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The Clever Root: A Magazine That Brings The Cannabis Plant Back To Its Roots With Fruits, Flowers & Farms For A “Clever” Audience – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Publisher/Editorial Director, Meridith May

December 9, 2015

“People want something beautiful in their hands, I see it over and over. And again, the requests we were getting, even before the first issue came out with all the buzz we received, but after the second issue, and no pun intended on the buzz (Laughs), after that issue did come out the requests have been in the thousands every week.” Meridith May

Clever Root-3 A farm-to-table food magazine with a unique twist; The Clever Root combines everything that grows, including the cannabis plant, to create a singular reading experience that is showcased in a beautifully done print magazine. It focuses on ingredients, chefs, ranchers and growers and brings the farm-to-table movement to life in new ways that both enlighten and entertain.

Meridith May is the captain at the helm of this new endeavor. As both publisher and editorial director, Meridith has a strong and steady hand on the wheel of her new ship as she not only guides The Clever Root, but also her other two vessels, Somm Journal, which summarizes consumer, restaurant, and wine trends and news for wine professionals, and The Tasting Panel, a widely circulated trade publication for the beverage industry.

I spoke with Meridith recently and we talked about The Clever Root and how it brings an industry-insider’s look at food, the trends and tools of the trade, and the different ingredients that are used, and how the magazine takes a “clever” twist to include an intelligent look at the booming cannabis industry.

All in all, The Clever Root is an astute and savvy magazine that is smartly-done and highly informative and entertaining. Just like the woman who guides it.

So, sit back, pour yourself a glass of wine and get ready to embark on a journey back to your “Clever Roots,” the ones that connect you to Mother Earth and all things that grow. And now the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Meridith May, Editorial Director and Publisher, The Clever Root.

But first, the sound-bites:


Meridith May On the genesis of The Clever Root and the “leaf” aspect of the magazine: It all started when I received a call from the Department of Agriculture and the State Board of Equalization in California. The first thought I had when I got the call from the State Board was: uh-oh, do I owe back taxes? (Laughs) But apparently, they were getting the other magazines that we do, The Somm Journal and the Tasting Panel. And they liked the magazines and they asked me would I ever be interested in producing a magazine about marijuana and the cannabis industry. And this was the government calling. (Laughs) And I said no; I don’t really have any ties to that side of it, but I’m flattered.

On the name The Clever Root: First, we were going to call it Grow and I called my trademark attorney and she said no. Please don’t do that. We thought of Something with a Leaf, no not that either. What I learned was you really have to have a name that no one else has and something clever. OK – The Clever Root. The name was that simple.

On why she felt the magazine needed to be a print publication: That’s a great question. The Tasting Panel keeps growing and growing and after seven years we really feel like it reaches all of the important people in the industry throughout the U.S. And they want that print publication; those requests keep coming in every single day. So I thought, people want something beautiful in their hands, I see it over and over. And again, the requests we were getting, even before the first issue came out with all the buzz we received, but after the second issue, and no pun intended on the buzz (Laughs), after that issue did come out the requests have been in the thousands every week.

On the uniqueness of The Clever Root: Again, it’s not food, it’s everything that grows: fruit, flower, farm and leaf. Whether it’s animal, vegetable or mineral, in the case of salt; it’s really everything that’s consumed and grown and raised and about how it relates to the working, professional chef.

On any stumbling blocks she had to face with the magazine: We really didn’t face any stumbling blocks and yes, the stars were aligned; the right people were in the right place to pull me up and mentor me on the cannabis side, so I would have enough seed money, again no pun intended, to get this off the ground.

On her major source of revenue besides advertising: My major income for all of the magazines is sponsorships and events. There are so many different things that we’re involved in with our clients, which is the wine industry for Somm Journal and the spirits side for The Tasting Panel.

On how she started in the publishing industry: I started in media in 1977 when I began working at KISS FM radio in Los Angeles and I was VP of marketing after a few years in my 20s and I saw that I was quite ambitious, but I loved being in the media. So I stayed in radio for a while; started a little radio show about food and wine; started writing about food and wine for the Santa Barbara News Press and then was hired as editor for Patterson’s Beverage Journal, which was similar to the bible 20 years ago. Eventually, I was contracted to run Patterson’s and later on I bought the name from the owner and killed it and turned it into The Tasting Panel.

On whether everything in the magazine is sampled and taste-tested: On no, it’s not a recipe magazine. Each individual writer who goes out and meets with the chefs; they might taste the food and sip, but I personally don’t. We also have a section called the Clever Marketplace where people send in samples of everything from pickles to coffee to ice cream and that’s sampled by our Clever Pantry editor. Everybody has their own experience and that’s pretty much the same way with our other magazines.

On what she might be doing at any given moment when she’s at home: I’m probably spending time with my dog, my Border collie; either walking her or just being with her. But at home when I’m relaxing; yes, I’m on my iPad, watching some great new Netflix series with my husband.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the mornings: The stress of the new day; an exciting stress, but again coming to the office, overseeing the three magazines and having a great, wonderful team who are responsible for so much.
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On her favorite magazine out of the three she captains: I think Somm Journal is my pride and joy because it’s 100% mine and Clever Root is also mine, but I do have a partnership with several people, but I’m proud of it, very proud of it.

On what advice she would give to someone who had an idea for a new magazine: I would tell them that they better have some backup money to get it, not only off the ground, but to even know who your audience is. To make sure you continue to get that support, because having a niche publication is one thing, but having a consumer magazine where you’re depending on anything from watches to car money; I mean, good luck.

On whether there are any other magazine ideas in the hopper: No, but if somebody called and really could support it and wanted to do a shoe magazine (Laughs), I could give free samples. No seriously, I’m done. I’m pretty sure I’m done. We also create catalogs for Southern Wine & Spirits, which is a major distributor in the U.S. for California and soon Illinois.

On anything else she’d like to add: No, I just appreciate in advance that you use your magic for magazines, because I do get your emails and I do enjoy reading them and everything that you write about. I hope that you do your magic with The Clever Root and get the word out.


On what keeps her up at night: Worrying about feeding my employees and making payroll, of course. It’s always about being responsible to the people around me and never letting anyone down. That would hurt me the most; letting my team down.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Editorial Director, Publisher, Meridith May, The Clever Root.

Samir Husni: I’ve read a lot about The Clever Root even before it was first published and everyone was billing it as a “farm-to-table” type publication. Yet, when I looked at the cover and I saw the tagline “fruit, flower, farm, leaf,” I knew there was more there than just “farm-to-table.” Tell me a little bit about the name; the combination of the three F’s and the L. What is the genesis of the magazine and the “leaf” aspect of The Clever Root?

Picture 15 Meridith May: It all started when I received a call from the Department of Agriculture and the State Board of Equalization in California. The first thought I had when I got the call from the State Board was: uh-oh, do I owe back taxes? (Laughs) But apparently, they were getting the other magazines that we do, The Somm Journal and the Tasting Panel. I’ve owned the Tasting Panel with Anthony Dias Blue since 2007 and I bought and relaunched The Somm Journal two years ago, which was the Sommelier Journal, and has been rebranded as The Somm Journal.

And they liked the magazines and they asked me would I ever be interested in producing a magazine about marijuana and the cannabis industry. And this was the government calling. (Laughs) And I said no; I don’t really have any ties to that side of it, but I’m flattered.

A couple of weeks later a colleague of mine who had left the wine and spirits industry and went into the cannabis industry as a distributor asked me: hey, have you ever thought of doing a cannabis magazine?

Well, the coincidences were just too much and I put the government together with my friend and I said the magazine would have to be food-focused. We have a wine and spirits publication, the Tasting Panel, which has a broad market, we have a geeky wine trade publication, The Somm Journal; I need to have a trade publication for chefs, and for people who are supplying chefs with ingredients. So, why don’t I have a magazine about everything that grows, including cannabis? And that’s how The Clever Root was born.

I really didn’t have that much on the cannabis side, so using the contacts from the government; we created The Ganjier and the stories about terroir and the selection for cannabis because the government really does want this to pass in California, but we’re a national magazine, so I reached out to the Colorado Cannabis Chamber and I reached out to Washington State and several other regions.

Meanwhile, back to the chefs; Food Arts magazine went out of business, as you know, about a year ago, and there were a couple of other publications for chefs that didn’t quite make it, so I thought there was a need for it, to bring them back into the spotlight. And to tie in everything that grows, unique ingredients, wild Alaskan salmon fishing; stories on salt, pigs, chickens, whatever, everything that grows and how it fits into the restaurant industry.

Samir Husni: How did you come up with the name, The Clever Root?

Meridith May: First, we were going to call it Grow and I called my trademark attorney and she said no. Please don’t do that. We thought of Something with a Leaf, no not that either. What I learned was you really have to have a name that no one else has and something clever. OK – The Clever Root. The name was that simple. My managing editor and I tossed a bunch of names together on the board and we just liked that one.

Samir Husni: I noticed from the magazine that you have an editor and then you have a cannabis editor.

Meridith May: Yes. The cannabis editor is specialized. I was pleased that we had a great team for both sides.

Samir Husni: We live in a digital age certainly; why did you feel that you needed The Clever Root to be a printed magazine?

Picture 16 Meridith May: That’s a great question. The Tasting Panel keeps growing and growing and after seven years we really feel like it reaches all of the important people in the industry throughout the U.S. And they want that print publication; those requests keep coming in every single day. With the Somm Journal we’ve quadrupled our circulation again, through these requests from the most important people in the wine industry; people who wouldn’t even think about subscribing to The Tasting Panel are subscribing to the Somm Journal because they think it’s important and that makes me feel so good.

So I thought, people want something beautiful in their hands, I see it over and over. And again, the requests we were getting, even before the first issue came out with all the buzz we received, but after the second issue, and no pun intended on the buzz (Laughs), after that issue did come out the requests have been in the thousands every week.

Samir Husni: I think in this year alone, this is the fourth cannabis magazine to come out, but I like the unique identity of The Clever Root. There’s MG (Marijuana Grower), also from California, and there’s Marijuana Venture…

Meridith May: Yes, those are business magazines.

Samir Husni: Yes, those are business magazines and that’s what I love about The Clever Root; its uniqueness. You’re more of a food magazine that happens to also delve into the world of cannabis cooking and cannabis in general.

Meridith May: Again, it’s not food, it’s everything that grows: fruit, flower, farm and leaf. Whether it’s animal, vegetable or mineral, in the case of salt; it’s really everything that’s consumed and grown and raised and about how it relates to the working, professional chef.

Samir Husni: So, were the stars aligned perfectly during this endeavor and it was smooth sailing all the way, or were there some stumbling blocks you had to face and overcome?

Meridith May: We really didn’t face any stumbling blocks and yes, the stars were aligned; the right people were in the right place to pull me up and mentor me on the cannabis side, so I would have enough seed money, again no pun intended, to get this off the ground. Now, there’s no more seed money left and it’s my job with my team to raise enough money to keep this magazine alive through advertising because it’s free to the trade, it’s $36 per year for subscription for the non-hospitality trade consumer and we’re getting a lot of the subscription cards back for paid subscriptions as well. The only stumbling block now is making enough money to keep the printer happy.

Samir Husni: Now that you have three magazines under your belt; besides advertising, what is your major revenue source?

Meridith May: My major income for all of the magazines is sponsorships and events. For the Somm Journal we put on Somm camps all over the world, where we bring in Sommeliers; we just brought a group to Champaign; we brought a group to Napa and then on to Washington State. We’re going to be doing Oregon next year and British Columbia. So that brings in money.

We sponsor events such as SommCon, which is a big Somm conference, and also at the Culinary Institute; we work with them on events. We also produce the International Chardonnay Symposium. There are so many different things that we’re involved in with our clients, which is the wine industry for Somm Journal and the spirits side for The Tasting Panel. We put on spirits competitions and we create unique experiences for mixologists and that brings in our extra money.

Samir Husni: You wear both hats of publisher and editorial director; how did you end up in this industry?

Meridith May: I started in media in 1977 when I began working at KISS FM radio in Los Angeles and I was VP of marketing after a few years in my 20s and I saw that I was quite ambitious, but I loved being in the media. So I stayed in radio for a while; started a little radio show about food and wine; started writing about food and wine for the Santa Barbara News Press and then was hired as editor for Patterson’s Beverage Journal, which was similar to the bible 20 years ago. Eventually, I was contracted to run Patterson’s and later on I bought the name from the owner and killed it and turned it into The Tasting Panel.

So I was always writing about things and that was my editor’s side and then when I realized how much fun it was to actually run a business, to bring the money in as publisher; now I kind of oversee the editorial team as well as the entire business. I’m not writing as much anymore.

Samir Husni: I noticed that there wasn’t an introduction letter in the magazine, but rather there was a letter about both the Clever audience that you’re trying to reach…

Meridith May: And a letter from our Managing Editor, Karen Moneymaker and she is the soul behind the magazine. She is my teammate when it comes to making the pages come alive and working with the designer. She helps me assign stories and come up with articles, so I prefer that she be the voice and the face of the magazine at this point. I’m sort of the executive producer.

Samir Husni: (Laughs) I was going to say that you’re the cornerstone.

Meridith May: (Laughs too)

Samir Husni: Do you test everything, all the articles and the recipes?

Meridith May: On no, it’s not a recipe magazine. Each individual writer who goes out and meets with the chefs; they might taste the food and sip, but I personally don’t. We also have a section called the Clever Marketplace where people send in samples of everything from pickles to coffee to ice cream and that’s sampled by our Clever Pantry editor. Everybody has their own experience and that’s pretty much the same way with our other magazines. Whoever is meeting with the winemaker or the master distiller is having that experience in tasting.

Samir Husni: Does that include trying the cannabis samples?

Meridith May: Well, you can’t help but say when in Rome…

Samir Husni: (Laughs)

Meridith May: It’s Humboldt County, you can’t help but sample when you’re sniffing and smelling.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your house; what would I find you doing? Reading your iPad; reading a magazine; watching television with a glass of wine in your hand?

Meridith May: I’m probably spending time with my dog, my Border collie; either walking her or just being with her. But at home when I’m relaxing; yes, I’m on my iPad, watching some great new Netflix series with my husband.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed every morning?

Meridith May: The stress of the new day; an exciting stress, but again coming to the office, overseeing the three magazines and having a great, wonderful team who are responsible for so much. I don’t get to see the little details anymore, which is sad. I guess, just making sure that the engine is running.

Samir Husni: Out of the three magazines, do you have a favorite? Is the baby the favorite now because it’s still in its infancy?

Meridith May: No, I think Somm Journal is my pride and joy because it’s 100% mine and Clever Root is also mine, but I do have a partnership with several people, but I’m proud of it, very proud of it.

But Somm Journal is just gaining ground and growing so fast; I’ve never seen anything like it with Tasting Panel. And I hope Clever Root grows that way, the support is there so I’m going to keep nurturing it.

Samir Husni: And what advice would you give to someone who came to you and said: Meridith, you do three magazines; you’ve been an advocate for print in this digital age; you do a lot of events; I have an idea for a magazine? What would you say to them?

Meridith May: I would tell them that they better have some backup money to get it, not only off the ground, but to even know who your audience is. To make sure you continue to get that support, because having a niche publication is one thing, but having a consumer magazine where you’re depending on anything from watches to car money; I mean, good luck. The competition is fierce out there, so you really need to have somebody in place that can get money for you.

Samir Husni: Are there any other magazine ideas in the hopper?

Meridith May: No, but if somebody called and really could support it and wanted to do a shoe magazine (Laughs), I could give free samples. No seriously, I’m done. I’m pretty sure I’m done. We also create catalogs for Southern Wine & Spirits, which is a major distributor in the U.S. for California and soon Illinois. So, these catalogs are my coffee table books. That’s really our other company is the custom publishing.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Meridith May: No, I just appreciate in advance that you use your magic for magazines, because I do get your emails and I do enjoy reading them and everything that you write about. I hope that you do your magic with The Clever Root and get the word out.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Meridith May: Worrying about feeding my employees and making payroll, of course. It’s always about being responsible to the people around me and never letting anyone down. That would hurt me the most; letting my team down.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | 1 Comment »

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Glamour: A Legacy Brand That Celebrates The Beauty & Power of Print And The Innovation Of Digital With A Captain-At-The-Helm Who Knows How To Navigate From Its Past To Its Future – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Editor-In-Chief, Cindi Leive

December 7, 2015

“I think that print has the ability to commemorate a moment. I think it was a top executive at ESPN Magazine years ago who was talking about being at Tiger Woods’ house and he went down into his basement and there alongside all of his major trophies, he had framed his first cover of ESPN Magazine. And his first cover of Sports Illustrated. And that’s something that magazines can do; they can commemorate a moment in time and they do convey, when done right, a sort of importance.” Cindi Leive

January 2016 cover of Glamour. Photo by Steven Pan.

January 2016 cover of Glamour. Photo by Steven Pan.

From the “Glamour Woman of the Year Awards” to the latest in fashion, style, beauty and trends; Glamour has been one of the leading authorities in women’s general interest magazines for over 70 years. Legacy and longevity, with no signs of slowing down; the magazine is just as relevant and important today to the social and personal highlights of women’s lives as it was all those years ago when it was first introduced to readers.

Cindi Leive has been editor-in-chief of Glamour for the last 15 years and knows the intricacies of her brand better than most. She is a confident and stalwart believer in the magazine’s content-driven purpose and its readership. From her very first beginnings with Glamour to her stay at Self Magazine and then her ultimate return to Glamour as its editor-in-chief, Cindi revels in the magazine’s broad view of women’s lives, giving her the opportunity to connect with her readers on many levels of interest.

I spoke with Cindi recently and we talked about the magazine’s balance when it comes to age demographics and her ability to maintain that even keel with established readers and the new set that’s coming onboard every day. And how her role as editor-in-chief has changed over the years and what that means to the overall environment of the magazine and its team.

And I must confess, I also had to find out what keeps her up at night, since I interviewed her colleague and dear friend, Jill Herzig, (Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Oz The Good Life) the previous week and Jill answered the question: what kept her up at night with the answer – Cindi Leive. Well, of course, curiosity had to be satisfied. I’ll let you read Cindi’s response for yourself.

But despite my own ulterior motives, it was a most interesting and dynamic discussion with a woman who owns both of those adjectives herself completely. And one that I think defines the celebration of the printed word and its attributes with a beautifully-done magazine that has stood the test of time and is still going strong today.

I invite you to take a moment, sit down and enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Cindi Leive, Editor-In-Chief, Glamour Magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:

Cindi Leive (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Glamour)

Cindi Leive (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Glamour)


On how her role as editor-in-chief has changed over the last 15 years with Glamour: I think the most interesting thing is that constant change is the new norm. When digital first became a part of all of our lives, as former print editors, I think there was this idea that we were going from print to digital and all you had to do was build a bridge to the other side and then you’d be over there and everything would be fine.

On whether she believes in today’s magazine media world someone could graduate with an English degree and still work at a magazine: No, I think someone could do that. Honestly, I loved my Liberal Arts education, but I definitely felt like the most hands-on training I got was with working at magazines during the summers. And obviously, the skills are different now. I just hired a new assistant and I looked at not just her writing skills, but also her digital skills, her social skills and her deftness with video. Those are new things, but you’ve always had to get practical work experience alongside your college education.

On leaving Glamour and going to Self and then coming back to glamour as editor-in-chief: In some ways it was like coming home, but it was so much of a bigger job than the one I had had before that nothing felt comfortable or easy about it. I do remember that when I was editing Self, the focus was very much on getting down to brass tacks; this is a magazine about fitness, health, nutrition and the body. But people were constantly pitching us stories about other aspects of women’s lives: relationships, politics and their family lives. And they were very interesting stories, but I’d have to say we’re definitely not going to publish that, and I’d have to tell them to pitch it to Glamour. So, it was fun after that to be able to move to Glamour and have a much broader view of a woman’s life: fashion and beauty, in addition to their social and personal lives.

On how she manages that audience balance of college-aged women and an older demographic with Glamour: If you think about that college reader and then think about a woman who might be twenty years older than her; first of all, women share a lot of things now. For example, fashion tastes are not, if you look at what a college student is wearing, very different. It’s often quite similar to what a woman 20 years her senior might wear. A woman who’s 40 no longer has the same kind of ridiculously old-fashioned parameters around what she should or shouldn’t wear or do beauty-wise or anything else, as she might have had 10 or 20 years ago. And I do think that many more things are shared now than they used to be.

On how she’s managed to guide a ship the size of Glamour through the transitions of today without upsetting established readers, while simultaneously adhering to new trends to attract new readers as well: Some of it you do by trial and error; some of it is I think that I genuinely like our broad readership. I grew up in Virginia and while I love New York and love living here, I do make it a point to get out of the New York bubble whenever I can. We’re very careful to make sure that our editors come from a variety of different backgrounds and really mirror our readership.

On whether her job today is easier or tougher than it used to be: I wouldn’t say that my job has gotten easier. I think anyone in the magazine industry who has told you that might be indulging in mind-altering substances. (Laughs again) I definitely think it’s a tougher business than it was five or ten years ago. You’d have to have your brain turned off not to say that. But it is a lot more fun. I learn something new every single day. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been in the industry for two decades; I feel like I started a year ago and I’m kind of the new girl because that’s how all of this change makes you feel.

