Much like the revitalised magazine sector, Mediaweek has dusted off the Magazine Rack column – the once-regular feature that covers a new launch or a magazine milestone.
We’ve neglected a few launches in recent years and maybe even more milestones. It’s time to right the wrong, and we start off with this ambitious relaunch from Are Media.
Title: Elle Australia
Cover price: $12.99
Edition: March 2024, 246 pages
Value: It feels good to hold, is heavy, and is very glossy.
Editor: Grace O’Neill
Publisher: Are Media. CEO: Jane Huxley.
GM Fashion & Beauty: Nicky Briger
National Brand Manager: Melanie Savvidis
Ad pages: 38 – maybe. Didn’t count the house ad. Counted each gatefold page separately. Some pages are hard to tell if it’s editorial or advertisement. No page rate online at Are Media.
Ahead of the issue’s launch, Briger told Mediaweek that the pages were printed on “really extraordinary paper stock, which we’ve sourced from Germany.”
See Also: Are magazines back? The ELLE Australia relaunch team on the global magazine revival
Cover: Sophie Wilde on cover plus 13 (!) pages inside.
Photos: Jordan Malane.
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Cover lines: 10. Best – “We’re back, baby!”
Questions posed inside we answered immediately: Do you need an authenticity coach? Are influencers the new public intellectuals?
Editor’s letter: Medium length (500 words) with interesting tale about how O’Neill was at a Paris fashion show when she first head about the planned Elle re-launch. O’Neill also met Sophie Wilde that day and thought she would be the first cover if she got the editor’s job.
Giveaways: No major reader competition we could find. This stuff costs too much to give it away. Items on Elle shopping spread ranged from $89 to $3,680. There are a generous collection of discount codes on the Elle Australia website.
Elle subscription offer: Couldn’t find one, probably because there are just two editions this year. There were offers for marie claire, belle and Gourmet Traveller. Are Media’s online store, Magshop, doesn’t have Elle listed. iSubscribe doesn’t have it either, although it does sell international editions. Elle Australia is available on the Readly app though which you need to have if you want to get serious about magazines.
Socials: Using Instagram and Facebook as key platforms for engaging with audiences, it seems.
Facebook: 746,000 followers
Instagram: 304,000 followers and only 16 posts
TikTok: 12,800 followers
Summary: Are Media has pulled off an impressive first edition of the relaunch. Now they have a copy to show potential advertisers, and it might be easier to convince some of the holdbacks that this is a real deal. The hard bit: producing this much quality again… but they have time on their side.