomize “a woman of substance?”

That’s the look the new More seeks, according to their new tagline: “For Women of Style and Substance.”  Editor-in-Chief Lesley Jane Seymour said, “the tagline speaks exactly to who our reader is: A woman interested in substantive issues of politics, work, money and health, who also wants to look great.”

But it seems, ‘looks great’ is really the magazine’s focus for the 40-50 year old female target audience, since fully 26% of the editorial space will be devoted to fashion and beauty.  Health fills 17%, followed closely by culture and entertainment at 15%.  Food and home rank neck and neck with national and world affairs at 11% and 10%, respectively.  Career and finance will fill 9% of the editorial space just ahead of relationships and travel, which get the merest nod at 6% each.

As of February 2010, the rate base will be 1,300,000, which is up 100,000 from a year ago.  According to these numbers, women of a certain age apparently continue to support their favorite print magazine.

Redwood Communications Re-brands Itself

Canadian custom publisher Redwood Communications has rebranded itself as Totem Communications Group.  The company started the name search one year ago and the switch has been a gradual process.

“We didn’t want to lose any of the equity that comes from building up your brand and reputation so we have been doing the switchover gradually, first with Evolution Redwood.  We’ve planned events and done press releases to keep the market informed about the change so the market knows the new name,” said Joseph Barbieri, SVP Marketing and Business Development at Totem in an interview with Wooden Horse.

The Toronto-based company produces custom publications and media programs for a number of national and international clients such as Procter & Gamble, The Home Depot, Canadian Automobile Association, Frito-Lay, Sears, Sobeys, Mazda International, and Aeroplan.

Totem Communications hopes to push the envelope with custom publishing by fostering “marketing journalistm” and “brand stories.”

“Brand stories are a chance for us to put the best practices of journalism with a marketing overlay.  It’s still about the content but we are going to use those elements found in traditional journalism, such as fact-checking, interviews and telling a story, and combine them with a transparent marketing overlay.  This is something not often found in traditional publishing and media, since the two are usually mixed.  This is not critical journalism but more lifestyle journalism,” said Barbieri.

Totem also plans to use social media to engage their readers and encourage them to carry on more conversation about the products and people they have recently been introduced to.  Barbieri also said digital magazine will have an important role to play.

In 2008, the company was bought by media mogul Transcontinental.  For more information, contact Joseph Barbieri, joseph.barbieri@redwoodcc.com, Toronto: 416-847-8548, New York: 212-896-3849

Celebrity Magazine Restyles As a Health and Beauty Publication

IMAGE CHICAGO has been acquired by the Invicta Group, which will revamp the magazine to focus a larger portion on health and beauty and tie in the medical community, especially those involved with the Water Tower Surgery Center, an Invicta client.  The magazine will still cover celebrities and fashion but will expand its coverage and distribution to include more of the health and beauty industries.

Invicta Group’s CEO Paul Sorkin said, “IMAGE is a perfect fit for the Water Tower Surgery Center.  A person’s health and beauty help define their IMAGE and we couldn’t think of a better way to help doctors showcase and market their IMAGE in print, online, and at events.”

The new magazine will be released in early December and will include some expanded editorial along with some additional relevant strategic distribution.