On how she deals with controversy, such as the backlash about Caitlyn Jenner being chosen as one of Glamour’s Women of the Year, in this digital age where responses can be immediate: First of all, there’s a controversy every day, so you can’t get too rattled by it. Whatever the epic thunderstorm is that’s happening around you right now, tomorrow it’ll be around somebody else, so I don’t think that you can edit well if you’re constantly paying attention to that. Obviously, you need to know what people are talking about, especially if they’re in your audience and then you can decide whether to respond. But you can’t get rattled to your core. The news cycle now is so incredibly and sometimes, horrifically short. For better or worse, everybody will be onto something else in a matter of minutes.

On any words of wisdom, as a former ASME president, she would offer her colleagues about magazines and the magazine industry: I do think the magazines that will survive will be the ones with strong points of view, whether it’s stated political points of view or points of view meaning particular journalistic values that they endorse. Or you’re a magazine that really cares about and celebrates incredible photography, one that really champions and gives great real estate to beautiful writing or do you have a really strong point of view.

On what role she thinks print plays in this digital age: I think that print has the ability to commemorate a moment. I think it was a top executive at ESPN Magazine years ago who was talking about being at Tiger Woods’ house and he went down into his basement and there alongside all of his major trophies, he had framed his first cover of ESPN Magazine. And his first cover of Sports Illustrated. And that’s something that magazines can do; they can commemorate a moment in time and they do convey, when done right, a sort of importance. I just think that no magazine editor can rest on their laurels about that.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly at her house: It depends. It definitely could be a magazine. Usually for me it’s not my iPad, unless I’m reading a book or watching a movie. It is quite often though my phone. My phone is the thing that I am most frequently not without and that’s true for our readers as well. We’ve had incredible audience growth on Glamour.com and in all of our social platforms the bulk of that now is on mobile.

On anything else that she’d like to add: With our digital platforms, video has been growing nicely for us. We have 18 million video views per month now. I’m proud that it’s been a really strong year for us. We’ve taken from franchises that have been around for a while at Glamour, and about which we are very proud, and we reinvented them for what our audience wants now. We grew the social media footprint of Glamour Women of the Year in a really remarkable way so that we have a 30% increase in media impressions this year over last year.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the morning: There’s that moment when you get to see something go out into the world; something that your team has created and worked on and then you get the audience feedback, which I still get a rush from. In the old days, as my staff could tell you as they roll their eyes, I used to delight in reading reader’s letters and emails aloud to the team because that’s why we’re all doing this, to connect with that reader, whether she’s in L.A. or Des Moines or wherever she’s reading the magazine.

On what keeps her up at night: Everything. I am a total insomniac. (Laughs) One of the things that keep me up a lot at night is talent. I think we’re constantly redefining what talent is and so I’m constantly thinking about how we can make sure that we’re making Glamour the place to work for the best and brightest people across all of these different platforms.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Cindi Leive, Editor-In-Chief, Glamour Magazine.

Samir Husni: You are approaching your 15th year as editor-in-chief at Glamour and a lot has changed when it comes to the role of an editor-in-chief, and with the industry as a whole. Can you briefly describe those changes that you’ve experienced as editor-in-chief of a major magazine over the years?

Cindi Leive: I think the most interesting thing is that constant change is the new norm. When digital first became a part of all of our lives, as former print editors, I think there was this idea that we were going from print to digital and all you had to do was build a bridge to the other side and then you’d be over there and everything would be fine.

But what’s happened is it’s a much more fundamental shift than that. It’s a shift that’s not from print to digital, but from status quo to constant change. At first it was about how do we get our websites up to par and how do we grow our audiences there, but wait a second, we shouldn’t just be doing that, we should also be developing great content on all of these social platforms and we should be doing video.

We should also be doing apps; I just saw a presentation this morning about how people now largely ignore most of the apps they have and the new way that you’re really going to reach them is through notifications on their notification screens, so you should think about the content that you’re actually delivering through those notifications. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: (Laughs too).

Cindi Leive: The old way of thinking, it wasn’t that it was just print; it was that this was an industry that had kind of existed one way for a really long time, maybe too long. And now we’re in a period where it’s not that you just needed to learn one new set of skills and then you could put your feet up on your desk and everything would be fine. It’s now that you’re constantly learning new skills and the second you master whatever the platform du jour is, a new one comes along.

And that means not only do you need the people on your team, who have the right skills to get you onto those platforms, thinking this new way, it also means that you need a totally different way of thinking about what you do too. So, whatever you’re doing right now, you’re going to be doing it fairly differently in a year or two.

Samir Husni: Do you think somebody today could actually major in English and minor in Religion and after graduation work as an assistant editor at a magazine, or has that level of skills changed as well?

Cindi Leive: No, I think someone could do that. Honestly, I loved my Liberal Arts education, but I definitely felt like the most hands-on training I got was with working at magazines during the summers. And obviously, the skills are different now. I just hired a new assistant and I looked at not just her writing skills, but also her digital skills, her social skills and her deftness with video. Those are new things, but you’ve always had to get practical work experience alongside your college education.

I do think that the great original thought and terrific writing are, if anything, more important, contrary to popular wisdom, which is that we’re turning into a bunch of knuckle-dragging droolers who don’t read. Actually, people read quite a bit. And it may be that some of the things they’re reading are very short, from a headline to a Tweet; long-form has its own aficionados and some people say it’s also growing online, but whatever it is, writing skills are crucially important.

And that’s true, by the way, in all parts of business. A lot of business used to get conducted by people talking on the phone, now most everything is written and if you can’t nail your point in good, clear, crisp, concise writing with a voice, you’re in trouble. And that’s true whether you want to go into media or medicine.

Samir Husni: I tell my students constantly, and I took it from an editor in the U.K. where she wrote: typing is the new talking. It’s exactly as you’re saying.

Cindi Leive: Yes.

Samir Husni: You started at Glamour and then you left and went to Self and then you came back to Glamour as editor-in-chief. Can you go back to 2001 when you were offered the job of editor-in-chief and tell me, was it like coming home? Or what was your feeling moving from Self back to Glamour since Glamour was your first paying job?

Cindi Leive: In some ways it was like coming home, but it was so much of a bigger job than the one I had had before that nothing felt comfortable or easy about it. I do remember that when I was editing Self, the focus was very much on getting down to brass tacks; this is a magazine about fitness, health, nutrition and the body. If I’m a woman buying this magazine, I want to know that it’s going to make my abs better, and didn’t mean to be a general interest magazine.

But people were constantly pitching us stories about other aspects of women’s lives: relationships, politics and their family lives. And they were very interesting stories, but I’d have to say we’re definitely not going to publish that, and I’d have to tell them to pitch it to Glamour. So, it was fun after that to be able to move to Glamour and have a much broader view of a woman’s life: fashion and beauty, in addition to their social and personal lives. It was really a 360 degree view, so that was definitely gratifying.

I did feel like I knew on a gut-level what the brand needed to be and should be and I had an appreciation of who the readers were, so that made parts of the job easier. I don’t think I was stressed about what the content should be, but at the same time I was running a much bigger team than I had before and with a much bigger budget. And my boss liked to tell me every time I ran into him in the hall: as Glamour goes, so goes the company. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: (Laughs too).

Cindi Leive: So, that was new. In some ways, it was like coming home, but it certainly wasn’t cushy.

Samir Husni: Glamour has managed to keep its connectivity to college-aged women and at the same time grow up with that college-aged woman. It’s not like once you graduate from college you leave Glamour. How did you manage that balance and have Glamour graduate with your reader, yet remain with the university-aged female as well?

Cindi Leive: I think it’s a couple of things. If you think about that college reader and then think about a woman who might be twenty years older than her; first of all, women share a lot of things now. For example, fashion tastes are not, if you look at what a college student is wearing, very different. It’s often quite similar to what a woman 20 years her senior might wear. A woman who’s 40 no longer has the same kind of ridiculously old-fashioned parameters around what she should or shouldn’t wear or do beauty-wise or anything else, as she might have had 10 or 20 years ago. And I do think that many more things are shared now than they used to be.

And other than that, I think that Glamour has benefited from a lot of big social phenomenon like this whole phenomenon we’re seeing now with college-aged women; women in their twenties, being incredibly close to their mothers. They share everything and they’re much more likely to talk on the phone every day, rather than the way a woman in her 40s might have grown up, separating herself from her mother. Her mother wasn’t as likely to have worked or had a career; even if you loved your mother dearly, you didn’t necessarily want to model your life after hers.

And I think a lot of what we are seeing now is that a lot of young women feel that they’re mothers are their role models. So, there is this generational closeness that exists psychologically that allows a magazine to talk to women of a lot of different ages.

And on a very practical level, we’re very careful, if you look at the print magazine or the website or our video content, to make sure that there are things that speak to women at a lot of different life stages. The thing that is the absolute favorite video series or favorite column of a 21-year-old might not be the same as a 40-year-old. But I do think we’ve sort of benefited from this social phenomenon of compression between ages.

A lot of women in their late 30s are addicted to Snapchat and they got on it because their 13-year-old daughters were on it and so you see this phenomenon of pop culture obsessions, media habits, fashion trends and beauty practices being spread and shared among women of different ages.

Samir Husni: And how easy was that phenomenon transition for you? You’re not an editor of a magazine with a hundred thousand in circulation or a half million; it’s a big, mass general interest magazine, with over two million plus. How were you able to maneuver that ship without scaring the established readers as you set a course to attract a new readership as well?

Cindi Leive: Some of it you do by trial and error; some of it is I think that I genuinely like our broad readership. I grew up in Virginia and while I love New York and love living here, I do make it a point to get out of the New York bubble whenever I can. We’re very careful to make sure that our editors come from a variety of different backgrounds and really mirror our readership.

And if you’re going to be a great editor at Glamour, you’re not just interested in talking to the chattering classes; you’re really interested in talking to American women of all different types, all political parties, and all viewpoints in cities and in small towns.

The good news is that so much of our culture is shared now that I think there’s a real sophistication among all women. There aren’t really any small towns anymore.

Samir Husni: Has your job today become easier or tougher?

Cindi Leive: (Laughs) I wouldn’t say that my job has gotten easier. I think anyone in the magazine industry who has told you that might be indulging in mind-altering substances. (Laughs again) I definitely think it’s a tougher business than it was five or ten years ago. You’d have to have your brain turned off not to say that.

But it is a lot more fun. I learn something new every single day. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been in the industry for two decades; I feel like I started a year ago and I’m kind of the new girl because that’s how all of this change makes you feel. I do think it’s incredibly exciting to be someplace where some dilemma or challenge or interesting problem or phenomenon is landing on your desk every day that you could not have imagined a year ago. And I think that’s the fun of it.

Some things do get easier, like it is an incredible pleasure now that you don’t have to wonder how your readership or your audience feels about different issues. You have the ability to post something or try something and get immediate feedback. The ramp-up to trying anything new in print was so glacially slow and epically long; you’d have to do templates, prototypes for print magazines and then any mistake you made was going to be preserved forever and now it’s just much easier to try things. Like if you want to have someone do a column for the magazine, you can try it online and see what people think.

It doesn’t mean that we aren’t incredibly careful and that we don’t preserve quality, but it is just so much easier to experiment and so much easier to talk to your readership all of the time.

One of the things that’s allowed us to build a strong social presence is that Glamour has always been very much by definition an inclusive brand; it was never the magazine that just existed behind glass to celebrate somebody else’s perfect way. It was always a magazine that intended to reach a hand out to the reader and say that we’re in this together and your voice is important too.

And now we can do that in a very real way all of the time via social media. We can write about how we made certain decisions and if somebody has a question about why we made a certain decision, they can write me a letter or post on my Instagram and I’ll respond to them and explain our thinking and I think that keeps us honest and it also helps us know what readers really think and believe and who they really are.

Samir Husni: Recently, during the 25th anniversary of Glamour’s Women of the Year, you had the controversy concerning Caitlyn Jenner being chosen as one of the Women of the Year and some people not approving. But you stuck to your guns and said that she was one of your choices and would remain so. In this day and age how does an editor deal with a controversial issue such as that, where you will definitely hear from people, positively or negatively, immediately?

Glamour December Cover. Photo Credit: Tom Munro.

Glamour December Cover. Photo by Tom Munro.

Cindi Leive: First of all, there’s a controversy every day, so you can’t get too rattled by it. Whatever the epic thunderstorm is that’s happening around you right now, tomorrow it’ll be around somebody else, so I don’t think that you can edit well if you’re constantly paying attention to that.

Obviously, you need to know what people are talking about, especially if they’re in your audience and then you can decide whether to respond. But you can’t get rattled to your core. The news cycle now is so incredibly and sometimes, horrifically short. For better or worse, everybody will be onto something else in a matter of minutes.

And I think it’s important in moments like that to think about how you really do feel about your decision. I’ve been in positions before where the magazine has received criticism over things that I thought were valid and I tried to be forthright and respond the other way, by telling them they had a point and I’d listened to the criticisms and here’s what I planned on doing about it.

In this particular case, I didn’t consider there to be anything especially controversial about naming Caitlyn Jenner a Woman of the Year. We’ve had 397 Women of the Year over the last 25 years and two of them have been transgender and that was a choice that I felt confident the majority of our readers, most of whom are women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, would support the rights of transgender people. I understand that these changes don’t happen overnight, some people are going to feel rattled by it, and most of them were not in our readership and were encouraged by special interest groups. You just can’t let yourself get rattled by it. To quote Tony Kushner, who I had quoted in a blog post I read about this: “The world only spins forward.” And our ideas about how people live and who is afforded the right of basic dignity change over time. And that’s a good thing.

I did not feel the least bit fundamentally concerned about it. I felt this was a decision that we believed in and we supported the rights of transgender Americans to be themselves and live their lives and that was that.

Samir Husni: You’re a former ASME president; what words of wisdom or encouragement do you give to your colleagues nationwide in terms of sticking to their guns, continuing to be creators and curators with credibility, as reflectors of our society, because I’m one of those people who believe that magazines are the best reflectors of our society?

Cindi Leive: I do think the magazines that will survive will be the ones with strong points of view, whether it’s stated political points of view or points of view meaning particular journalistic values that they endorse. Or you’re a magazine that really cares about and celebrates incredible photography, one that really champions and gives great real estate to beautiful writing or do you have a really strong point of view.

We’re very strongly pro-woman and I think that’s not accidental; it’s how we are. You have to stand for something these days because information itself is ubiquitous. I used to race home from junior high school on the days that I thought my Seventeen Magazine was going to be in my mailbox because it was my only window growing up in Virginia. It was my only window on what girls were thinking and doing and to me, most importantly, where around the country and in fact the world, they were doing it.

That’s not true anymore. Our readers have a million options, a million different ways she can get any information on the planet at any time and I think what’s going to make her loyal to a particular magazine is its lens on the world. What is the point of view? Is it energetic? Is it personal? Does it speak to her with a voice that’s different from what she’s getting everywhere else?

So, I do think that point of view is important and there are lots of different ways that you can have a point of view. But having some point of view is more important than it used to be.

Samir Husni: With all of the talk about the Vanity Fair cover with Caitlyn Jenner; nobody remembers that she appeared on ABC with Andrea Mitchell; the pixels on the screen disappeared in a few hours or a few days later. But with those magazine issues, people are still talking about the Vanity Fair covers; people are still talking about the Woman of the Year. In this digital age, what role do you think print still plays?

Cindi Leive: I don’t particularly consider myself a print editor anymore. If you looked at my calendar, I easily spend as much time every day on digital and video and online experiences; all of that. And in all of those areas, we try to think what we can do there that we can’t do anywhere else.

But I think that print has the ability to commemorate a moment. I think it was a top executive at ESPN Magazine years ago who was talking about being at Tiger Woods’ house and he went down into his basement and there alongside all of his major trophies, he had framed his first cover of ESPN Magazine. And his first cover of Sports Illustrated.

And that’s something that magazines can do; they can commemorate a moment in time and they do convey, when done right, a sort of importance. I just think that no magazine editor can rest on their laurels about that. Anybody who believes that just because they’re doing something in print, it’s more important, that’s an outdated way of thinking.

Samir Husni: If I show up at your house unexpectedly; what would I find you doing? Reading an iPad? Reading a magazine? Watching television?

Cindi Leive: It depends. It definitely could be a magazine. Usually for me it’s not my iPad, unless I’m reading a book or watching a movie. It is quite often though my phone. My phone is the thing that I am most frequently not without and that’s true for our readers as well. We’ve had incredible audience growth on Glamour.com and in all of our social platforms the bulk of that now is on mobile.

Our readers are most likely looking at our site and our content on their phone and I live my life the same way. Much to the chagrin of my husband; I can be sitting there during family time reading something on my phone. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Cindi Leive: With our digital platforms, video has been growing nicely for us. We have 18 million video views per month now. I’m proud that it’s been a really strong year for us. We’ve taken from franchises that have been around for a while at Glamour, and about which we are very proud, and we reinvented them for what our audience wants now. We grew the social media footprint of Glamour Women of the Year in a really remarkable way so that we have a 30% increase in media impressions this year over last year.

We’ve been the trending topic on Twitter on multiple occasions over the course of the year with things that we’ve done. And I know it sort of easy to roll your eyes at these things and say that’s so superficial or shallow, but I’m as proud of those moments, which show that we’re connecting with our readers in new places, as I am of our National Magazine Awards. So, I think you need both. It’s and, not either/or, now.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?

Cindi Leive: There’s that moment when you get to see something go out into the world; something that your team has created and worked on and then you get the audience feedback, which I still get a rush from. In the old days, as my staff could tell you as they roll their eyes, I used to delight in reading reader’s letters and emails aloud to the team because that’s why we’re all doing this, to connect with that reader, whether she’s in L.A. or Des Moines or wherever she’s reading the magazine.

And now we get that to the nth degree. We released our January issue recently and I’ve always wanted to do a cover of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler together and so we finally engineered it and being able to see it go out there and see our audience tagging one another over and over again in the comments, which you know is shorthand for how great they thought it was. That’s exactly what you want and that’s incredibly satisfying. Being able to see a story that one of our editors has worked on go out there and connect with readers is also exciting.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Cindi Leive: Everything. I am a total insomniac. (Laughs) One of the things that keep me up a lot at night is talent. I think we’re constantly redefining what talent is and so I’m constantly thinking about how we can make sure that we’re making Glamour the place to work for the best and brightest people across all of these different platforms. And how we can continue to attract editors and designers and developers here who can push us, because I think, in answer to your earlier question about how I take this huge brand, this kind of cruise ship in its own right, and do something disruptive with it. The places where we’ve been able to do that successfully have come from bringing editors and other staffers in who are going to push themselves. So, I think about that.

Samir Husni: I don’t know if you realize this or not, but you keep one of your colleagues up at night.

Cindi Leive: Uh-oh.

Samir Husni: Yes, because she’s thinking all of the time about running with you. She runs with you in the mornings. Jill Herzig?

Cindi Leive: Oh, yes.

Samir Husni: I interviewed Jill last week and I asked her what kept her up at night and she said thinking about running in the mornings with you.

Cindi Leive: (Laughs) Yes, and when we run, we end up talking about things like this. We never talk about our love lives or what happened the night before; it’s always something like: what’s your Snapchat strategy. (Laughs again) She’s a really dear friend.

Samir Husni: (Laughs too) Thank you.

Posted in Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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Dr. Oz The Good Life: A Magazine That Lives Up To Its Namesakes’ Robust Reputation & The Woman Who Makes Sure That It Does – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Editor-In-Chief Jill Herzig

December 4, 2015

“Print is never going to go away. We already have a very, very healthy newsstand base and subscriber base. We’re over delivering on our audience, our advertisers, and we’ve broken into the Top 10 bestselling magazines on American newsstands. So, it’s clear that there’s a strong desire to see Dr. Oz’s brand represented in print. And that people like the version that we’re doing right now.” Jill Herzig

Picture 14 Wellness, recipes, fitness and beauty; Dr. Oz The Good Life is a magazine that was and is inspired by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the cardiothoracic surgeon, author and television personality who really needs no introduction anywhere in the country. He is a dynamic and charismatic individual who has become a mainstay favorite among audiences everywhere and in every medium, from television to magazines, by genuinely living and promoting his take on wellness and good health.

Jill Herzig is editor-in-chief of the magazine and brings her own style of zest and energy to the brand, complementing the living, breathing magazine progeny perfectly. Former editor-in-chief of Redbook since 2010, Jill joined Dr. Oz on his quest for nationwide good health and wellness in 2014, and hasn’t regretted it for a moment as she feels connected to his mission as she has no other throughout her magazine media career.

I spoke with Jill recently and we talked about her kindred spirit with the Oz’s, both Dr. and Mrs. and we discussed the future of the brand and the seemingly meant-to-be presence of the magazine among Dr. Oz’s many brand extensions.

It was an entertaining and informative conversation with a woman who truly believes in her brand’s calling and feels a passionate commission to further the cause.

So, I hope that you enjoy this meaningful look at a brand and a magazine that offers a wellness lifestyle experience that Mr. Magazine™ finds unique and extremely relevant to our health-conscious world of today. And now the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Jill Herzig, Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Oz The Good Life.

But first, the sound-bites:


RBK080113_010 On the difference between editing a magazine with a celebrity affiliation versus one that doesn’t have that attachment: The day-to-day is not terribly different, but Dr. Oz isn’t an ordinary celebrity. He’s a cardiothoracic surgeon and he’s been doing that for decades, long before anyone knew his name. He’s a mission-driven guy and it seems as though he works 24 hours a day trying to educate the public about their health and that’s what inspires all parts of this brand.

