Nine years ago Aidan Anderson had an idea to create an Instagram page.
He was working as a chippie and a furniture maker. He started posting photos of his own work. He also started sharing images of what he thought were inspirational design and interiors images, celebrating local designers and architects.
It started to get popular. That Instagram account now has 1.5m followers. Anderson employs 60 people in his company.
The name of the business Anderson founded and runs as chief executive officer is The Local Project.
“My mates used to give me a bit of stick about the inspirational stuff getting 20 likes and my stuff getting only get two likes,” Anderson told Mediaweek about his early adventures on social media.
Aidan Anderson
“So I just followed the path of celebrating other people and interviewing architects and creatives.” He started talking through the process of how they worked. “I accidentally created a bit of a beast of a business that celebrates people in the design industry and their work.”
So where did the name come from? “My furniture business name was called The Local,” explained Anderson. “It just happened to beautifully fall in line with what we do in celebrating local projects.”
The start in social media saw Anderson later branch out into other mediums.
The Local Project has a big presence in print where it produces magazines and books. Those print poducts are bursting with photo shoots of impressive properties. Anderson’s team also film many of those properties.
That footage is shared across the social accounts, but also YouTube. The Local Project YouTube channel is also a runaway hit with close to 1.2m subscribers.
Print Projects
The Local Project produces four titles a year – the regular editions and then an annual special. There are three magazines and a hardcover book. They are hefty productions with hefty price tags.
The magazines each run to a combined 600 hundred pages with a cover price of $45. The limited editions books sell for as much as $200.
There is plenty of demand for them too.
“We sell in high-end boutiques across Australia and now the US, UK and all throughout Europe and New Zealand.
“We also have a print script subscription model as well for our magazines. We use our digital channels to push subscriptions and they are increasing at a rapid rate.”
Although the magazines cost a lot, the cost of printing so many pages, and then posting them out, doesn’t leave much of a profit, Anderson admitted. The books are a better contributor to the bottom line.
“Australia Post licks its lips when they see us,” he grinned. “It literally costs more to send the things out than it does to print them.”
There has been a global resurgence for high end, niche magazines and they find retail outlets in a variety of stores globally including specialist newsagents.
As The Local Project audience grew, so did the staff numbers to satisfy the appetite.
I asked twice to make sure I heard correctly when Anderson told Mediaweek he employs 60 people.
“It’s a big team, but we need them to write the articles for the magazines and books. On the production side of the business creating all our video and putting it across the various channels takes a lot of people. And we are still growing.
David Meagher with Aidan Anderson
Hiring a publishing specialist
Content being covered by The Local Project is broadening, explained Anderson.
“It’s a nice little mix now of lifestyle, which David Meagher has come in and introduced to our audience.”
David Meagher is the former editor of The Australian’s monthly lifestyle glossy magazine Wish. He is now The Local Project’s managing editor.
“Content we now cover includes the latest cars, fashion, design, jewellery and more. We make trips to Milan with architects and do other special things.
“Because our audience is getting so big we realised that they have a need for more lifestyle content.
“We also obviously still cover beautiful homes and also beautiful restaurants and hospitality venues. Even some commercial and education buildings.
“But at its core, The Local Project is a mix of lifestyle and beautiful homes and projects.”
Build it and they will come
Along with more readers, advertisers have been lining up too.
“Hermes is a big client of ours and lot of appliance brands and building material companies,” said Anderson.
“Also now high-end luxury car brands like Range Rover through to upscale retailer Bottega Veneta. A lot of these brands are realising how the same people spending millions of dollars on their home are buying our luxury lifestyle products as well.”
Inside a Local Project magazine
“We print 15,000 copies per issue,” said Anderson. Each edition really has three magazines in it. There’s The Local Project, which is 350 pages There’s The Commercial Project, which is 150. And then The Local Marketplace, which is 150 pages. It’s really a 600-page magazine of all three of them.”
The Local Project is still owned by Anderson alone. He enjoys the work which shines through in the product.
“I just love meeting people – interviewing and talking to architects and designers and capturing and showcasing their work.”