On the fact that the magazine cover at Dr. Oz The Good Life is not something she has to ponder over: Well, I guess that is another obvious difference; I do know who is going to be on my cover every issue. (Laughs) But he’s not alone in December’s issue; we have him on with another celebrity, Giada de Laurentiis and we’ll be doing that again going forward.

On what her first reaction was when she was offered the job of editor-in-chief of Dr. Oz The Good Life: I have to say, it was an instinctual yes for me. I knew basically the second the words came out of David Carey’s mouth; I knew that I wanted to take this job, which doesn’t do much for one’s negotiating powers. (Laughs) No, I was really excited and I loved the idea of the launch and I loved the idea of working with Dr. Oz.

On her relationship with Dr. Oz and his wife, Lisa: Well, the relationship is a very easy one. In fact, it’s possible that the single easiest thing about this job is handling my relationship with the Oz’s. Lisa Oz is a great conduit to Dr. Oz and their family life, which is very important to him and to her as well. She’s a fantastic cook and very knowledgeable in her own right. And I just really like her as a person. We get along fantastically well.

On a major stumbling block that she’s had to face: I can’t say that there has been a major stumbling block, other than simply having come onboard at the launch phase and putting together a staff from hardly anyone. I’m sure that our publisher Kristine Welker would tell you the same thing. It can be difficult to take over a legacy brand like Redbook, but you come in and the groundwork has already been laid, there’s a rich, deep history. When I came in here it was a pack of fabulous freelancers and some were arriving, some were leaving; it was a very tiny team and a high-pressure moment. But I wouldn’t call it a stumbling block. It was a big challenge.

On whether she feels a higher responsibility to the brand since there is a living, breathing progeny: Oh, yes. I feel that responsibility and I think about it all the time. I’ve joked to Kristine that there’s no Dr. Marie Claire or no Dr. Harper’s Bazaar, but there is a Dr. Mehmet Oz. And he has dedicated his life to improving public health. It’s of the utmost importance to me that we protect his reputation, that we live up to his standards and that our reporting is deep and always quadruple-checked.

On how she plans the magazine issue to issue: Honestly, the problem is that my mind is so crowded with ideas and my team brings a whole bucketful to every meeting. It’s about figuring out what’s the latest thing, yet it has to be based on completely solid science, and winding it down to the perfect match. The ideas come from everywhere. They come from all of our real lives and many of them come from Dr. Oz himself. Many of them come from Lisa and her experiences with her life. Even her mother-in-law, who apparently is a wizard at home remedies. We’re doing a piece right now on favorite family home remedies that are used in the Oz household all of the time.

Picture 13 On what’s next for the magazine and the brand as a whole and print’s place in that equation: Digital and social have been growing at a really fast pace and we’re only two months into them. The numbers are still small, but the rate of growth is very impressive. I know that’s going to continue and will be more and more important to Dr. Oz The Good Life. The print is never going to go away. We already have a very, very healthy newsstand base and subscriber base. We’re over delivering on our audience, our advertisers, and we’ve broken into the Top 10 bestselling magazines on American newsstands. So, it’s clear that there’s a strong desire to see Dr. Oz’s brand represented in print. And that people like the version that we’re doing right now.

On what it is about Dr. Oz that makes him so successful for magazine covers: I think that you can go back to his early appearances on The Oprah Show because that’s where it all began for him. He was uniquely able to explain to people how their bodies work. It’s a very rare doctor who has that communication skill. Sure, he’s charismatic and dynamic, but he’s an unbelievably gifted communicator and I think that’s really what differentiates him and makes him a star.

On whether she thinks specialty magazines are the future of print or there’s still room for mass appeal titles like Dr. Oz The Good Life: I believe there’s lots of room for different kinds of print magazines, but certainly this concept brand of a healthy lifestyle has really hit home with the audience. They’ve been waiting for this and they love it.

On anything else she’d like to add: I’m just feeling very optimistic when I look at our numbers and when I read the emails we get from the audience. They are so excited about this magazine. They are so smart and so engaged; I’ve really never worked for readers who display this level of intelligence and know-how. We have a whole page devoted to their smart ideas. I have the utmost respect for our audience and I’m so excited that they’re engaging on the level that they are.

On what keeps her up at night: This is a personal thing, but I barely slept last night because Cindi Leive (editor-in-chief, Glamour) and I still go running just about every week and I was meeting her at 5:40 in the morning. (Laughs) Sometimes meeting Cindi for a jog will keep me up part of the night. And it certainly gets me out of bed in the mornings.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Jill Herzig, Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Oz The Good Life.

Samir Husni: What’s the difference between editing a magazine like Redbook and editing a magazine that has a celebrity’s name in the title, such as Dr. Oz The Good Life? Is your job now the same as it was at Redbook?

Picture 12 Jill Herzig: Yes, it’s very much the same job. The day-to-day is not terribly different, but Dr. Oz isn’t an ordinary celebrity. He’s a cardiothoracic surgeon and he’s been doing that for decades, long before anyone knew his name. He’s a mission-driven guy and it seems as though he works 24 hours a day trying to educate the public about their health and that’s what inspires all parts of this brand. And it’s certainly what inspires the magazine.

Sure, the magazine that I worked at before had many reasons for being and it had a great and vibrant relationship with its readers, but the mission feels quite different. It’s personified by Dr. Oz, but now the whole staff has really absorbed the mission; we’re all dedicated to this concept that we’re creating a fun magazine, an inviting magazine, but above all, a life-saving magazine potentially.

Samir Husni: With Redbook, you had the hard job of selecting the cover subject every issue. But with Dr. Oz The Good Life, that’s pretty much done for you.

Jill Herzig: Well, I guess that is another obvious difference; I do know who is going to be on my cover every issue. (Laughs) But he’s not alone in December’s issue; we have him on with another celebrity, Giada de Laurentiis and we’ll be doing that again going forward, so you won’t always see Dr. Oz all by himself. But he’s a no-brainer for us as a cover star.

Samir Husni: Do you miss writing your “Letter from the Editor?”

Jill Herzig: A little; I do. But I think probably as our digital side grows, and it’s growing very quickly, there will be more opportunities for me to reach out and have a more direct contact with the reader.

Samir Husni: When you were first offered this job; can you recall the emotional reaction that you had? Did you take time and think it over or did you immediately say yes? What was your reaction?

Jill Herzig: I have to say, it was an instinctual yes for me. I knew basically the second the words came out of David Carey’s mouth; I knew that I wanted to take this job, which doesn’t do much for one’s negotiating powers. (Laughs) No, I was really excited and I loved the idea of the launch and I loved the idea of working with Dr. Oz. I immediately had thoughts about what we could do with the magazine. I was just totally onboard.

Samir Husni: Can you describe the relationship that you have with Dr. Oz and his wife?

Jill Herzig: Well, the relationship is a very easy one. In fact, it’s possible that the single easiest thing about this job is handling my relationship with the Oz’s. Lisa Oz is a great conduit to Dr. Oz and their family life, which is very important to him and to her as well. She’s a fantastic cook and very knowledgeable in her own right. And I just really like her as a person. We get along fantastically well.

And Dr. Oz, you’ve already heard me say, is a super-inspiring guy. You definitely feel his dedication and his intensity every minute that you’re with him. He pushes himself incredibly hard, but I will say that he pushes other people solely by inspiring them. You just want to live up to his example.

Both of them are such appreciative people. They really love the magazine and they work very hard when we need them to. And yet, they’re happy to give us independence so that we can do what we know how to do. So, I really can’t say enough about them for how joyful this collaboration has been.

Samir Husni: What has been the major stumbling block for you since becoming editor-in-chief of the magazine?

Jill Herzig: I can’t say that there has been a major stumbling block, other than simply having come onboard at the launch phase and putting together a staff from hardly anyone. I’m sure that our publisher Kristine Welker would tell you the same thing. It can be difficult to take over a legacy brand like Redbook, but you come in and the groundwork has already been laid, there’s a rich, deep history. You can push away from that history or you can incorporate it; you have a lot of different choices. The history is there like a foundation. And at Redbook, there was also a staff when I came in.

When I came in here it was a pack of fabulous freelancers and some were arriving, some were leaving; it was a very tiny team and a high-pressure moment. But I wouldn’t call it a stumbling block. It was a big challenge. It made for a less restful than usual summer. (Laughs) But we got through it and I love the team now. I love the group that we have. They’re different from any team I’ve ever worked with. They are people who are called to this magazine.

Samir Husni: Kristine told me that she had sold over 60 pages of ads for the first issue without even knowing the name of the magazine; just because it was a Dr. Oz magazine. Do you feel that responsibility? That you’re not only handling an ink on paper and pixels on a screen brand, but an actual living, breathing brand?

Jill Herzig: Oh, yes. I feel that responsibility and I think about it all the time. I’ve joked to Kristine that there’s no Dr. Marie Claire or no Dr. Harper’s Bazaar, but there is a Dr. Mehmet Oz. And he has dedicated his life to improving public health. It’s of the utmost importance to me that we protect his reputation, that we live up to his standards and that our reporting is deep and always quadruple-checked. And that we further his goals.

Samir Husni: I asked the editor of Rachael Ray Everyday what her biggest fear was and she said that she always wants Rachael to look both ways before she crosses the street. (Laughs)

Jill Herzig: (Laughs too). That’s funny.

Samir Husni: (Laughs again) Do you have similar feelings?

Picture 11 Jill Herzig: I’m very happy that our figurehead is possibly the healthiest human on the planet. It gives me some peace of mind every time I get together with him to see how fit and healthy he is.

Samir Husni: How often do your meetings with Dr. Oz take place? How often is Dr. Oz at the Hearst Tower and involved in those meetings?

Jill Herzig: He drops by really frequently. And I would say that sometimes I see him three times a week and then sometimes I’ll go a couple of weeks without seeing him, but hardly a day goes by that we don’t email.

Samir Husni: If I wanted to go inside your mind as a magazine maker; how do you plan the magazine issue to issue and how do you select what topics you’re going to cover this month or next month or the month after?

Jill Herzig: Honestly, the problem is that my mind is so crowded with ideas and my team brings a whole bucketful to every meeting. It’s about figuring out what’s the latest thing, yet it has to be based on completely solid science, and winding it down to the perfect match.

The ideas come from everywhere. They come from all of our real lives and many of them come from Dr. Oz himself. Many of them come from Lisa and her experiences with her life. Even her mother-in-law, who apparently is a wizard at home remedies. We’re doing a piece right now on favorite family home remedies that are used in the Oz household all of the time.

When I first took over the job I have to say that I had a wicked case of insomnia because I could not go to sleep for all of the ideas that were milling about in my head. I kept a little booklet next to my bed and I’d wake up and turn on the light or just pick up my phone and use that light so I wouldn’t wake up my husband, and I’d scribble something in the booklet. And then I’d go back to sleep and something else would pop into my head. Initially, I’d actually pick up the notebook at a certain point and put it downstairs in my bag in order to go to sleep, because I was just filled with ideas all of the time.

And now we’re in a flow. We have our columns pretty set and we have our features and the pasting of the book is pretty set, so it’s a little more orderly. And I do sleep a whole lot better.

But we’re constantly changing it as well. I’m really over the concept of doing a redesign every few years. As every issue evolves there are changes. We drop columns, we don’t worry about dropping those columns; we add columns and we don’t worry if we only keep them for a short while. We just go with it a little more loosely than I have before. And I think part of that comes from having grown this baby from a launch and knowing it from the beginning and that energy is so exciting that you don’t want to lose it. And we’re still doing that.

Samir Husni: As you continue to do that and evolve the magazine; I’ve heard some reports that Dr. Oz is also a firm believer in print and that print is part of the equation of his brand. So, as you move forward and add to the digital and grow your pixels on the screen; what role do you think that print will continue to play in this brand? He’s on TV; he’s everywhere, even in competitor’s magazines, he’s on the covers. What’s next for the magazine and for the brand as a whole?

Jill Herzig: Digital and social have been growing at a really fast pace and we’re only two months into them. The numbers are still small, but the rate of growth is very impressive. I know that’s going to continue and will be more and more important to Dr. Oz The Good Life.

The print is never going to go away. We already have a very, very healthy newsstand base and subscriber base. We’re over delivering on our audience, our advertisers, and we’ve broken into the Top 10 bestselling magazines on American newsstands. So, it’s clear that there’s a strong desire to see Dr. Oz’s brand represented in print. And that people like the version that we’re doing right now.

I do think that our creative content, a healthy lifestyle magazine, really lends itself to print. And because of that our print edition has a robust, nice, long lifespan to it. This is really important information and we make it luscious and beautiful and we make it fun and acceptable and we make it very, very clear. But we’re also presenting information that is not uncomplicated. It’s important stuff that people need to understand. And in certain cases, it has life-saving implications for our readers.

We’re giving them information that they’re going to take time to absorb and they do take time to absorb it. They’re going to want to keep these issues around because they know that it could help them or a loved one at some point down the road. They’re going to want to make these recipes for years to come. When you’re talking about a healthy lifestyle magazine it’s really meaningful for people to have this information. We’re not talking about celebrities; we’re not talking about fashion and beauty trends, those are delightful when they arrive in your mailbox or you pick them up at the newsstand, but they have a built-in expiration date, so you’re going to recycle that magazine when those trends have faded or that celebrity has been forgotten for a moment. Our magazine is a keeper.

Samir Husni: I have struggled for a comparison to the magazine’s namesake and all I can come up with is something one of my professors once said: if you put Robert Redford on the cover of any women’s magazine, it will sell. Today it’s Dr. Oz. What do you think made him the celebrity he is on magazine covers? Why does he sell so well?

Jill Herzig: I think that you can go back to his early appearances on The Oprah Show because that’s where it all began for him. He was uniquely able to explain to people how their bodies work. It’s a very rare doctor who has that communication skill. Sure, he’s charismatic and dynamic, but he’s an unbelievably gifted communicator and I think that’s really what differentiates him and makes him a star.

When he did the initial Oprah shows, he actually did an autopsy, harvested organs and put them in a cooler, got on a plane, flew to the Oprah show and used actual human organs to explain to that audience and to millions of viewers how their bodies work and why it was so important to keep those inner workings healthy. And the viewers went crazy for that. No one had ever taken the time or chosen that very visual way to communicate with them about their bodies. And he’s still doing that in the magazine. We’re still doing that.

Samir Husni: As an editor who’s very well-versed with the industry as a whole; do you see that degree of specialization (wellness and food in a magazine), do you think this is our future in print? Or do you think there’s still room for a mass appeal magazine, such as The Good Life, which is not a specialty, tiny magazine?

Jill Herzig: The wellness and healthy lifestyle area has been very niche for a long time. But I think what we’re bringing to the table has really grown up in the category. And we’re doing something very different with it.

And I believe there’s lots of room for different kinds of print magazines, but certainly this concept brand of a healthy lifestyle has really hit home with the audience. They’ve been waiting for this and they love it.

I’ve never seen a time when people are more concerned with health and wellness than they are right now. It is top of mind for every age category, every demographic, every socio-economic group. And I’m so grateful that shift has happened because in our country we’re seeing some serious health issues. Diabetes is raging out of control; obesity is a huge problem and we haven’t managed to make an appreciative dent in it, the average American woman now weighs what the average American man weighed in 1960. So, we’ve got issues. And I’m really happy to see such broad interest in health and wellness.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Picture 10 Jill Herzig: I’m just feeling very optimistic when I look at our numbers and when I read the emails we get from the audience. They are so excited about this magazine. They are so smart and so engaged; I’ve really never worked for readers who display this level of intelligence and know-how. We have a whole page devoted to their smart ideas. I have the utmost respect for our audience and I’m so excited that they’re engaging on the level that they are.

In our most recent reader feedback survey, the scores were off the chart for this magazine, but the top-rated piece of content in the entire magazine was a six-page report that we did on inflammation in the body. It is not an uncomplicated topic. We made it as clear as we could; we reported the heck out of it. But this is a topic that readers really had to pull up a chair and sharpen a pencil and concentrate on it to understand. And 75% of them said that it was extremely interesting to them.

So, the notion that people don’t have the attention span and don’t have the intelligence and can’t stick with a long piece in print; I am not seeing that. I’m seeing readers who are thrilled to get deep interest, as long as we’re bringing them vital information about their health. So, we’re doing that in our magazine.

Samir Husni: That’s one thing that I told Ellen Levine; if we’re just content providers, then we would have been dead a long time ago. We’re experience makers. Today, if a magazine is not an experience, it’s going to be in trouble. And that’s why today you’re seeing a higher level when it comes to the attention span of the average American adult, which is now eight seconds, according to the latest research, one second more than a goldfish. (Laughs)

Jill Herzig: (Laughs too) I have to say that our readers do not have that ADD.

Samir Husni: That’s because you are creating a very good experience for them.

Jill Herzig: Well, thank you.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Jill Herzig: This is a personal thing, but I barely slept last night because Cindi Leive (editor-in-chief, Glamour) and I still go running just about every week and I was meeting her at 5:40 in the morning. (Laughs) Sometimes meeting Cindi for a jog will keep me up part of the night. And it certainly gets me out of bed in the mornings.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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Simple Grace Is Mr. Magazine’s™ Launch Of The Year. Organic Life Is Mr. Magazine’s™ Re-Launch Of The Year.

December 3, 2015

Simple Grace: Launch of the Year 2015

Simple Grace-3 (2) In my office hangs a sign that reads: there’s always hope, a simple phrase that holds a wealth of meaning. And in 2015 Bauer Media Group U.S. launched its own message of hope in the form of Simple Grace magazine.

Simple Grace magazine is a groundbreaker—a faith-based magazine from a secular publisher who saw an opportunity in the marketplace. It’s an “Audience First” approach to publishing, an approach that Bauer has mastered with all their publications. However, this time, with a completely new concept.

Simple Grace was the brainchild of Editor-in-Chief Carol Brooks and in a Mr. Magazine™ interview earlier in the year she defined it as “your daily dose of hope,” which I think we can all agree is something that is extremely needed in the world that we live in today.

But Bauer didn’t just use emotional facts for their reasoning behind the introduction of a daily devotional magazine into their repertoire of titles. Between readers’ response from First for Women (a magazine that Carol has directed as editor-in-chief for the last 13 years), and the intense research on the market of what was and was not out there, Simple Grace was born from their reader’s desires to include God more as a part of their daily lives. Audience first is not only a Mr. Magazine™ mantra, but Bauer’s as well.

The magazine is a monthly devotional with daily inspirational Bible quotes and content that is geared toward the love, kindness and support of God and stands out as the first digest-sized, devotional magazine, targeting a mass audience on newsstands in the US.

Being first and going somewhere no one else dares to go, is something Bauer firmly believes in when they believe in the product. And Simple Grace is something that is near and dear to their heart and has the company’s full support.

And it is Mr. Magazine’s™ choice for the Hottest Launch of 2015.

Organic Life: Relaunch of the Year 2015

Organic Life-18 (2) Rodale’s Organic Life is a magazine that celebrates the idea of living healthier by empowering its readers, whether they are die-hard, fully immersed people in the world of organic, or just discovering it for the first time. It welcomes everybody to the table with a beautiful, immersive print magazine that responds to the reader’s desire to live a healthier life by offering a whole new approach to how we look at food and our bodies. It’s recipes and stories and tips that can show you the organic way might be the best way for you to live your life.

Organic Life is a relaunch of the company’s flagship brand Organic Gardening and a stylish guide to living naturally in the modern world. By rebranding Organic Gardening into Organic Life, Rodale has taken a concept that its founder, J.I. Rodale, believed in so strongly when he started the company all those years ago, and brought it up-to-date for the 21st century, making it a tremendous tool for the organic movement that is sweeping our country today.

Under the watchful eye of Editor-in-chief James (Jim) Oseland, the first issue of the magazine delivered 158 hefty pages, from which 54 pages were advertising. From the moment of conception, to the hour of delivery, this is the story of a perfect magazine relaunch in 2015. It’s a relaunch, but it’s so much more than that. J.I. Rodale founded Rodale in 1930. His granddaughter, Maria Rodale, delivered on the dream that her grandfather envisioned 85 years ago. That vision is encapsulated between the covers of Rodale’s Organic Life magazine.

It’s the culmination of a dream and the continuation of a legacy and it’s Mr. Magazine’s™ Relaunch of 2015.

Posted in Magazine Power, New Launches, News and Views | 2 Comments »

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November Brought Us A Bounty Of New Titles To Be Thankful For…79 Total & 23 With Promised Frequency…

December 2, 2015

The month of November saw a cornucopia of new titles hit the marketplace, 23 of them promising frequency, including two arriving at the newsstands for the first time, and 56 specials and bookazines; all getting us ready to settle down for a long winter’s read. Our specials ran the gamut from holiday recipes to trains, planes and Frank Sinatra. And our frequencies were chock full of the artful and beautiful coloring books for adults that offer relaxation and a meditative spirit for those busy Christmas shopping days ahead. There was something for everyone in the month set aside for giving thanks for our many blessings. And Mr. Magazine™ is certainly thankful for magazines and all the joy they bring to everyone…

And here are the charts comparing Nov. 2015 to Nov. 2014.
Nov 2015 vs 2014 pie graphs

Nov 2015 v 2014 top categories bar graph

Until next month…

Up first our Frequency titles:

A Green Beauty-15 Art Therapy for Seniors-11 Baseball History & Art-13 Casual Game Insider-7 Color Magazine-14 Distiller-16 Ever After High-10 Flying Colors-20 Inspiring Color Designs-22 Jacobin-1 Just Go-5 Mind Body Zen Coloring-19 Pallet-4 Sabor-3 Splash of Color-21 Star Wars-6 The Art of Mandala-17 The Creeps-18 The Crown-9 The Sewing Box-12 Uncrate-2 Wallpaper-23 Women's Golf-8

And now our Specials:

Albert Einstein-18 American Inventors-3 Are we alone-19 Best of amazing animals-7 Best-Ever Recipes-21 Better Homes & Gardens Our Holiday Recipes-14 Big Foot-3 Bob Marley-4 Bon Apetite Holiday-24 Cakes & Pies-36 Color Me Delicious-12 Color Me-20 Coloring Book Creations-20 Cosmo Best Advice Ever-14 Design Life-5 Disney Frozen More Magical Moments-35 Food Network Easy Baking-23 Frozen-9 Gluten Free & Easy-11 Gone With the Wind-1 Holiday Home-10 How To Solder Jewelry-31 Indivisible-29 LIFE Bond-8 Mad Spoofs Sci Fi-16 Men's Health EAT-22 Miracles of Faith-13 More Trains of the 1950s-7 Mother Earth News A Guide to Saving-1 National Geographic Your Brain-9 Newsweek The Year in Review-25 People Celebrates Days of Our Lives-4 People Style Watch-22 People The Hunger Games-15 Rock & Gem Gold-30 Rolling Stone Bob Dylan-17 Serial Killers-16 Sinatra at 100-15 Smithsonian 100 Greatest Adventures-6 Springsteen-32 Star Wars 100 Defining Moments-34 Star Wars Heroes and Villains-33 Star Wars-6 Suippressor-5 Taylor Swift-17 The 100 greatest vinyl of all time-12 The Best of Grit-10 The Best of Vanity Fair-21 The Story of Santa-2 Thomas & Friends-11 Tiger Beat-18 Ultimate Book of space-2 Ultimate Finisher Guide-13 USA Today Thanksgiving in America-19 Watch Time Design-8Who is Jesus-28

 

Posted in Magazine Power, New Launches | 1 Comment »

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Wallpaper* Magazine: Refining The World One Issue At A Time… The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Tony Chambers, Editor-in-Chief, Wallpaper* Magazine

November 30, 2015

From London with Love

Wallpaper* Magazine and The Stuff That Refines Us – Coming to America With Gracious Elegance, Superb Content, Beautiful Imagery & Creative Design – Discovering What Refines The Magazine’s “Refiner-in-Chief” Tony Chambers.


“In terms of revenue from luxury advertisers, we’ve seen growth in print. Obviously, we’ve seen it in digital too; that’s a growing area, everyone knows that. But it’s rewarding to know that for a product like Wallpaper* in print, there is a market for it. It’s something that people treat as a moment to absorb media in a luxury way, as opposed to on your mobile phone, which is much more about news and immediacy and for solving immediate problems. I think print still has that place where you sort of lose yourself and relax.” Tony Chambers

Wallpaper* Visual journalism that captures the imagination with that ethereal spirit of art, beauty and the finer things in life; Wallpaper* Magazine has been around for 20 years and has proven over and over again that high quality, beautiful aesthetics and a commitment to its readers is something that still holds much value in the world we live in today, even though that world is fast-paced and bombarded with more information and venues to receive that data from than we can handle.

In a move to amplify the magazine’s discerning message, Time Inc. is bringing a bespoke edition of the magazine to the United States, in addition to keeping the mother ship magazine on the American stands as it has been since its inception, for an entire new audience of believers, people who are longing for the brush of beauty and elegance the magazine offers its readers.

Tony Chambers joined Wallpaper* as Creative Director in January 2003, and was appointed Editor-In-Chief, make that Refiner-in-Chief, in March 2007. Under Tony’s editorship, Wallpaper* magazine has been transformed into a highly-regarded global brand. He introduced a series of over 100 pocket City Guides, a hugely successful website and an iPad edition, an in-house creative agency, as well as an interior design service. He is also the creator of Wallpaper*Handmade, an annual exhibition at Salone del Mobile which brings together the finest designers, craftsmen and manufacturers to collaborate on one-of-a-kind pieces.

I spoke with Tony recently and we talked about the brand he knows and loves so well. We talked about what it means to him to strive for that refinement that flows from every page of the magazine and how he incorporates that beauty into his own philosophies on life. And about how excited he and his team at Wallpaper* are at the prospect of expanding their readership even more globally and allowing another audience the opportunity to cultivate the magazine’s easy elegance into their lives as well.

So, I hope you enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with a man whose idea of refinement makes him one very nice human being who truly cares about his brand, his colleagues and his readers…Tony Chambers, Editor-In-Chief, Wallpaper* Magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:


Tony_Chambers_0618 On the reversal transplant of Wallpaper* from the U.K. to the United States: Wallpaper* from its beginning has been available globally on newsstands, but this is a brilliant idea by Time Inc. and one of those that sometimes make you ask: why we didn’t have it before? (Laughs) I think I know why; one reason is that I think Wallpaper* is more relevant now than it has ever been before. It’s at a moment where I think the audience is now more receptive; it’s a larger audience, because we’re quite a progressive title, avant-garde in many respects.

On the growth of Wallpaper* in print: In terms of revenue from luxury advertisers, we’ve seen growth in print. Obviously, we’ve seen it in digital too; that’s a growing area, everyone knows that. But it’s rewarding to know that for a product like Wallpaper* in print, there is a market for it. It’s something that people treat as a moment to absorb media in a luxury way, as opposed to on your mobile phone, which is much more about news and immediacy and for solving immediate problems. I think print still has that place where you sort of lose yourself and relax.

On the co-existence of print and digital: Ink on paper is a very clever, simple piece of technology. It’s been around for over 500 years now and it’s not going anywhere. Digital just challenges us all with the excitement of what you can accomplish and it makes you more thoughtful about what you do with print and what is more appropriate for ink on paper and what is more appropriate for pixels on a screen.

On his design philosophy: As a designer and then an art director, to me content was king. We always used to say content is the most important thing and your job is to bring these great photographers, whether they’re fashion photographers or war photographers in the case of the Sunday Times, and these great writers and editors, as a designer you have this incredible job of being the person in the middle who puts them all together. And you can either make something average brilliant or make something brilliant average. It’s a big responsibility. So, from a very young age I knew that I was in a privileged and very important position.

On whether his background in design and art direction has helped him with the innovation behind Wallpaper* and his role as editor-in-chief: Oh, absolutely. Again, going back to art school and my early days printing, that was a real fascination because as a designer the more you know about the technology, particularly printing, the more you really understand it and the more you learn about it and investigate it, then you know what the boundaries are; you know what is possible and what isn’t possible.

On why he believes it took the magazine industry five or six years to realize that print and digital could co-exist: It’s a brilliant question and I wish I knew the exact answer to it. (Laughs) When you’re in the storm, the fog of war; when you’re right in the middle of it, it’s very hard to be objective and step back. Hindsight is a great thing; you can always look back and say: now it seems obvious that the two can survive, if they’re done well.

On the death of the tablet: I think novelty is the big thing; the tablet was such a novelty. But I don’t think it’s the death of the tablet at all. You see what’s happening with the Pro and the fact that you can do so many things with it. Again, the tablet will just find its place. It will be another element within this rich variety; this rich palette of ways that we consume media. And still, the important thing is the content and of course, it was a novelty in the beginning. It did add a new way of looking at content and new ways of designing content and presenting it.

On how to get your audience addicted to ink on paper: If you’re in the luxury magazine business, which we are, it clearly has to be about the seduction of the quality of the imagery and the quality of its printing, because the still image, again going back to the difference between when TV came out versus radio, the death of magazines was predicted then, in the 1950s or 1960s. News imagery on TV, with the still image, added so much more to the moving image. It has to do with the frozen moment. It’s just different. The still image has certain powerful qualities that you’ll never get from the moving image. Moving images have their own qualities.

On the “common sense” approach to the coexistence of print and digital: Unfortunately, during great technological change, you lose common sense. You see it all the time. One gets so excited about what is possible, you don’t have the common sense to step back and say, it’s possible to do that, but it’s not needed.

On the importance of typography in the design process: It requires a certain amount of mathematical knowledge and rigor, with aesthetics. But if you don’t have the rigor, the aesthetics are meaningless really. But people know more about it now and that helps because more people are typing their own stuff. When I graduated nobody even knew what a typeface was, so it should be better. Again, people just need to step back and appreciate the experts because it’s such a subtle and a refined skill when it’s done properly, where it’s elegant and relevant to its time. But the main job is, as a reader you don’t notice it, and that’s the skill of good typography; you shouldn’t notice it. You should just read the text and have a pleasant experience.

On what refines him: That’s a very good question. I think fine arts are the thing. I believe being inspired and continually fed by high art, and not just as in a painting, but art that’s from the past and the present and that strives to reach perfection. Having artists, people like that as your mentors and as inspiration is something that makes you refined yourself.

On anything else he’d like to add: We’re all so excited that this new project that we’ve produced is now being amplified in the most sensible and practical way, both in print and in digital, to get that message across more. It’s a really thrilling and exciting time for the brand.

On what he could be found doing if someone showed up unexpectedly at his home: A combination of all of them really. I’m finding less time to actually engage with television, even though I think it’s still a very super-relevant medium. But just because of time and also because I have a young daughter, which absorbs a lot of my time (Laughs), I don’t have a lot of time for television. But definitely reading a magazine or a book, and yes, I love a good glass of wine. I love nice surroundings with good furniture; it doesn’t have to be expensive furniture, just well-made and well-designed.

On what keeps him up at night: The emails that I haven’t replied to. (Laughs) I know that sounds awful, but I do wake up and think about them. Not that it keeps me up at night; I do go to sleep, but then I wake up, more so lately, with the thought that: oh no, I haven’t replied lately. And I’m a stickler for replying to emails and I do have a brilliant assistant; he’s a genius who helps me. I remember when I was just starting out; if I wrote an email and sent it to somebody I admired or a magazine or a designer, that feeling of not getting a reply stayed with me. But the thrill of actually getting a reply; I’ve always remembered that.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Tony Chambers, Editor-In-Chief, Wallpaper* Magazine.

Samir Husni: Congratulations on the first Time Inc. reversal transplant of a magazine with Wallpaper*. This is the first time that Time Inc. has brought a magazine from the U.K. and published it in the United States.

Wallpaper 1-1 Tony Chambers: Yes, but remember we are a global title. So, we’ve always been available on newsstands in the U.S. from day one and have had a very healthy presence there. But this is a very targeted edition.

As I said, Wallpaper* from its beginning has been available globally on newsstands, but this is a brilliant idea by Time Inc. and one of those that sometimes make you ask: why we didn’t have it before? (Laughs) I think I know why; one reason is that I think Wallpaper* is more relevant now than it has ever been before. It’s at a moment where I think the audience is now more receptive; it’s a larger audience, because we’re quite a progressive title, avant-garde in many respects.

I think maybe 10 years ago we were a little too avant-garde for a broader audience, whereas now I believe the audience is educated and understands design and the lifestyle, and they travel more and are more visually literate. Therefore, I think the timing was right now.

Also, the way distribution in magazines is changing and this incredible data that Time Inc. possesses, which enables you now to really target more specifically who your audience is, so that you can deliver your product to the right people.

And those combinations of things is just music to our ears because we have this wonderful product that’s been around almost 20 years now, but you know traditional distribution methods for a global title are extremely challenging financially, very expensive with shipping costs, but this enables us to reach so many more people in a very targeted, simple and practical way.

Samir Husni: I have followed Wallpaper* since its inception. In fact, I have a subscription and I also buy the newsstand edition so that I can have both covers.

Tony Chambers: Thank you. That’s great to hear. And I have followed you for many years as well. And it’s lovely to know that there are people like you out there who are as passionate about magazines as we are. Long may it last.

And I think more and more people are getting more passionate. The top-end, particularly, is the area that’s thriving and I think that’s the other reason that Time Inc. wisely thought that Wallpaper* was the right type of title because I think in the luxury end, the high-end of magazine journalism, the markets are still there for print as well as digital. For quality, it’s growing actually. We’ve seen growth, in terms of our revenue sales and it’s been very steady over the years. And I think sales are going to catapult now with this new edition.

In terms of revenue from luxury advertisers, we’ve seen growth in print. Obviously, we’ve seen it in digital too; that’s a growing area, everyone knows that. But it’s rewarding to know that for a product like Wallpaper* in print, there is a market for it. It’s something that people treat as a moment to absorb media in a luxury way, as opposed to on your mobile phone, which is much more about news and immediacy and for solving immediate problems. I think print still has that place where you sort of lose yourself and relax.

So, it’s wonderful and that’s what I had always hoped and what we’d felt would be the case if we were good enough. That the two would exist side-by-side and it seems to be true.

Samir Husni: Yes, no matter how many times you try to push your finger through the cover of the magazine onscreen, it will never work as it does on the printed edition. (Laughs)

Tony Chambers: No, it won’t. Ink on paper is a very clever, simple piece of technology. It’s been around for over 500 years now and it’s not going anywhere. Digital just challenges us all with the excitement of what you can accomplish and it makes you more thoughtful about what you do with print and what is more appropriate for ink on paper and what is more appropriate for pixels on a screen.

We always look back when we’re caught in the whirlwind of new technology and it is hard to focus when you look back 10 or 20 years later and say: wow that was such a common sense approach to what would work and what wouldn’t and what exists and what doesn’t.

I always use the analogy of TV and radio. Radio should surely be dead since TV was invented because TV is radio plus pictures, therefore how can radio exist? But of course, radio just finds its own way to make itself relevant. And I think radio has never been stronger. You use it when appropriate and you use TV when appropriate and it’s the same with print and digital.

As time passes, the past always survives and the best gets stronger because you cut your costs accordingly and you apply certain rules to certain things. Ink on paper is a very clever and a very functional technology.

Samir Husni: I’ve always said the problem is not the ink on paper, but what we’re putting on the ink on paper.

Tony Chambers: Exactly.

Samir Husni: You’re the second person who I’ve interviewed recently that started as an art director and moved to the role of editor-in-chief.

Tony Chambers: Really? Who was the other one?

Samir Husni: Stefano Tonchi from W Magazine.

Tony Chambers: Yes, he’s brilliant. Well you know, we live in a visual communication world and it’s always been important. Cave-painting is graphic design basically, isn’t it? It’s the most immediate way of communicating, but I was always an art director that loved the word and was trained very well at my art school to be very respectful of the written word. And I studied typography, which is of course about making the word visible and being very respectful to text. And the Sunday Times Magazine taught me a very journalistic approach to being a designer and not to be self-indulgent, that the content was the most important thing.

So as a designer and then an art director, to me content was king. We always used to say content is the most important thing and your job is to bring these great photographers, whether they’re fashion photographers or war photographers in the case of the Sunday Times, and these great writers and editors; as a designer you have this incredible job of being the person in the middle who puts them all together. And you can either make something average brilliant or make something brilliant average. It’s a big responsibility. So, from a very young age I knew that I was in a privileged and very important position.

Moving to Wallpaper* as creative director and being offered the job many years ago, it was a surprise because it wasn’t something that I ever thought I would do, but the people who made that decision at Time Inc. they could obviously see that it was relevant, that the magazine was in a good moment, because it’s such a visual magazine; it made sense. It’s probably the ultimate in visual communication, where it’s all luscious photography and illustration and layout and design, it’s something that people buy into. Now I look back at it and I can see that it wasn’t a surprise at all and not as much of a gamble as I thought at the time. And I had that experience; I felt confident that I had always been on the content side as a designer, more interested in telling stories visually in a sensible way, rather than in a self-indulgent way. So, I felt confident that I could do it. And I also had a brilliant team that could plug any gaps that I may have had and it seems to have worked. It’s been a wonderful experience.

Samir Husni: Do you think your background as an art director and a designer helped with those innovative ideas that you used in print?

Tony Chambers; Oh, absolutely. Again, going back to art school and my early days printing, that was a real fascination because as a designer the more you know about the technology, particularly printing, the more you really understand it and the more you learn about it and investigate it, then you know what the boundaries are; you know what is possible and what isn’t possible.

And when I was doing freelance graphics when I was younger; if you knew what print was you couldn’t be blinded with science. And that’s the way it is today with digital technology. If they think you’re a little bit ignorant of some things, then they can pull the wool over your eyes and tell you that’s not possible. But if you know, if you’re armed with knowledge, then you’ll always know what’s possible. And I realized early on that that was such an important skill and knowledge to have; to know what is possible. So, if somebody said you couldn’t print green ink on a red background hypothetically; if you knew that you could and that it is possible to do it, and it wouldn’t be economically prohibitive, if it’s done in a particular way, then knowledge is the best tool you have really.

Knowledge of print and a fascination and a love for it too; those things are great assets to have. There are certain things that you can do that may help to give you impact visually and enable you to reach more people and sell more copies and excite advertisers as well, so there are two-for-two goals that we have. And if you know how to do it and you know how to do it economically and you know where to push and where to pull back and what is possible, that makes for a huge advantage.

When I became editor, of course just pushing my design team and the success that’s followed has really propelled us forward. So, if you’re going to do print, you may as well make the most of it. And make the most of digital for what its properties are. But even more so, let’s push the qualities of print and I’m glad that you’ve noticed the things that we did, because they really have helped to keep the brand fresh and talked about and made it relevant in this age where we’re juggling two very distinct parts of publication: digital and print. You have to just push and make both relevant and it seems to have worked; we’ve had great responses from the readers and advertisers. So, we’re going to be pushing it even more.

Samir Husni: Why do you think it took the magazine industry five or six years before they discovered that digital is not the enemy of print and print is not the enemy of digital?

Wallpaper 2-2 Tony Chambers: It’s a brilliant question and I wish I knew the exact answer to it. (Laughs) When you’re in the storm, the fog of war; when you’re right in the middle of it, it’s very hard to be objective and step back. Hindsight is a great thing; you can always look back and say: now it seems obvious that the two can survive, if they’re done well.

But at the time people panicked and worried, and with publishers, they’re looking at the bottom line, looking at cost. And of course, some publishers think that digital doesn’t cost much, the outgoing seems to be so low. But of course, people don’t understand that initially the outgoing was so low because the editorial content was being produced by the whole family, by the print. And the cake was being cut open and it would end up some in digital and some in print. By and large the costs were put onto the print side.

Obviously, they were thinking it would be more economic to just go digital, but of course, it’s not, you still have to use great photographers and editors; great writers and designers to produce the content. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on a computer screen or ink on paper, it’s the content that’s the most important thing.

And I think five or six years ago people loved to strike at that, particularly in newspapers. They just thought it was cheaper and wouldn’t be as expensive, without realizing of course; the costs were just on a different column. (Laughs) And then when that penny dropped, everyone realized that print and digital must work together because when the costs are shared, it’s a happier ship.

But you need both; the consumer wants both. And they’ll use them in two different ways. We’re just at the beginning of the renaissance in publishing now, I think, where you’re seeing print and digital sitting so comfortably together. And both sides understanding the properties of both and thankfully intelligent people at the top understanding what is possible with both and finding the different platforms exciting editorially and rewarding financially.

Samir Husni: I was at a conference in New York recently and I heard people talking about the death of the tablet; the death of the homepage and I said, it’s only been seven years since the tablet was touted as our salvation, what went wrong?

Tony Chambers: Again, I think novelty is the big thing; the tablet was such a novelty. But I don’t think it’s the death of the tablet at all. You see what’s happening with the Pro and the fact that you can do so many things with it. Again, the tablet will just find its place. It will be another element within this rich variety; this rich palette of ways that we consume media. And still, the important thing is the content and of course, it was a novelty in the beginning. It did add a new way of looking at content and new ways of designing content and presenting it. I think therefore it was the savior if anything.

Of course, it wasn’t a complete savior, but neither is it the death of the tablet. All these things just take time to find their places. Novelty is the thing that we all have to be careful of. We get seduced by new things and we always will; we’re human beings. That’s what fashion is about, isn’t it? The whole fashion industry is based on the seduction of the new and the novelties. The fashion industry has found its way to survive in that, but with things like this we have to just be a little more objective and step back a bit and say, OK – this is interesting; we’ll give this a try. We can’t just continually keep throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

It just adds to the rich palette of what’s possible with the great things we do with content, whether it’s ink on paper or on a digital screen or poetry or radio; it’s the ideas that count and knowing what is the appropriate medium for that message.

Samir Husni: What do you think is the important cornerstone that should be used to seduce people to print, or as I like to call it that “art of addiction” that hooks people? How can I get my audience addicted to ink on paper?

Tony Chambers: If you’re in the luxury magazine business, which we are, it clearly has to be about the seduction of the quality of the imagery and the quality of its printing, because the still image, again going back to the difference between when TV came out versus radio, the death of magazines was predicted then, in the 1950s or 1960s. News imagery on TV, with the still image, added so much more to the moving image. It has to do with the frozen moment. It’s just different. The still image has certain powerful qualities that you’ll never get from the moving image. Moving images have their own qualities.

Similarly, I think we’re talking about the power of the frozen moment; the quality of that frozen moment, both in terms of its relevance of content and its beauty. Also editing is another facet that I think we lost our way in when everyone was crying the death of print. Having a printed product is about the edit, because it’s a limited number of pages. You might have 100 pages, a story can be 10 pages sensibly because you have a limited imagery space, and therefore you have to try a lot harder, think a lot harder and make tougher decisions and ultimately I think, you have to make a better result.

And the reader or the consumer will thank you for that because you’ve done a lot of work for them, instead of presenting a thousand pictures on the Internet, every thousand images that you choose, you have to become an expert, saying these are the best 10 pictures. And I think that’s the thing that we lost a little bit, seven or eight years ago when people thought the web would destroy print because we could all make our own decisions about what we wanted to consume in information. But we don’t want that. We want to trust and be inspired by a publication, an editor, a photographer that is saying these are the best five or ten pictures of the lot.

So, I think those are the key things; the power of editing, which is so relevant in a print product. And as we get busier and we work harder and have less leisure time, which we all seem to be busy, busy; that’s something that we lost our way in, in terms of its relevance and its power and value. You trust an editor and if you don’t trust them, you don’t buy the product. If you think that you trust Wallpaper* or you trust The New Yorker or TIME Magazine, because you’re busy, but you want to buy a news magazine that’s going to give you the best news stories, edited properly, photography and words, and you want a weekly magazine, so you decide that’s TIME Magazine, Fortune Magazine for financial issues.

It’s so obvious now, but with the excitement and the novelty of the Internet, where everything is available, the whole world is on the screen; we immediately think it’s amazing and it’s everything, but we don’t really want everything. I want to be told by a trusted travel expert that if I go to Beirut, these are the best 10 things I should do in my two days there. I don’t want a thousand things and to make my own choice. I think we forgot how important that was. It’s so obvious now. And it has great value.

And in print, I think it’s germane to what print is all about. You have to edit. It’s a limited space you have and often in our world having restrictions makes your product better because you have to think a bit harder and make tougher decisions and therefore you choose the best things, rather than having no limitations and no restrictions, because sometimes you can get a bit lost.

Samir Husni: And as you said earlier; it’s just common sense.

Tony Chambers; Yes, it is. And unfortunately, during great technological change, you lose common sense. You see it all the time. One gets so excited about what is possible, you don’t have the common sense to step back and say, it’s possible to do that, but it’s not needed.

Typography is interesting and has always been a big passion of mine. If you look through the history of technological developments in printing techniques and ways of the industry levels, you could do things with cutting type; you could cut the most extremely fine and thin letters because the technology was there.

Then the typography became the most extremely big, fat-shaped letters, which was extraordinary technologically, but you couldn’t read them. And what is the point of typography? It’s to make the text legible to the reader. And of course, the actual function of the thing was lost because everyone was so excited.

And the same thing happened when computers first came out and you could stretch letters. Everyone was saying, wow; we can stretch letters or put huge or tiny letter-spacing. So you had this rash of typography that was more about expressing how brilliant it was that a computer could stretch these letters than anything else. And then looking back five years later, you realized how horrible the whole idea was.

And this happens time and again with technology. You get so impressed by what is possible, that you don’t step back and see that it’s really not something that you want to do in the first place.

It’ll happen again, I’m sure. And we’ll go through these troughs and then, as I said, I think that we’re in a moment now where we’re out of the fog and we’re seeing it with clearer eyesight and thinking about everything that’s possible, but also deciding on whether we want to do it or not. And we’re going to have a really good period where people are respecting experts again and I think we’re coming into some really good moments.

Samir Husni: I wish that typography was more in the forefront of our design courses these days the way it used to be. It has taken a backseat to other things and I think it is so very important.

Tony Chambers: Yes and you know why; it’s very hard. It requires a certain amount of mathematical knowledge and rigor, with aesthetics. But if you don’t have the rigor, the aesthetics are meaningless really.

But people know more about it now and that helps because more people are typing their own stuff. When I graduated nobody even knew what a typeface was, so it should be better. Again, people just need to step back and appreciate the experts because it’s such a subtle and a refined skill when it’s done properly, where it’s elegant and relevant to its time. But the main job is, as a reader you don’t notice it, and that’s the skill of good typography; you shouldn’t notice it. You should just read the text and have a pleasant experience.

Samir Husni: Tony, what refines you? To steal a tagline from Wallpaper*. (Laughs)

Tony Chambers: That’s a very good question. I think fine arts are the thing. I believe being inspired and continually fed by high art, and not just as in a painting, but art that’s from the past and the present and that strives to reach perfection. Having artists, people like that as your mentors and as inspiration is something that makes you refined yourself.

I read something really lovely that Murray Moss, the former owner of Moss Gallery in New York, once said. He talked about the Austrian glassmaker Lobmeyr. They make the finest, most delicate glassware ever. And Murray Moss stocked that in his store at one time, it was one of his favorites, and it’s one of mine as well. It’s an old Austrian family company. They make the most exquisite glassware, whether it’s drinking glasses or decanters or anything else.

Moss said he had a guy to wander into his store once and ask him what made the Lobmeyr glassware so special. It seemed stupid to him. The man said it was so delicate that if he knocked it or dropped it, the glass would smash, therefore it was bad designing. He didn’t want a glass that he would have to worry about smashing every time he used it.

And going back to the word refinement, Murray Moss told the man this; what better thing could there be for a human being than something that could actually make you take more care as you lift that glass of wine or water to your lips? Something that forces you to take extra care and be a little more refined; to hold it in a more thoughtful way and as you put it to your lips and sipping its contents, you’re really thinking about it a little more and being cautious.

And I thought that was such a beautiful way of describing a function of something. Something that could make us all as human beings more refined. It may not be answering your question exactly, but I agree totally with what Murray Moss is saying. And maybe it does go back to what we’re trying to produce at Wallpaper* or at any other quality publication, that yes, it’s about information and it’s about informing people in our fast and busy world, but if you hold this magazine and its content, its design and printing, just its general production value, and it makes you feel a bit more refined, then that’s amazing.

And as you look through it and you see a beautiful piece of architecture or some gorgeous travel photography or beautiful fashion; if it just lifts you a little bit and makes you think about the finer things in life; the great achievements of these designers, architects and chefs, I think that’s a great thing. I think sometimes holding a magazine like Wallpaper* makes you feel a little bit better and that’s the kind of job we’re trying to do. Inform and entertain and feel a bit more refined about what is possible out there. These are such troubled times, barbaric times. So let’s focus a little more on the beautiful and wonderfully great things that humanity is capable of creating. And maybe take our minds off of the destructive side of humanity for a moment.

Samir Husni: Marvelous answer. And it’s music to my ears.

Tony Chambers: Well, thank you. I think we need to spend more time on the refined things in life, that’s what makes us more civilized, rather than these barbaric, medieval things that are happening at the moment. We need to focus on the great achievements of mankind and the things that we champion.

Another thing that makes me more refined is looking at and feeling enlightened by the great achievements in art, design, food and all of the beautiful things we cover in the magazine. And being exposed to that is healthy; it’s like medicine. It makes you feel better. And it makes you hopeful about the future.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Tony Chambers: We’re all so excited that this new project that we’ve produced is now being amplified in the most sensible and practical way, both in print and in digital, to get that message across more.

It’s a really thrilling and exciting time for the brand. For 20 years we’ve been producing this title to a modest audience, because highly-produced things are expensive, therefore high-quality things tend to have a more modest circulation. But now suddenly because of the things that we’ve talked about with Time Inc.’s access to this extraordinary data and with the website’s growth, with them being able to produce this high-end product to actually reach more people and we’re confident that there are more people out there who will be receptive to it, more so now than there was 20 years ago. They’re more educated and they’re receptive and hungry for these fine things in life and that’s great for all of us because the more we talk about these things, the more people engage with these finer things in life. And the better everyone will be because of it.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home, what would I find you doing? Maybe reading a magazine with a glass of wine; reading a book; watching TV; reading your iPad?

Tony Chambers: A combination of all of them really. I’m finding less time to actually engage with television, even though I think it’s still a very super-relevant medium. But just because of time and also because I have a young daughter, which absorbs a lot of my time (Laughs), I don’t have a lot of time for television. But definitely reading a magazine or a book, and yes, I love a good glass of wine. I love nice surroundings with good furniture; it doesn’t have to be expensive furniture, just well-made and well-designed.

And you might find me pouring over some beautiful typography from my vast archives; it’s all there, because I’ve collected things for 25 or 30 years. Nothing gives me more pleasure than a beautifully designed book or a perfectly produced bit of typography, whether that’s in book form or poster or even digitally. I have less and less time suddenly to really indulge in typography, but any time I do get I’ll be refreshing myself with trying to remember obscure typefaces and what country they were designed in.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Tony Chambers: The emails that I haven’t replied to. (Laughs) I know that sounds awful, but I do wake up and think about them. Not that it keeps me up at night; I do go to sleep, but then I wake up, more so lately, with the thought that: oh no, I haven’t replied lately. And I’m a stickler for replying to emails and I do have a brilliant assistant; he’s a genius who helps me. I remember when I was just starting out; if I wrote an email and sent it to somebody I admired or a magazine or a designer, that feeling of not getting a reply stayed with me. But the thrill of actually getting a reply; I’ve always remembered that.

Now, I get so many emails, but you just have to do your best to respond. So sometimes at night I’ll wake up and remember that I haven’t replied to someone. And I think it is important to reply. The brand, Wallpaper* is so important that if someone tries to contact us, especially if it’s an artist, photographer, writer or designer, because by the grace of God go I. I always try to give an appropriate reply. Either it’s good for us or it isn’t good for us. Or if it is very good, get back to them, because if you ignore them, you might miss the next great designer or photographer.

So that does sometimes keep me awake at night because to me it’s a reflection of the brand and I would hate for anybody, whether it’s a student in Beirut or a credible designer or architect, thinking that Wallpaper* doesn’t get back to you. I just don’t think that’s right, because we are very much about supporting the industry and all of the things that we talk about. It’s a very important part of our role. We report on the best of what’s out there, but we have to support and encourage the next generation to keep that wheel moving. It’s an obsession of mine to respond and get back to people and I also stress that to my team. We do respond to people who reach out to us and we do support and encourage as well.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in Innovation in print, Magazine Power, New Launches, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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GX – A Magazine Designed For The National Guard Experience & Mr. Magazine’s™ Interview With The Man Who Watches Over That Design Proudly – Dustin McNeal, Senior Art Director at iostudio*

November 24, 2015

“I like being able to hold our product. All of the design is done on a computer in the digital space, but we even have a wall that we put up and place the printouts of the design on so that we can take a look. Even then these flat spreads are just single sheets of paper. It’s just a completely different experience when we get our advances in from the printer and we can actually flip through it and it’s a bound piece of work. It really comes together then in a way that, for me at least, is hard to replicate in a digital space.” Dustin McNeal

GX_11-5_Cover Taking care of the dignity and the reverence that is The National Guard is a job that iostudio takes very seriously. As part of the reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, The Guard has units from each state in the country and its stories of heroism and courage come from its service members on a regular basis. GX magazine, a product created by iostudio and the official magazine of the United States Army National Guard, brings the conviction of the Guard’s mission to the forefront with this publication.

Dustin McNeal is senior art director at iostudio and leads the marketing agency’s design staff. Dustin’s leadership and creativity has led to more than 30 industry awards for publication, advertising and book design, including the prestigious 2015 Folio Award for Design Team of the Year. Dustin leads the editorial design of GX magazine with a creative and loving hand.

I spoke with Dustin recently and quickly discovered that he combines his passion for the military with his passion for design, producing an excellence in contemporary editorial design which resulted in a best-in-class print magazine. He is a man who believes in every facet of the editorial design process and has a love for his work that won’t be denied. Not that he’d ever want to.

So, sit back, relax and enjoy this very fascinating discussion with a man who led his design team to win the 2015 Folio Award for Design Team of the Year, an achievement that isn’t easy to do. And now the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Dustin McNeal, Senior Art Director, iostudio.

But first, the sound-bites:


dustin_mcneal_7225 On winning the 2015 Folio Award for Design Team of the Year: We normally send all of our entries into the custom publication categories and to be recognized as the best design team overall, for everyone, was quite a humbling experience. But it let us know that our work is definitely paying off and getting noticed.

On the day-to-day interaction of his design team with the editorial staff: For something that editorial would maybe like to see in the design; they never hesitate at all to say – could we try this or try that. Similarly, with the design team, if we have something that just doesn’t seem to be working or if we have a great idea that would need the editorial team to maybe look at the copy a bit differently; it’s an easy request and most times both teams are really eager to work with each other to make something that could really stand out.

On a day in the professional life of Dustin McNeal: Pretty much first thing in the morning our small teams get together for a review of what’s taken place since our last meeting the day before. And we talk about different stories and how they’re coming along; our different sources and our different writers; things that people are getting hung up on. We deal with an editorial slate and we kind of break that down into a tier calendar. We work on basically about a quarter of the magazine per week.

On the way the design team incorporates the photography with the typography: We’re inspired by a lot of different things and a lot of different publications. Sometimes we push the envelope as to what we think our readership might be comfortable with, but we don’t push it far enough where it starts to have a disassociation with the content, especially on some of those articles where we’re dealing with a unit, a training event or an historical article.

On one design he and his team created that he’s most proud of: Oh wow. We had an article that was a blowout kind of feature of a small article series called “Survival Skills” and in it the story would teach soldiers how to catch fish without a fishing line or a pole; how to start a fire in damp conditions, and things like that. So, we decided that we were going to have this feature where instead of one tip list; we’d have 15 or 20. All the different pieces; photography, illustrations, hands-on type, and all of the copy and the different blurbs; everything was at different lengths. It just came out beyond my expectations. And it was one of the pieces that we submitted for the Design Team of the Year nomination and I can’t say that it won it for us, but I would like to think personally that it was one among the collection that stuck with the judges.

On when he realized that design was in his future: I’ve always been a doodler and liked to draw, starting around age five. We’ll be at my parents’ house and my mother will pull out some drawing I did with a red Magic Marker on a cardboard box top and I’ll ask her why she’s keeping such stuff. (Laughs) But the fact is I’ve always been interested in art. And it baffles my mom, because she doesn’t have a creative bone in her body. Around high school I got into my first art classes. I guess I was drawing in a particular way, it wasn’t exactly great at that time; I hadn’t had formal education, but something in that made the instructor say to me that I might want to look into graphic design and that I saw things in dynamic shapes and colors.

On whether he thinks all of iostudio’s success with GX magazine would have been possible without a printed edition, if they were only working within the digital space: No, I’m really old school. I like being able to hold our product. All of the design is done on a computer in the digital space, but we even have a wall that we put up and place the printouts of the design on so that we can take a look. Even then these flat spreads are just single sheets of paper. It’s just a completely different experience when we get our advances in from the printer and we can actually flip through it and it’s a bound piece of work. It really comes together then in a way that, for me at least, is hard to replicate in a digital space.

On the one facet of design that excites him the most: I’m a big color guy. A very close though would be contrast. It’s a very interesting thing; the type, you really have to focus on it to understand it. And images, they’re kind of an evolution of color, but for a purely basic mental stimulation, I think that color and contrast is really what grabs people.

On what motivates him to get out of bed in the morning: Our client, The National Guard, is one that is in no short supply of inspiring stories or individuals. And there’s a common insulation, just among the team, to know that our work on GX is possibly influencing the current and future generations of service members. The Guard soldier who can see their service celebrated in GX might consider extending that service.

On what keeps him up at night: The client. As a custom publication there’s no one in our office making the final call on anything, so we can put together the absolute best product that you could imagine, but at the end of the day we send it up to The National Guard Bureau in D.C. for someone to review and they have to approve it. And our content has to be reflective of the Guard’s integrity.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Dustin McNeal, Senior Art Director, iostudio.


GX_12-3_Cover Samir Husni: Congratulations on your big win at this year’s Folio Awards; as senior art director of the iostudio team; well-deserved to all of you.

Dustin McNeal: Thank you.

Samir Husni: Tell me, when you heard the news that you’d won the overall design award over everyone else out there from all the other publications; what was your first reaction? I mean, it’s a very tough competition.

Dustin McNeal: A little bit of disbelief, I guess. I’m not always the most boastful person, so part of me was thinking why in the world, because as you may know that particular category was open to all entrants. It wasn’t exactly commercial, consumer, association or anything like that. We normally send all of our entries into the custom publication categories and to be recognized as the best design team overall, for everyone, was quite a humbling experience. But it let us know that our work is definitely paying off and getting noticed.

Samir Husni: As the lead designer; what value do you put on the design of the magazine and the day-to-day interaction with the editorial team?

Dustin McNeal: Our day-to-day interaction with the editorial team is quite close. We have a very small team; there are three people on the editorial side, including our editor-in-chief, Mark Shimabukuro, and then there are three on the design team. Many times we can do a quick turnaround on things just because of the close proximity, we sit back-to-back of each other, and the camaraderie that our team has with one another.

For something that editorial would maybe like to see in the design; they never hesitate at all to say – could we try this or try that. Similarly, with the design team, if we have something that just doesn’t seem to be working or if we have a great idea that would need the editorial team to maybe look at the copy a bit differently; it’s an easy request and most times both teams are really eager to work with each other to make something that could really stand out.

Samir Husni: Tell me a little bit more about your role as senior art director at iostudio. Describe a day in the professional life of Dustin McNeal.

Dustin McNeal: Pretty much first thing in the morning our small teams get together for a review of what’s taken place since our last meeting the day before. And we talk about different stories and how they’re coming along; our different sources and our different writers; things that people are getting hung up on. We deal with an editorial slate and we kind of break that down into a tier calendar. We work on basically about a quarter of the magazine per week. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. (Laughs) And that takes into account all of the time prior to that four-week schedule of writing assignments and that sort of thing.

We also kind of scatter it so that the editorial team will work on a set of stories and then they’ll have a two-design deadline and that usually takes place on a Friday. What that means is on Monday morning we should have everything that editorial worked on the week prior ready to go. And then we work on designing that quarter of the magazine during that week as well as working on the next quarter during that same time.

So, in those morning meetings, we’ll talk about which stories are ready for design; which stories may need a little more of a sit-down just to talk things out, whether it’s a story that has maybe veered away from our initial ideas or if there’s a change needed. We have an entire section of the magazine up toward the front of the book that deals with a lot of the more current news type things going on in the National Guard world. And you wouldn’t believe how often news changes, especially toward the end of the process when we have to constantly swap stories in and out of that section.

GX_11-6_WorkoutFeatureSpread After the morning meetings, designers will have their stories that are ready to go. And I’m a big proponent of you have to read the copy before you start any kind of design, before you try to fit any copy into a particular mold. They might come across something very inspiring that they want to try and match. They need to make sure the content will fit that mold and that they’re just not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, so to speak.

A lot of times if they’re just simple one-page articles, the editorial staff has found a way to format those in a way that’s pretty straightforward, quick hitting and are really easy reads. We might support that with one piece of art versus the stories that are multiple pages and more in depth. For those type stories we might send a photographer or hire an illustrator to represent the art for us.

The biggest amount of research on our part is for our legacy features and the legacy section is once in every issue and it deals with the historical aspect of Guard service and that could mean a past conflict or battle, or a unit’s past achievements, or even the National Guard as a whole for an entire state. It’s quite fact-based and we have to typically pull a lot of historical images. We can usually find those either online through the U.S. National Archives or from different states’ historical associations. And then we also have a wonderful collection of contacts through state public affairs officers that we kind of partner with.

But just going through those and finding these images that correlate with the particular story that we’re telling; say we have a story on the 29th Infantry divisions of their role in the D-Day invasion of France; there are a lot of different D-Day images, but we have to make sure that the ones that we’re featuring are actually featuring the soldiers from the unit that we’re depicting in the editorial copy. And sometimes that can take a bit of legwork to make sure that you have the right images.

Samir Husni: You’re type of design, the role that you play at GX; the way that you incorporate the photography with the typography, has to also be historically relevant and accurate?

GX_11-4_SurvivalSkillsFeature5 Dustin McNeal: Correct. We’re inspired by a lot of different things and a lot of different publications. Sometimes we push the envelope as to what we think our readership might be comfortable with, but we don’t push it far enough where it starts to have a disassociation with the content, especially on some of those articles where we’re dealing with a unit, a training event or an historical article. You don’t want to have something that look like it just came out of Wired or something, and represented with those particular pieces of copy.

We just have to walk that line and go with things that are going to keep the readers engaged, but also choose something in reverence to the subject matter that we’re in charge of.

Samir Husni: If you were to pick one design; one story that you’ve done, and tell me that was the design that you take the most pride in that you and your team have created, and quite possibly is the one that resulted in your winning the 2015 Folio Award for Design Team of the Year; which would that be?

Dustin McNeal: Oh wow. We had an article that was a blowout kind of feature of a small article series called “Survival Skills” and in it the story would teach soldiers how to catch fish without a fishing line or a pole; how to start a fire in damp conditions, and things like that. So, we decided that we were going to have this feature where instead of one tip list; we’d have 15 or 20.

And for it I had an idea that we would try and combine equal weights of photography and illustration and sometimes that might not work out, but it was one that I was directly in talks with the illustrator, giving very detailed instructions on the type of style that I was wanting, thinking back on the old Boy Scout handbook illustrations, where they were more instructional looking.

And then I partnered up with a photographer here in our area. One of the great things about working at iostudio is that there’s no shortage of National Guard members on staff. So, we got a nice-looking guy and went out to the state park and shot the images to correlate with four of the tips that were going to be spread out through the feature.

GX_11-4_SurvivalSkillsFeature We had these rangers, one per spread, who talked about the things in the story, like traversing a river and catching wild game, topics like that. And we had all of these different kinds of tips around it and a lot of different things that were illustrated. And then I had the illustrator letter out the opening art and everything just sort of fell into place.

All the different pieces; photography, illustrations, hands-on type, and all of the copy and the different blurbs; everything was at different lengths. It just came out beyond my expectations. And it was one of the pieces that we submitted for the Design Team of the Year nomination and I can’t say that it won it for us, but I would like to think personally that it was one among the collection that stuck with the judges.

Samir Husni: When did you realize that design was in your future and it was what you wanted to do with your career?

Dustin McNeal: I’ve always been a doodler and liked to draw, starting around age five. We’ll be at my parents’ house and my mother will pull out some drawing I did with a red Magic Marker on a cardboard box top and I’ll ask her why she’s keeping such stuff. (Laughs) But the fact is I’ve always been interested in art. And it baffles my mom, because she doesn’t have a creative bone in her body.

Around high school I got into my first art classes. I guess I was drawing in a particular way, it wasn’t exactly great at that time; I hadn’t had formal education, but something in that made the instructor say to me that I might want to look into graphic design and that I saw things in dynamic shapes and colors. Before that, I was completely oblivious to what design was. Obviously, I saw it around me all of the time, but I didn’t really identify with it, such as this is a type of commercial art that I could do, and not commissioned-based art, where you’re doing things your own way and on your own time and trying to sell those, but this could be a job that I could do day in and day out.

You could pair that with my lifelong infatuation with publications. I’ve always been somewhat of a collector as well and I can remember probably back in middle school I had every issue of “Electronic Gaming Monthly,” I was big into video games as a kid. And this confused my mother, she couldn’t understand why I was keeping all of those magazines; she read them and then threw them out. But they meant so much more to me than that; it was almost like they were little collector items and I could go back and reference things that I had read in the past.

So, in college, fast-forwarding to that point, I went to school at kind of an odd time. It was right around 2000, the web was obviously gaining in importance, but as far as the curriculum at the school that I went to, it wasn’t quite moving at the pace that it needed to, so a lot of my art instruction was in the old style where you have your T-square and you’re doing hand-lettering and mock-ups with paper, exactos and all sorts of things. The desktop publishing course, which of course is basically what I do day in and day out, was actually taught through the Computer Science program and they had all sorts of prerequisites that I was never going to get through because of my bachelor of fine arts curriculum. But I had an instructor come to me and ask if I wanted to do the layout for an art and literary type zine and of course, I agreed because I wasn’t doing anything at the time. But that was my first experience with Adobe InDesign and that was still back in the day when the majority of folks were using Quark, but because I had the equivalent of the Creative Suite back then and I had to supply my own software to do the layout, I really got introduced to the program that I couldn’t live without today.

So, getting into the page layout and putting that little zine together, it just hearkened to something in the back of my mind that reminded me of all of those magazines that I was collecting as a child and I started getting interested in editorial design and publication design, things that I had been drawn to, but never dreamt that I would be able to do for myself. I knew that I was going into graphic design, but I guess that I didn’t put much thought into what it might become after school.

GX_11-1_Cover I got my first job in Nashville and it was at a book publisher-on-demand type company where out-of-print books and other items were sent and would basically get torn apart, the covers photographed, all the pages scanned and then put back together again. And I was on the quality assurance team that would go in and look at the image of the covers and compare the originals to the ones the designers would basically create with Photoshop. We had these crazy large libraries filled with hundreds of thousands of colors and I would take color samples and try to match them; it was very monotonous work. I don’t want to say that it wasn’t fulfilling, but my creative drive was beyond that.

It just so happened as I was being considered for a permanent hire, I get a call that there was a company looking for someone to help with magazine design. I didn’t hesitate; I was saying yes, I’ll be in and we’ll talk, this has got to work out. And I had to let the other company know that I was going to go off and do something else.

And of course the company needing magazine design help was iostudio and this was eight or nine years ago. And then we started working with GX magazine. Even from the point that I came in at as a beginning designer, the magazine has changed so much. We used to get copy from public affairs officers, plus we had a couple of staff writers and other projects in the company as we were trying to get the ad agency going. But it was people trying to do a bunch of different jobs as we were starting up. We had to rely heavily on outside sources to put the magazine together.

Fast-forwarding through the years, we hired an art director named Laurel Petty and I really attribute her as being one of my best mentors, especially when coming up through editorial design and through GX. GX was the only magazine that I had ever known, but she’d come from a background where she had worked in D.C. and New York and all sorts of places. She showed me what true art direction was through editorial design. I learned so much from her and I received a promotion to senior designer and then when Laurel decided that she was going to go back to school in Chicago, that was when the opportunity came up for me to move into the art director position.

By that time, I had already established all kinds of creative goals and aesthetics that I wanted to shift the magazine toward and it was quite a change. Laure ended up moving on at a really good point, because it was at the very end of one volume and we were ramping up for the new volume.

I don’t particularly like to make major changes in the middle of the year; I try to make any significant changes between December and January. So it was me and another designer and we put our heads together, worked hard and came up with this new visual language for GX that really kicked things off for us to see the success that we have over the last couple of years.

Samir Husni: Do you think all of that success would have been possible without a printed edition of GX, if you were only working with digital?

Dustin McNeal: For myself? No, I’m really old school. I like being able to hold our product. All of the design is done on a computer in the digital space, but we even have a wall that we put up and place the printouts of the design on so that we can take a look. Even then these flat spreads are just single sheets of paper. It’s just a completely different experience when we get our advances in from the printer and we can actually flip through it and it’s a bound piece of work. It really comes together then in a way that, for me at least, is hard to replicate in a digital space.

I think just having pages with copy and art on them takes me back to those relationships that I had with magazines in my youth, where you can hold onto them and reference back to an article if you need or want to. For me, it’s a lot easier to go to our layout room where we have shelves and shelves of old GX’s, but we also have shelves and shelves of reference materials from other magazines that we use and subscribe to so that we can look at for inspiration or something like that. And for me, I just can’t get that in a purely digital space.

Samir Husni: People may think I’m speaking with an older person with your media philosophy; how old are you, Dustin?

Dustin McNeal: I’m 33.

Samir Husni: And you’re referencing the good old days. (Laughs)

Dustin McNeal: (Laughs too).

Samir Husni: What excites you more in design: color, pictures, typography, white space; if you could name only one thing about the art of design that really gets your creative juices flowing, what would it be?

Dustin McNeal: I’m a big color guy. A very close though would be contrast. It’s a very interesting thing; the type, you really have to focus on it to understand it. And images, they’re kind of an evolution of color, but for a purely basic mental stimulation, I think that color and contrast is really what grabs people.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?

GX_12-5_IntelOpener Dustin McNeal: Our client, The National Guard, is one that is in no short supply of inspiring stories or individuals. And there’s a common insulation, just among the team, to know that our work on GX is possibly influencing the current and future generations of service members. The Guard soldier who can see their service celebrated in GX might consider extending that service. And because of that choice they may be the ones contributing aid after a natural disaster in our hometown or fighting a wildfire that’s endangering a relative’s home on another coast.

And we’re also creative professionals who just love and enjoy the process of seeing an issue come to life on our production wall. We love to be inspired by work from others, whether that’s from other publications, web designs, or photography and we think about how we can implement those things that we find ourselves enamored with into the magazine in a way that pays off for the readership.

You have to love what you do and it might be a little easier to do that when you’re working in a creative job. And with our editorial team, we have such a strong relationship that we can usually power through anything that comes up. It’s a very rewarding job.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Dustin McNeal: The client. As a custom publication there’s no one in our office making the final call on anything, so we can put together the absolute best product that you could imagine, but at the end of the day we send it up to The National Guard Bureau in D.C. for someone to review and they have to approve it. And our content has to be reflective of the Guard’s integrity.

That’s really the only thing that keeps me up at night is making sure that our client is going to be happy with our work and is pleased.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

*Truth in reporting: I am a publishing consultant with iostudio but was not involved with this design award for the magazine.

Posted in Innovation in print, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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BurdaInternational: Bringing The World Of Magazines and Magazine Media To A Global Audience – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Frances Evans, Director of International Licensing & Advertising, Burda Media

November 20, 2015

From Germany with love…

“I really like magazine media. I’ve loved it forever. And I really want our brands to succeed and I believe that magazine media is an excellent platform to reach consumers because it’s trusted quality brands that they love and I like to be in that value chain.” Frances Evans

IMG_9545 Burda Media is a German magazine publishing company that started back in 1898 and BurdaInternational, one of its subsidiaries, currently publishes different magazines in 20 markets internationally. They are the licensures for brands such as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle and many others throughout the world.

Frances Evans is the Director of International Licensing & Advertising with Burda and also a woman who is passionate about innovation and all of the brands that she handles and works with. From Asia to the U.K., Frances has her finger on the pulse of what’s going on around the globe with each of her titles, providing support, encouragement, innovation education and a strong team spirit that reverberates back to each and every member of Burda’s wide-reaching family and the audiences that love their magazines deeply.

I spoke with Frances during the FIPP Congress last month in Toronto, Canada, and we talked about Burda and the many titles they have. About the support and open communication she gets from the powers-that-be at the top of the company chain and how much she loves magazines and her job. It was a truly delightful conversation.

So, sit back, relax and enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with a woman who knows her way around the globe and also around the world of magazine media, Frances Evans, Director of International Licensing & Advertising, Burda Media.

But first, the sound-bites:


IMG_9543 On an introduction to BurdaInternational: BurdaInternational is a subsidiary of Burda Media, which is the holding company and the main company. Burda has four main platforms and one is the publishing business in Germany, so we have many brands in Germany, such as Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Out, Playboy, but also digital brands like Huffington Post and we also have a lot of digital properties attached to the magazine brands. The second part of the company which is the printing business is the legacy part of the business, so we have printers in Germany, France and a very big printing company in India. Then we have the digital business with brands such as the German version of LinkedIn, which is XING.com; a German version of something like TripAdvisor, it’s called HolidayCheck.com; we have brands that are related to computer sales, such as Computer Universe and Cyberport. And then we have a lot of VC capital invested in digital and technology properties.

On how easy or difficult it was to move from that legacy business of printing to where Burda is today: I would say that the start was very difficult. Not many people really like change. You can’t always affect change with people who have been there for a long time, so yes, there was some changeover with the managers, but also in the way the managers were then briefed. So, a lot of change had to come from the top.

On that “aha” moment when she realized it wasn’t either/or, print or digital, but both: The last two or three years have been a huge learning curve for all of us. The more we’ve done; the more we’ve seen what used to be those ancillary revenues grow and in some cases the magazine is the ancillary revenue and the other business is the revenue model and I think with some titles that’s happened.

On why it took so long for media professionals, described by some as some of the “smartest people on earth,” so long to realize the truth about print and digital, that they must both be utilized in this day and age: It’s very simple actually. Media owners were used to making money with their eyes closed. And when you have your eyes closed, you don’t see change coming. You don’t see it because you’re not looking.

On the most pleasant moment she’s faced over the last three to five years: There have been a couple of very pleasant moments. And they’ve all been emails. I had two emails this year from one particular editor of a brand and I’ve known her for a very long time. I spent a lot of time training her 10 years ago and she went off and went to work for another company, but now we’re back together again in way. I spent a long evening explaining to her pretty much what I’ve just explained to you, and if she wanted to not be obsolete that she would need to learn Google Analytics because it would help her to create better content for her title. We had this discussion in Paris on a Wednesday night. She got back to her country on Friday and on Friday one week later, I got a message from her saying that she had just completed a Google Analytics, Google Trends and Facebook training and she’d also had her team to do it and how amazed she was by this data. And what it could do for her, so that was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Having these conversations and being able to explain to people that they can do things differently and then affecting change.

On the biggest stumbling block she’s had to face: People. (Laughs) People don’t like change, in general. Most people find change difficult. It’s normal and it’s human nature. You have to create an environment where change is a part of the fabric of the society you’re working in and as I said earlier; people were used to making money with their eyes closed. So, it’s not always that easy to persuade people to do something that they don’t know how to do. You need to review short-term conflicts and medium-term conflicts that might arise during an innovation process. In an innovation process there will always be conflicts; there will always be areas where people are uncomfortable.

On whether she has a favorite country or magazine to work with out of all the international brands Burda owns: No, not really. I like working with most of them actually. I have maybe a few brands that I work on more than others. We have four editions of Marie Claire and I like working with those guys, because Marie Claire is quite a difficult magazine. It’s not as easy to do as something like Cosmopolitan or maybe even Elle, because they’re very well-established brands. Marie Claire is also very well-established, but it has a much more journalistic approach to it. And it’s not always the number one brand on the market, so I like to work with those teams because they try really hard to innovate.

IMG_9544 On anything else she’d like to add: We’re not really a top of mind licensure; we’re not somebody you’d come running to for content, because it’s German. But what we’ve seen in the last couple of years is that people will come to us for many other things. What we’ve done in the past few years is get people to want to partner with us or collaborate with us and that’s something that’s very special about the company, because I think we’re seen as a very collaborative and good partner.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the morning: I’m stubborn. (Laughs) I’m stubborn and I don’t give up. I really like magazine media. I’ve loved it forever. And I really want our brands to succeed and I believe that magazine media is an excellent platform to reach consumers because it’s trusted quality brands that they love and I like to be in that value chain.

On what keeps her up at night: Planning my next diving holiday. (Laughs) I’m an avid diver and I spend hours researching dive sites and livable dive boats and where I’m going to find some hammerhead sharks. You have to have a nice balance and a couple of years ago I did my first professional qualification in diving, so if it all goes wrong with magazines I can always go and work as a dive master.

And now the lightly edited transcription of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Frances Evans, Director of International Licensing & Advertising, Burda Media.

Samir Husni: Introduce me to BurdaInternational and tell me about your tagline, “Burda Magazine Media and Beyond.”

Frances Evans: BurdaInternational is a subsidiary of Burda Media, which is the holding company and the main company. Burda has four main platforms and one is the publishing business in Germany, so we have many brands in Germany, such as Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Out, Playboy, but also digital brands like Huffington Post and we also have a lot of digital properties attached to the magazine brands.

The second part of the company which is the printing business is the legacy part of the business, so we have printers in Germany, France and a very big printing company in India.

Then we have the digital business with brands such as the German version of LinkedIn, which is XING.com; a German version of something like TripAdvisor, it’s called HolidayCheck.com; we have brands that are related to computer sales, such as Computer Universe and Cyberport. And then we have a lot of VC capital invested in digital and technology properties. And I think I mentioned that we do Huffington Post Germany; we also have one of the biggest news sites in Germany called Focus Online. And so we have a very large digital section of the business.

And the fourth part of the business is BurdaInternational, which is all of the publishing activities outside of Germany. BurdaInternational is in 20 markets, ranging from Central and Eastern Europe, so Russia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Czech and Romania, to Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, the U.K., India, five other markets in Asia, Turkey and some small startups in China as well.

So, we have all different types of businesses. Some of our businesses are crafting-related businesses, or food-related; so very small and very focused on verticals. And then a couple of our markets are big companies with a wide range of service magazines; also luxury and fashion titles. Just a wide portfolio like we have in Germany.

Our Asian business is based on high net worth individuals. They’re data-based driven products that are aimed at multimillionaires and their individual experiences and individual products aimed and geared at that very high society.

So, because we try to be a media and tech company, we’re trying all of the time to move beyond magazines and we’ve moved beyond magazines into magazine media quite successfully. A lot of our brands are really working in a 360° way. We have a very strong event business; in some cases, some very strong digital platforms and apps and all kinds of different things.

Now we’re trying to move into the next phase where we’re having really strong digital platforms with transactional capabilities. We want to be the electrical current between the advertisers on the one hand and the consumers on the other hand. So, we want to be in that value chain and be the connecting wire, but taking money out of the value chain as we go along.

Samir Husni: How easy was the transformation from the legacy business, which was printing, to where you are today, the 360° way of conducting business?

IMG_9542 Frances Evans: I would say that the start was very difficult. Not many people really like change. You can’t always affect change with people who have been there for a long time, so yes, there was some changeover with the managers, but also in the way the managers were then briefed. So, a lot of change had to come from the top.

And there was a lot of training involved and discussion and communication involved. And best-practice changes involved as well. Not only was it quite hard-going, but it was also quite expensive to train everyone and to communicate on a regular basis how to do things; to get people together to see what other people were doing.

Eventually, we managed that quite successfully, especially with some of our vertical brands. With those titles like BurdaStyle magazine, a magazine that is our legacy brand and was launched by the mother of our company’s owner, Hubert Burda; the magazine is very close to his heart, so we have to take great care to do any changes in a very good way. And for him the most important thing with the brand is to make sure that it transitions into the future. Now, if we don’t do anything with the title, it won’t transition, so it’s clear that we have to do certain things and it’s also clear that not everything we do will work immediately. So, there’s a lot of tweaking and testing that goes on.

With a lot of the digital products that we’ve tried, or certain platforms that we’ve tried, they might work for a while, or maybe that don’t work and they need a bit of tweaking and testing and rearranging. And then you learn because you have new partnerships, so you bring new things to the table and that helps you to improve.

I think to answer the question; what we’ve done is a lot of collaboration and training; a lot of communication and there’s been quite a few exchanges of people in certain roles. That doesn’t mean they’ve left the company, but they’ve been moved out of maybe that innovation role and other people who have been more innovative have taken over naturally as well.

For some people and in some countries it was harder, but then in other countries, they’ve had no choice. In the Ukraine, where 90% of your advertising revenue disappears in months, weeks or days, then you’ve got no choice but to innovate really fast and try to find revenue streams wherever you can and that’s not necessarily going to be a classical advertising revenue and it’s also most probably not going to be in distribution revenue, so it’s events or it could be all kinds of different things, trunk sales for fashion clients or doing innovation days for clients and helping them to innovate, doing shopping events or entertainment events; just a host of different things.

Samir Husni: Can you recall that pivotal moment or that “aha” moment where you said it isn’t either/or, print or digital, but rather we have to be involved in all of it?

Frances Evans: The last two or three years have been a huge learning curve for all of us. The more we’ve done; the more we’ve seen what used to be those ancillary revenues grow and in some cases the magazine is the ancillary revenue and the other business is the revenue model and I think with some titles that’s happened.

I’d say the last two or three years we’ve been working very hard. We knew that it had to be done and there have been quite a few changes within our company and in how our company has been set up in those last few years. So, that’s what we’ve been pushing significantly and no we have a lot of proof cases so there’s no way out for people who aren’t doing it any longer. There are proof cases for everything in all of the verticals and in all of the segments and now it’s the case of just getting stuff done.

I’d say the last three years have been instrumental, but I’d also say for the last 18 months of that we’ve known exactly what to do. And then going forward, there will be other things that we’ll need to do because the speed of change isn’t going to slow down according to Moore’s Law. It’s only going to get faster and faster.

Actually, one of the things that we try to preach to everybody is the way that they work today is going to change, more than what they’re doing, but the way that they do their work. In 2010, 100% of someone’s time was print-focused. And we have a paragraph now when we’re training someone that reads they need to be spending 40% of their time on print, which means they’re going to have to let stuff go, so we talk about decluttering quite a bit. Letting go of old projects that might not be as important and not focusing on that high quality project that isn’t as beneficial to them as spending another 20% of their week on Instagram and social media would be, and developing ideas for online.

I also think a significant part of the time that we spend nowadays has to be on education and on how to develop you. If you don’t learn what’s going on in the market and you don’t learn about technology, data, analytics and conversions, you will become obsolete. So, an essential part of what we do today is educating ourselves.

Samir Husni: Why do you think the “smartest people on the face of the earth,” as journalists and media professionals have been described, took so long to realize this stage where we are now, that print and digital must both be utilized and work together in this day and age?

Frances Evans: It’s very simple actually. Media owners were used to making money with their eyes closed. And when you have your eyes closed, you don’t see change coming. You don’t see it because you’re not looking.

Samir Husni: That’s a great answer.

Frances Evans: I think that’s actually it.

Samir Husni: In that three to five year journey, what was the most pleasant moment that you experienced and what was the biggest stumbling block you had to face and how did you overcome it?

Frances Evans: There have been a couple of very pleasant moments. And they’ve all been emails. I had two emails this year from one particular editor of a brand and I’ve known her for a very long time. I spent a lot of time training her 10 years ago and she went off and went to work for another company, but now we’re back together again in way. I spent a long evening explaining to her pretty much what I’ve just explained to you, and if she wanted to not be obsolete that she would need to learn Google Analytics because it would help her to create better content for her title. It would help her to create better content for her online products too. And she needed to learn how to use Facebook marketing and how to use Google Trends; to use data to create content and to understand her readership better. And it would help her to know if what she was doing was working or not and she could tweak and test accordingly.

We had this discussion in Paris on a Wednesday night. She got back to her country on Friday and on Friday one week later, I got a message from her saying that she had just completed a Google Analytics, Google Trends and Facebook training and she’d also had her team to do it and how amazed she was by this data. And what it could do for her, so that was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Having these conversations and being able to explain to people that they can do things differently and then affecting change.

Then I received a follow-up email from her two weeks ago where she told me that she had increased her Facebook likes and shares over 10 times. The change was enormous. They’ve managed to increase the traffic on their website by spectacular amounts with no money. They’ve spent no money; they’ve just done what they have done very well. And they’ve been watching and learning and then applied it. And it worked. That I think probably is one of the best things that has happened to me.

Another one was I recently did a bunch of trainings for our team in Thailand and they liked it so much. They don’t all speak very good English, but the CEO thought it was so useful that she translated the entire training program into Thai and redid it herself a week later. And they sent me all of these photos, which was quite awesome because it was very unexpected that they would feel so grateful to have had that training.

Also, I was asked to set up some kind of content repository for those practices and I spoke to a trainee in the company about it and he said that I should use “Slack.” I told him that I had never heard of it, but he encouraged me to try it. He did a five minute presentation for me and I said OK, let’s use this; it’s free, so let’s give it a go.

Within two months I had 450 people from a 2,500-peopled company, of which I would guess a significant proportion do not speak English, but they’re on there and the number of messages is growing every week and the knowledge transfer is growing enormously and they now write to each other. I’m watching, so I can see it. They’re asking each other things like: has anyone tested this tool; has anybody tested that software and so they now have a platform, it’s significantly used by the digital team, but the publishers and the marketers and the salespeople exchange best practices or if they crack a new client with a certain, really cool idea, they share it. And the others pick it up and ask.

So, trying to change the company from a push mentality to a pull mentality has been incredibly difficult. But that tool has been quite successful in a very short period of time to do that. I personally find that quite successful. But I think it’s working because we can see best practices being put into place in sales, distribution, product and digital. And when you start seeing the speed of change then there has to be some money behind it. So, maybe this innovation will turn into money; we’ll see.

Samir Husni: And what has been the biggest stumbling block you’ve faced?

Frances Evans: People. (Laughs) People don’t like change, in general. Most people find change difficult. It’s normal and it’s human nature. You have to create an environment where change is a part of the fabric of the society you’re working in and as I said earlier; people were used to making money with their eyes closed. So, it’s not always that easy to persuade people to do something that they don’t know how to do. You need to review short-term conflicts and medium-term conflicts that might arise during an innovation process. In an innovation process there will always be conflicts; there will always be areas where people are uncomfortable.

Even dealing with that can create other conflicts, so it’s difficult. And it’s very challenging because it’s very stressful for a lot of people. Where there’s that much of a stress level ongoing, it can create a difficult environment, which can always be solved, but it just means that there’s a high level of pressure and you can feel it.

In the last three years, especially for us because we have a lot of business in Russia and Ukraine, which have been very difficult markets, we have business in Thailand which continuously every year something happens. When you just get back up on your feet, it happens again. Turkey is very similar as well. This year Malaysia has been a nightmare with the exchange rates. The exchange rates in Brazil have been a nightmare too. So, you can be doing everything right and the world can be against you. The exchange rates just are terrible and so whatever you’re doing, it’s working in local currency, but when you have to bring the money home, it doesn’t make for a pleasant story.

Samir Husni: From all of the countries that you work with; is there one that’s a favorite or a dear to your heart country or a favorite brand?

Frances Evans: No, not really. I like working with most of them actually. I have maybe a few brands that I work on more than others. We have four editions of Marie Claire and I like working with those guys, because Marie Claire is quite a difficult magazine. It’s not as easy to do as something like Cosmopolitan or maybe even Elle, because they’re very well-established brands. Marie Claire is also very well-established, but it has a much more journalistic approach to it. And it’s not always the number one brand on the market, so I like to work with those teams because they try really hard to innovate.

Recently, I’ve been doing a little bit more in Asia than I’ve done previously and that’s been quite a nice experience because they’re very grateful for the knowledge-sharing, so that’s been great. But I also have very high quality team of peer colleagues, so working in that team with a lot of incredibly intelligent people who are very dedicated and who are all fighting for the company. That’s actually a real honor to work with a group of people who are really dedicated and very good at what they do across the board.

I think the headquarter team that we have, the regional director and everyone else, is really a strong team and that’s really nice to have. Having colleagues that you can exchange with and who bring so much to the table that you can learn from them is terrific. And no one is very proprietary about information; everybody is open and we have a lot of discussions, and a lot of arguments as well, obviously, as you would, but everyone pushes together to propel the company forward whether it’s from exchanging their best practices or whether it’s giving people content for free because someone else’s country is having real problems and they need content. And that kind of thing is very unusual and I think that it defines the way that we work at BurdaInternational; it’s trial and error and collaboration.

We know what we need to do; we just don’t know how to get there, but nobody does. I don’t think anybody really knows the route, but we do know where we need to go and so we work together to get there. And we have a vision of what we want to achieve and we have the commitment from a shareholder and a group CEO to support us to do that.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Frances Evans: I think that a lot of the big international publishers have really great, amazing brands. And at Burda we actually license most of those brands. So we have a lot of inbound licensing as well. And we learn a lot from our partners. We’re very lucky because we do a lot of cool things, but we also learn from a lot of cool people too. And what we’ve done is built a really solid base in vertical and food publishing and garden publishing, those kinds of areas; crafting and things like that.

So, we’re not really a top of mind licensure; we’re not somebody you’d come running to for content, because it’s German. But what we’ve seen in the last couple of years is that people will come to us for many other things. What we’ve done in the past few years is get people to want to partner with us or collaborate with us and that’s something that’s very special about the company, because I think we’re seen as a very collaborative and good partner.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?

Frances Evans: I’m stubborn. (Laughs) I’m stubborn and I don’t give up. I really like magazine media. I’ve loved it forever. And I really want our brands to succeed and I believe that magazine media is an excellent platform to reach consumers because it’s trusted quality brands that they love and I like to be in that value chain. I used to work for an advertising agency. And I’d do projects; the client would like it; the client wouldn’t like it, and I liked that working with media. And working with magazines; people love what you’re giving to them. From a work perspective, I love the brands and I think that there’s a real reason for us to be there.

Now, we have to be there in many different ways than we were before. And that challenge and helping people to develop those platforms, I find incredibly challenging and very gratifying when it works.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Frances Evans: Planning my next diving holiday. (Laughs) I’m an avid diver and I spend hours researching dive sites and livable dive boats and where I’m going to find some hammerhead sharks. You have to have a nice balance and a couple of years ago I did my first professional qualification in diving, so if it all goes wrong with magazines I can always go and work as a dive master.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in Across the Pond, Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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Flow Magazine: For Life’s Little Pleasures And Paper Lovers Here, There And Everywhere – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Joyce Nieuwenhuijs, Brand Director & Irene Smit, Creative Director.

November 16, 2015

From The Netherlands With Love…

“I think it’s good to say that we are an example of the fact that print is not dead. And I think that we show the power of print, but I also believe in digital. The goal must not be about the medium, but the consumer’s needs. We started off in print and it’s more a luxury and a passion for women, but we can’t exist and grow fast internationally without digital and social media. So, certainly, we also need digital and not just print.” Joyce Nieuwenhuijs

“As for the digital part, we were never opposed to digital; it was just that we love paper so much that we put all of that emotion for paper into the magazine. And when we started Facebook and other social media, it helped us to grow very much.” Irene Smit

Flow3-2 Flow is a magazine that takes its time; it promotes celebrating creativity, imperfection, and life’s little pleasures. And it does so beautifully. The magazine and all of its special extensions and creative products are a print-lover’s dream. The different papers that are used with each issue are heavenly to the touch and mesmerizing to eye. It has become an international sensation with its many editions across the globe, having started out as a small Dutch magazine at the height of the economic crisis in 2008. It has since proven that if you follow your heart and your passion, anything is possible.

I still have vivid memories of holding that first issue of Flow magazine in my hands, together with its media kit, as the co-founders, flowing with joy (pun intended) presented me that first copy of the magazine. I was visiting the offices of Sanoma in The Netherlands where Joyce Nieuwenhuijs and Irene Smit work. Joyce is the brand director of Flow and Irene is the creative director. Both women have a firm grip on their seven-year-old’s hand and know how to lead it down the long and sometimes very winding road that is today’s magazine media world.

I spoke with Joyce and Irene recently and we talked about the concept of mindfulness and about how the magazine educates and encourages its readers to slow down and be conscious of every minute that they can. It was a look into a lifestyle that is both sought-after and needed in the busy world that we live in today.

So, I hope that you enjoy this respite with Joyce, Irene and Mr. Magazine™ as we take you into a world that will teach you how to go with the “Flow.”

But first, the sound-bites:

Joyce_Nieuwenhuijs On the birth of Flow Magazine (Joyce): Seven years ago we started Flow Magazine. It was 2008 and we got the go-ahead from the Board in July of that year. In September, the crisis began, so it was really a tough time to launch a new magazine. But actually, I think the crisis was a good point for us because everybody, especially Irene, the creative director, found a plan for the new concept, and a new magazine was born that didn’t exist until then.

On Irene’s recollection of the beginning of Flow (Irene): I was with my Co-Editor-in-Chief, Astrid van der Hulst, and we were sitting with papers all around us, talking about what kind of magazine we would like to read. And we had both brought everything that inspired us with us, wrapping paper, little cards and all of these paper things. That was the time when we found out that we wanted to make a magazine that focused on living mindfully and being inspired.

On Flow presenting itself as the “anti-digital” and its DNA (Joyce): First, I think it’s good to say that we are an example of the fact that print is not dead. And I think that we show the power of print, but I also believe in digital. The goal must not be about the medium, but the consumer’s needs. We started off in print and it’s more a luxury and a passion for women, but we can’t exist and grow fast internationally without digital and social media. So, certainly, we also need digital and not just print.

flow2-1 On the biggest stumbling block she’s faced since the launch of the magazine (Joyce): I only thought in opportunities in the beginning. But the challenge was Flow is an experience and you can’t just say that you have a new magazine, you have to see Flow before you can believe it’s a good idea. So, from the beginning really, that was a challenge. People get that Flow-feeling, and if they have a Flow Magazine in their hands; they’re in love. And for sure, if you have a brand that people love, you also have some people who don’t like it, but that’s OK, because you have to focus on the people who do love it. And if you’re mainstream; everybody likes you, but you’re not special. And I think that’s why Flow is good; it’s a love brand, but some people, mostly men, don’t understand what the magazine is. And from the beginning, we have to tell the story and that’s why I created the marketing strategy in ambassadors.

Irene Smit On how Irene coped with the economic crisis and the digital explosion in 2008 when the magazine was launched (Irene): Well, the economic crisis was more of a natural thing that happened, because when we started the magazine it was something that we already felt. Everything was getting bigger, people were not getting happier, and the shift was to more expensive and purer products. So, I think the crisis helped us because the feeling that we wanted to put in the magazine was reflected in the people at that time. A lot of them recognized themselves in our magazine. And that was OK for us, certainly. I mean, the crisis wasn’t good for the sales market, of course, but I do think it helped to grow the magazine. A lot of people felt like there was no more welfare and were looking for new ways of living. And that’s what Flow is all about.

On the ambassador program that she strategized to get the magazine into the hands of people (Joyce): Physically giving them their magazine to show them Flow, because before we did that, they couldn’t understand the magazine without it being in their hands; you couldn’t tell them the story. I think that’s another secret of Flow; it’s a true experience. It’s not just reading a magazine; it’s much more. And that’s why we’re able to grow the brand quickly.

On any cultural issues the magazine has faced crossing borders (Joyce): That’s a good point. We thought when we launched Flow that we’d focus on the Dutch market because we didn’t really consider the international market eight years ago. But we received so much feedback from abroad, people who had seen it in airport shelves that we knew that we had to do something internationally, but we had to figure out how. We wondered if we’d need to change our content for something more local or culturally different. But that’s why the prices for us and the changes in the world are so good, because in the world we have the oppressions; everybody is under the same pressures with their jobs or working very hard to balance their daily lives. It’s a worldwide challenge. And digital really helped us because the world is nearby now. Eight years ago it wasn’t so nearby.

flow5-4 On defining Flow Magazine (Joyce): What is Flow? The essence of Flow is that we are a magazine that takes its time. And we help people to learn to do the same. And it helps people look for the imperfections, because we are living in a world of perfections. Flow shows you that life doesn’t have to be perfect.

On the success of Flow (Irene): The success is that we really make the magazine ourselves; it comes from us. And every Wednesday, we still sit together and drink coffee and come up with new ideas and new products. And we have to find time for that. We are creative directors, but we’re magazine makers as well.

On the most pleasant moment for her during the last seven years (Joyce): When you’ve worked with Flow from the beginning; I think working with such a creative team every day and growing from a small magazine into a big, strong international brand makes each day so very pleasant. Also, the moment that we broke even and the return on our investment became really big was great.

On Irene’s most pleasant moment (Irene): The best moment for me is that Astrid and I sit together every Wednesday morning in a very nice coffee shop and we drink coffee together and talk about everything that’s going on. New products we want to make; problems we have to deal with, just everything that’s going on.

On anything else she’d like to add (Joyce): I think we have always had, and I will always have, a big ambition to grow the brand. But I believe it’s good to start small; think big, act small. That’s the secret of how we made Flow such a big brand. Nowadays, you have to learn by doing and you have to be an entrepreneur. More and more in the big challenge that we have as publishers you have to stay innovative with your product. And content is key for sure.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the morning (Joyce): Life is good, for sure. You have to claim the energy and look forward to doing things with your family. I love my job and love growing the brand. And being a part of today’s transformation gives me energy.

On what motivates Irene to get out of bed in the morning (Irene): Truthfully, my children. (Laughs) My family life is still the most important thing to me. And my work life is important as well, and I love what I do. It’s so nice that I can invent new products and think about new products. I get a lot of letters from people worldwide who tell me that the magazine helps them so much. I even received a letter from someone in London who told me that her husband had just died and she read the magazine and it helped her tremendously. And I love these readers; they’re so special to us. Their letters mean so much.

On what keeps her up at night (Joyce): I learned that if you get up very early and you work very hard, you have to sleep. (Laughs) We can work 20 hours, for sure, there is enough to do. But sometimes you have to take off and I learned that from Flow.

On what keeps Irene up at night (Irene): I never stay up at night. (Laughs) I sleep a lot. I go to bed very early and I’m so tired, I fall right to sleep.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Joyce Nieuwenhuijs, Brand Director and Irene Smit, Creative Director, Flow Magazine.

Samir Husni: Joyce, Flow Magazine is your baby.

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: Yes, it is.

Samir Husni: Recreate that birth moment for me.

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: Seven years ago we started Flow Magazine. It was 2008 and we got the go-ahead from the Board in July of that year. In September, the crisis began, so it was really a tough time to launch a new magazine. But actually, I think the crisis was a good point for us because everybody, especially Irene, the creative director, found a plan for the new concept, and a new magazine was born that didn’t exist until then.

We actually started Flow Magazine in November, 2008 and now seven years later, it’s growing very fast into a really beautiful, strong brand. The process we used was learning by doing and not starting with big budgets and huge print runs, but as entrepreneurs, with at first, a frequency of just six issues, so that we could grow the brand and surprise the readers.

From the beginning there was a lot of demand from readers in the Netherlands, but also from abroad. They couldn’t read it, but they thought it was amazing. It has grown very fast and now we have eight issues per year and six specials for the Netherlands, but we also have two licenses in Germany, France and the international edition in 20 countries.

So, in seven years and through entrepreneurship, we have 39 products now and we’re really proud of the baby we gave birth to in such chaotic times as it was for media then. Flow is a magazine that will give you rest in your hectic life.

Samir Husni: As the creative director, Irene, can you recall that moment of conception for you?

Irene Smit: Yes, very much. I was with my Co-Editor-in-Chief, Astrid van der Hulst, and we were sitting with papers all around us, talking about what kind of magazine we would like to read. And we had both brought everything that inspired us with us, wrapping paper, little cards and all of these paper things. That was the time when we found out that we wanted to make a magazine that focused on living mindfully and being inspired. We wanted to use four lines to describe the magazine.

So, we came up with those four lines that first day. I can remember vividly we were saying how nice this was or that was, and let’s do this or that. (Laughs) And we both did a mindfulness course, and mindfulness wasn’t as big then as it is now. But we really felt like it brought us so much.

We both finished the mindfulness course together and we learned so much. The idea of life and just accepting it as it is more, and to try and not to struggle so much. And this concept gave so much relief that we decided to use the idea for a magazine.

And I think that’s part of Flow’s success now; the message that you shouldn’t work too hard or try to be happy all of the time, just accept life with its ups and downs and be as happy as you can.

Samir Husni: We live in a digital age, and I don’t think anyone would argue with that statement. However, Flow presents itself as the “anti-digital.” So, what’s the DNA? What’s the philosophy behind Flow and can you describe the magazine a little bit, Joyce?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: First, I think it’s good to say that we are an example of the fact that print is not dead. And I think that we show the power of print, but I also believe in digital. The goal must not be about the medium, but the consumer’s needs. We started off in print and it’s more a luxury and a passion for women, but we can’t exist and grow fast internationally without digital and social media. So, certainly, we also need digital and not just print.

But the secret of Flow is we are a perfect fit for women, men too of course, but women lead very busy lives and it’s not only in the Netherlands, it’s worldwide. And I think that’s the secret behind how we have grown so fast. Also from abroad too, because times are changing; everybody has digital products and we all need a break from our hectic lives and Flow gives you the present of staying in the present, and Flow is a tool that they can use as me-time for themselves.

Samir Husni: Irene, when you brought the idea for the magazine to the powers-that-be, what was the initial reaction? Was everyone jumping up and down and telling you what a great idea it was?

Irene Smit: (Laughs) No, no one said what a great idea it was.

Samir Husni: (Laughs too).

Irene Smit: We tried to put it in a magazine format and it was a little bit difficult. And there were a lot of people who had ideas about it; some said we should go this way and some said that way. But we said just believe in us and let us do it how we think we should do it. If not, it will be just another magazine like all of the others out there. If you want to do things differently, you need to skip all of the other people and let us do it. So it was a struggle to get everyone to agree, for sure.

Samir Husni: What about you, Joyce; I remember when I first met you and the magazine was just coming out. A lot of people were happy and excited about the magazine, but some were skeptical and wondered could it really work; there were so many different types of paper; so many different sizes inside the magazine and pullouts. It was and continues to be a very interactive magazine with the readers. What was the biggest stumbling block or challenge that you faced since the launch and how did you overcome it?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: I only thought in opportunities in the beginning. But the challenge was Flow is an experience and you can’t just say that you have a new magazine, you have to see Flow before you can believe it’s a good idea. So, from the beginning really, that was a challenge. People get that Flow-feeling, and if they have a Flow Magazine in their hands; they’re in love. And for sure, if you have a brand that people love, you also have some people who don’t like it, but that’s OK, because you have to focus on the people who do love it. And if you’re mainstream; everybody likes you, but you’re not special.

And I think that’s why Flow is good; it’s a love brand, but some people, mostly men, don’t understand what the magazine is. And from the beginning, we have to tell the story and that’s why I created the marketing strategy in ambassadors. So, we started with a small ambassador group and then it grew to a wider reach. I invested a lot, not in big marketing budgets, but just in giving people that Flow-feeling, a sample of Flow.

We didn’t have social media until 2008; can you imagine? (Laughs)

Samir Husni: (Laughs too).

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: We invest very much in marketing personally to give Flow to people, and now, when we launched in Germany and France, I said we have a very big marketing tool that doesn’t cost anything; we can use social media to spread the word. And we definitely spread the word with social media. So, that’s why social media is so important to us. It helps spread the word of Flow internationally.

Samir Husni: So, the ambassador program is actually having people physically taking the magazine?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: Physically giving them their magazine to show them Flow, because before we did that, they couldn’t understand the magazine without it being in their hands; you couldn’t tell them the story. I think that’s another secret of Flow; it’s a true experience. It’s not just reading a magazine; it’s much more. And that’s why we’re able to grow the brand quickly.

From the beginning, the strategy has been to expand the brand and form brand awareness in order to entrepreneur with other products in the magazine, especially products such as stationery. To build the brand and bring awareness is important because the engagement was so strong from the beginning. People love the brand and they want to have more of it. That’s why we now have 39 products, to build the brand. And I think it’s good because with Flow, your readers are really investors, so that’s why we invested a lot in the marketing plan. But that’s also why my strategy is to expand the brand in a healthy way, not too strong as a concept, but give surprises to the reader and encourage them to buy new products.

Samir Husni: Irene, as you were ready to do that first issue, something major was about to take place on the world’s stage.

Irene Smit: Yes, the economic crisis.

Samir Husni: The economic crisis and digital. We had both exploding at that time. So, how did you cope with both of those dramatic happenings during the launch of a brand new magazine that uses – how many types of paper?

Irene Smit: I don’t even know. I think maybe eight or nine every edition. Well, the economic crisis was more of a natural thing that happened, because when we started the magazine it was something that we already felt. Everything was getting bigger, people were not getting happier, and the shift was to more expensive and purer products.

So, I think the crisis helped us because the feeling that we wanted to put in the magazine was reflected in the people at that time. A lot of them recognized themselves in our magazine. And that was OK for us, certainly. I mean, the crisis wasn’t good for the sales market, of course, but I do think it helped to grow the magazine. A lot of people felt like there was no more welfare and were looking for new ways of living. And that’s what Flow is all about.

As for the digital part, we were never opposed to digital; it was just that we love paper so much that we put all of that emotion for paper into the magazine. And when we started Facebook and other social media, it helped us to grow very much. We have so many followers on Instagram and we have illustrators and crafters worldwide that we connect with on Instagram and Flow readers too. Digital helps us a lot to make connections so that we can be in contact with fans and readers all over the world. Also stay in touch with creative people who can help spread the word about Flow.

When we connect with someone like an illustrator from another part of the world, such as Australia, it’s a really great feeling to know they’re reading your magazine and you have that brand awareness.
flow 1-1

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: That’s a good point. We thought when we launched Flow that we’d focus on the Dutch market because we didn’t really consider the international market eight years ago. But we received so much feedback from abroad, people who had seen it in airport shelves that we knew that we had to do something internationally, but we had to figure out how. We wondered if we’d need to change our content for something more local or culturally different.

But that’s why the prices for us and the changes in the world are so good, because in the world we have the oppressions; everybody is under the same pressures with their jobs or working very hard to balance their daily lives. It’s a worldwide challenge. And digital really helped us because the world is nearby now. Eight years ago it wasn’t so nearby.

We also have a lot of freelancers working internationally with us, we have a really international team, and we work many people from abroad, so that’s also a really nice thing. Also, with our digital and social media, everyone is looking on their emails or mobile devices for us and our videos.

Flow allows you to relax and step out of the busy world and that means that we are for everybody, that concept is universal.

Samir Husni: How does it feel, Irene, seven years later, and Flow being your creation, to see all of the imitations like Flow in the marketplace today? When you came there was nothing like it on the market. But today, almost everywhere I travel, people tell me how much they would love to do a magazine like Flow. Does that fact change anything about the present creation of the magazine; the fact that so many others, either have imitated it or want to? Your feet may be still on the ground, but is your head in the clouds with all of the admiration for the magazine?

Irene Smit: No, our heads are the same as they were in the beginning. (Laughs) We just want to create the most beautiful magazine that we would want to read ourselves. We still put everything from our lives into the magazine. It still feels very much like our baby and all the competitors aren’t real, because to me, some of them don’t come from the heart. And I think a reader can feel that. People may use a different kind of paper and try to do a remake of Flow, but it’s not the same. And that’s why I don’t think they’ll ever be as successful as our magazine.

It feels strange that it’s grown so big, because in daily life we’re still doing the same work. The success is that we really make the magazine ourselves; it comes from us. And every Wednesday, we still sit together and drink coffee and come up with new ideas and new products. And we have to find time for that. We are creative directors, but we’re magazine makers as well.

Samir Husni: What about you, Joyce; if somebody asked you to define Flow today, seven years later, what would you tell them?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: What is Flow? The essence of Flow is that we are a magazine that takes its time. And we help people to learn to do the same. And it helps people look for the imperfections, because we are living in a world of perfections. Flow shows you that life doesn’t have to be perfect.

Samir Husni: What has been the most pleasant moment for you during the last seven years?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: When you’ve worked with Flow from the beginning; I think working with such a creative team every day and growing from a small magazine into a big, strong international brand makes each day so very pleasant. Also, the moment that we broke even and the return on our investment became really big was great.

But for me, working with a good creative team is what makes every day pleasant and we also love being entrepreneurs. When we are here at FIPP and have become one the growing brands, I will be even more proud of the magazine.

Samir Husni: And Irene, what has been the most pleasant moment for you during the seven years?

Irene Smit: The best moment for me is that Astrid and I sit together every Wednesday morning in a very nice coffee shop and we drink coffee together and talk about everything that’s going on. New products we want to make; problems we have to deal with, just everything that’s going on.

We drink coffee for two hours and then everything feels OK and we come up with a lot of new ideas and those are the best moments of the week. And I think those two hours are some of the most successful hours of Flow. And we have to fight for the time to keep those Wednesday morning coffee sessions.

Samir Husni: Irene, what has been the biggest challenge that’s faced you over the seven years and how did you overcome it?

Irene Smit: The growth is still the most difficult challenge for us. To find a way to grow, but still keep this feeling that you’re a small team with quick decisions. There are more meetings now and more people that we have to inform and who are involved in the magazine.

Also the international teams; it’s difficult for us to tell them how to make the magazine because it’s just something that we do on our intuition. Now, we have to write down or tell them how we do it. (Laughs) How do you tell them when it’s just a feeling that we have? So, it’s a challenge to explain it, to let it grow, and to let it go a bit. Letting go is the most difficult for me.

Samir Husni: We have the Dutch, French and German editions and the English one in 20 different countries. Irene, can anyone actually claim that this is a Dutch thing – that Flow comes from the Dutch mentality?

Irene Smit: I think one of the strengths of Flow is that it’s not your typical Dutch magazine, because the Dutch magazine is now already so international because we work with a lot of illustrators. All our ideas about life and mindfulness, we put them into articles from our daily lives and we get letters from all over the world: Australia, Brazil and Canada. They tell us that we feel like their friends because we all have the same life and the same ideas.

I think this feeling and the things that we write about are so worldwide and that’s why the magazine is such a success. People recognize themselves in the magazine. There is an international vibe throughout the magazine that no matter where you’re from you can relate to it.

Samir Husni: Do you and your Co-Editor-in-Chief, Astrid, live the relaxed Flow-lifestyle and are you very close friends?

Irene Smit: No, we don’t live the relaxed Flow-lifestyle, because if we did we wouldn’t have the inspiration for the magazine anymore. (Laughs) We always say that our lives aren’t perfect and that’s what we write about, the things that come up in our lives. We are very good colleagues, but try not to be real friends. We are in a working relationship and we try not to do anything too personal together. We already spend a lot of time together at the office. And we live in the same town.

We think alike very much; we feel the same vibes when we enter a room. We get along so well together that it makes it very nice to work on the magazine.

Samir Husni: Joyce, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Flow4-3 Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: I think we have always had, and I will always have, a big ambition to grow the brand. But I believe it’s good to start small; think big, act small. That’s the secret of how we made Flow such a big brand. Nowadays, you have to learn by doing and you have to be an entrepreneur. More and more in the big challenge that we have as publishers you have to stay innovative with your product. And content is key for sure. The medium isn’t the goal, but it’s the consumer’s needs that we have to focus on, and growing our brands.

Samir Husni: Irene, is there any message you’d like to give your readers worldwide?

Irene Smit: It’s good to be more conscious of your time. I think that’s one of the biggest problems in the world at the moment. I just received some wonderful articles recently about mindfulness and all the pressures people have on their time. We’re always putting new stuff in our head. We should try to be more conscious of time off and empty our heads. Just be idle for a while. It’s very important to rest your mind.

Samir Husni: Joyce, what motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: Life is good, for sure. You have to claim the energy and look forward to doing things with your family. I love my job and love growing the brand. And being a part of today’s transformation gives me energy.

Samir Husni: And Irene, what about you?

Irene Smit: Truthfully, my children. (Laughs) My family life is still the most important thing to me. And my work life is important as well, and I love what I do. It’s so nice that I can invent new products and think about new products. I get a lot of letters from people worldwide who tell me that the magazine helps them so much. I even received a letter from someone in London who told me that her husband had just died and she read the magazine and it helped her tremendously. And I love these readers; they’re so special to us. Their letters mean so much.

With Joyce at the FIPP Congress in Toronto, Canada.

With Joyce at the FIPP Congress in Toronto, Canada.

Samir Husni: Joyce, my typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Joyce Nieuwenhuijs: I learned that if you get up very early and you work very hard, you have to sleep. (Laughs) We can work 20 hours, for sure, there is enough to do. But sometimes you have to take off and I learned that from Flow. Sometimes you have to take off and be in the present. A good sleep will help you to grow.

Samir Husni: And Irene; what keeps you up at night?

Irene Smit: I never stay up at night. (Laughs) I sleep a lot. I go to bed very early and I’m so tired, I fall right to sleep.

Samir Husni: Thank you both.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Across the Pond, Innovation in print, Magazine Power, New Launches, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

h1

Marie Claire Spain: Speaking The Language Of Women Internationally With Humor, Style & Class – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Editor-In-Chief, Maria Pardo de Santayana

November 13, 2015

From Spain with love…

“I think the printed magazine’s mission is to curate all of these things that might be of the reader’s interest and put it into the perfect format that you don’t need to plug in and charge; in fact, you don’t need to do anything with it except enjoy it. You can take it with you everywhere and you can keep it forever. It’s a good photography of the time that it shows. If you see the magazine in 20 years’ time and you pick it up and read it; you’ll find that it’s a perfect history book because you can see the time represented in its pages vividly.” Maria Pardo de Santayana

MC2-2 Marie Claire is a unique fashion magazine. Mr. Magazine™ likes to call it “the fashion magazine with a conscience,” because of the high bar it sets for a rigorous standard for journalism. It is a fashion and beauty magazine, of that there’s no doubt, but it doesn’t shy away from the important issues that matter to women in the 21st century.

And Marie Claire Spain is the perfect international extension of the brand by offering its readers ideas for improving both their life and their personal image, by providing the latest trends, with a sense of humor and from an avant-garde but also close point of view.

Maria Pardo de Santayana is the editor-in-chief of Marie Claire Spain and has a passion for the brand that is palpable. Maria comes from an extensive magazine background, having worked at GQ for many years and also Hachette Spanish Press. She has a journalism degree in Information Sciences and a broad range of knowledge when it comes to what it takes to be at the helm of a magazine like Marie Claire Spain.

I spoke with Maria recently and we talked about her penchant for humor when it comes to most situations, whether good or bad. Her spirit of joy and laughter and her take on life in general was contagious as it spilled over into our conversation and made the interview wonderfully light-hearted and filled with confidence for her brand’s future.

Maria is a woman who has seen disappointment, but talks it all with a grain of salt as she keeps the optimism flowing and never forgets her passion and love for magazines.

So, I hope you enjoy this Mr. Magazine™ conversation with a lady who can make you laugh and make you admire the many facets of life in the magazine realm.

But first, the sound-bites:


FullSizeRender On the day in the life of an international magazine editor: It depends very much on the time of the year. A normal day within the office starts with our first meeting with the team to look at the job that needs to be done for that day. And then the rest of the day moves on between meetings, readings, approvals and more meetings…(Laughs), more readings, and then giving birth to new ideas for the magazine.

On whether digital has made her life as an editor easier or harder: Digital has made life 24/7; now you can’t close the office ever. And there are no Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, in some ways it’s made life easier too because technology is always helpful, but it also requires more dedication.

On how she balances the international theme of the magazine with the Spanish content: Marie Claire is a brand that really takes care of its uniqueness and its DNA. More than that, because of Marie Claire’s long history in Spain, more than 20 years, it’s very well-established and it has managed to create its own uniqueness. In terms of the balance, it’s quite simple because the French and the Spanish women are quite similar; they’re both European and western; they share, more or less, the same difficulties and the same struggles and ambitions. So, it’s much easier, I believe, for our European Marie Claire to become nearer to the core of Marie Claire than maybe one from Asia, America, South Africa or Australia. For us, it’s much easier because we are really near the French culture.

On whether her entire team is tuned into the DNA of Marie Claire Spain: One good point that I have with my team is that I have people from the founding of Marie Claire Spain, so they are still working here and they’re really able to teach me about the DNA of Marie Claire because these people have been working here for over 20 years, so they know a lot about Marie Claire.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the morning: The thing that I like most is magazines. It’s always been like that with me since I was 14 years old. When you have the opportunity and the chance to work in something that you like so much; you don’t feel like it’s a job. It’s more like your hobby or something that you love to do, so there are not enough hours in the day for you to enjoy it. And that’s one of the things that motivate me. My father wanted me to be an engineer because I have a mathematical brain. I was a very good student; all A’s or A+’s. But I really liked magazines and that’s why I’m dedicated to them.

On any stumbling blocks she’s had to face: I started as a journalist and I liked it very much and I believe that I have good managerial skills. I was moved and promoted to the management side. I was an Internet Director for five years for a large retail company and then I moved into an executive position and it was fun. I received good information from the MBA and I learned a lot, but I wasn’t happy. Of course, I was well-paid, but I just wasn’t happy. For me it’s very important to be happy and have fun where I work. So, I had to come back to the magazine business, but when I left I was just a normal editor, but I was a director at the time so I wanted to try to find a way to come back in a higher position. It took quite a lot.

On whether some of the covers of the spinoff specials that Marie Claire is publishing are a reflection of her own personality, such as “Shoes First”: Yes, they are. I believe that life without humor is useless. You have to laugh at yourself and at all of the bad situations that might come up. It’s not like being superficial, but it’s taking life with optimism. And that’s what we want to reflect. As I take my life with a lot of humor; I find that it is very important to life itself and to the magazine. And trying to make a 100-page supplement about shoes could bore someone to death, going from shoe-to-shoe-to-shoe. So, if you don’t put humor into that subject, it will be dull and boring.

On whether she believes in the future of print in this digital age: Yes, absolutely I do, because I think that printed magazines work as the perfect curator for all of these platforms, the visual and audio impacts of digital; all of these things coming up to you in notifications, the nonsense and the important things. This generation has access to more information than ever, but less analyzed. So you see a lot of things, but there is so much that you don’t even have the time to take in what you’re seeing.

On what keeps her up at night: Marie Claire. (Laughs) You know what, the thing is I was telling someone, when I go on holiday I can’t sleep the night through, but then when I start working again; your mind needs several hours of sleep and then it turns on. My head is full of Marie Claire in every way, Marie Claire ideas; Marie Claire people; Marie Claire stories, and so my mind is just awake all of the time.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Maria Pardo de Santayana, Editor-In-Chief, Marie Claire Spain.

Samir Husni: Tell me about the day in the life of an international magazine editor, such as Marie Claire, in Spain?

IMG_9069 Maria Pardo de Santayana: It depends very much on the time of the year. A normal day within the office starts with our first meeting with the team to look at the job that needs to be done for that day. And then the rest of the day moves on between meetings, readings, approvals and more meetings…(Laughs), more readings, and then giving birth to new ideas for the magazine.

When it comes to the first of the season, things change a little bit because we have to meet much more in terms of fashion to try and plan the whole season. And then we do that again for beauty and another for the covers. And then we have all of these spinoffs and supplements that we try to create.

So, it’s always a lot of work, but then again when we are at the shows, all of my days off are there and I have to do everything by mobile.

Samir Husni: It’s my understanding that the job of editors worldwide have dramatically changed since the dawn of the digital age. You’re no longer just editing a printed magazine, but you have so many other outlets that you have to care about. If you compared your life at GQ when you were there, and your life today at Marie Claire; did digital make life easier on you?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: Not at all. It’s become more troubling. When I was at GQ I was the deputy editor, I wasn’t the editor-in-chief, so I had a bit of an easier time, because I didn’t have the responsibility or the stress that comes with the editor-in-chief position. And also because the men’s market in Spain is much smaller than the women’s, so it’s a bit more relaxed work.

In terms of digital, the peculiar side of my job position at Marie Claire is that I don’t really take care of the website because it has an independent team. And they work it separately. So, for me it was more complicated at GQ because I did take care of more of the digital side, with GQ.com, but not here.

Digital has made life 24/7; now you can’t close the office ever. And there are no Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, in some ways it’s made life easier too because technology is always helpful, but it also requires more dedication.

Samir Husni: With Marie Claire specifically; with this magazine I always like to refer to as “fashion with a conscience,” as I flip through the pages of the magazine, there are a lot of similarities with all of the other Marie Claire international editions and there are also unique facets to the magazine. How do you balance that mix between international and Spanish?

MC1-1 Maria Pardo de Santayana: The Marie Claire DNA is quite clear for all of the international editions and they work very hard to make this real and happening. For instance, in June we’re all meeting in Paris, Marie Claire International, and we’ll have a two or three-day summit where we’ll discuss everything through the eyes of Marie Claire as a whole.

Marie Claire is a brand that really takes care of its uniqueness and its DNA. More than that, because of Marie Claire’s long history in Spain, more than 20 years, it’s very well-established and it has managed to create its own uniqueness.

In terms of the balance, it’s quite simple because the French and the Spanish women are quite similar; they’re both European and western; they share, more or less, the same difficulties and the same struggles and ambitions. So, it’s much easier, I believe, for our European Marie Claire to become nearer to the core of Marie Claire than maybe one from Asia, America, South Africa or Australia. For us, it’s much easier because we are really near the French culture.

Samir Husni: As you sit with your team and try to establish that issue in/issue out; I take it all of your team is Spanish?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: The fashion director is half American, but apart from that, yes, we are all Spanish.

Samir Husni: So, everyone is tuned into the DNA of Marie Claire or do you have any difficulties with that?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: One good point that I have with my team is that I have people from the founding of Marie Claire Spain, so they are still working here and they’re really able to teach me about the DNA of Marie Claire because these people have been working here for over 20 years, so they know a lot about Marie Claire.

And we’re a very small team, there are only 10 of us, it’s very easy to make the magazine work from one way to another. Also, it’s quite an international team because our deputy editor, she was raised in France, and also I had an international education. The syndication manager is also German, French and Spanish. So, it’s quite an international team.

But more important than that, on the core of the team we have people who have been working for Marie Claire since its beginning in Spain.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning and say it’s going to be a great day?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: The thing that I like most is magazines. It’s always been like that with me since I was 14 years old. When you have the opportunity and the chance to work in something that you like so much; you don’t feel like it’s a job. It’s more like your hobby or something that you love to do, so there are not enough hours in the day for you to enjoy it. And that’s one of the things that motivate me. My father wanted me to be an engineer because I have a mathematical brain. I was a very good student; all A’s or A+’s. But I really liked magazines and that’s why I’m dedicated to them.

When I first told my father that I was going to be a journalist, he was like: Really? I was hoping that you’d be an engineer. And I told him that wasn’t going to happen because I really loved magazines.

I think that there has to be good people everywhere and if you’re doing what you love, good people help you do it better. I’m very lucky because this is my dream job.

Samir Husni: Has it been all smooth sailing for you or have you had to deal with a stumbling block or two along the way?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: I started as a journalist and I liked it very much and I believe that I have good managerial skills. I was moved and promoted to the management side. I was an Internet Director for five years for a large retail company and then I moved into an executive position and it was fun. I received good information from the MBA and I learned a lot, but I wasn’t happy. Of course, I was well-paid, but I just wasn’t happy.

For me it’s very important to be happy and have fun where I work. So, I had to come back to the magazine business, but when I left I was just a normal editor, but I was a director at the time so I wanted to try to find a way to come back in a higher position. It took quite a lot. I had several opportunities but they didn’t crystallize into anything because some of the offers I didn’t like enough to leave my then current position, and some of the others just didn’t happen.

After 5½ years of being out of the editorial business, and in the internet business for a big retail company, I managed to get back into magazines. Life isn’t always an easy path, but I always take it with a lot of optimism and I really enjoy my life. And even the bad times for me are a way of learning. When I see the glass it’s always half-full instead of half-empty.

MC3-3 Samir Husni: Looking at the covers of your spinoffs, especially with the “Shoes First,” are the covers a reflection of the fun, passionate Maria?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: Yes, they are. I believe that life without humor is useless. You have to laugh at yourself and at all of the bad situations that might come up. It’s not like being superficial, but it’s taking life with optimism. And that’s what we want to reflect.

As my CEO always tells me, we are absolutely disposable; you have to make people happy. There is no reason they should buy us, except for having fun and providing them with joy and something inspirational.

As I take my life with a lot of humor; I find that it is very important to life itself and to the magazine. And trying to make a 100-page supplement about shoes could bore someone to death, going from shoe-to-shoe-to-shoe. So, if you don’t put humor into that subject, it will be dull and boring. I always try to put some humor into everything that I do.

Samir Husni: Why do you think in this digital age that we live in, amidst all of these social media giants that we actually compete with, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter; why do you think there’s still a reason for a printed magazine? Do you believe in the future of print?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: Yes, absolutely I do, because I think that printed magazines work as the perfect curator for all of these platforms, the visual and audio impacts of digital; all of these things coming up to you in notifications, the nonsense and the important things. This generation has access to more information than ever, but less analyzed. So you see a lot of things, but there is so much that you don’t even have the time to take in what you’re seeing.

I think the printed magazine’s mission is to curate all of these things that might be of the reader’s interest and put it into the perfect format that you don’t need to plug in and charge; in fact, you don’t need to do anything with it except enjoy it. You can take it with you everywhere and you can keep it forever. It’s a good photography of the time that it shows. If you see the magazine in 20 years’ time and you pick it up and read it; you’ll find that it’s a perfect history book because you can see the time represented in its pages vividly.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Maria Pardo de Santayana: Marie Claire. (Laughs) You know what, the thing is I was telling someone, when I go on holiday I can’t sleep the night through, but then when I start working again; your mind needs several hours of sleep and then it turns on. My head is full of Marie Claire in every way, Marie Claire ideas; Marie Claire people; Marie Claire stories, and so my mind is just awake all of the time. By the time I lay down to go to sleep, I might get a few hours and then it’s right back on. It’s all about Marie Claire now. I’m a little bit obsessed. (Laughs again)

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in Across the Pond, Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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