MAGAZINES; Bugger the pesimists

AdMedia,  Mar 17, 2005  by Steven Shaw

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Since starting Lucire as a print title in 2004, Jack Yan still gets questions such as, "Did you buy an international licence to publish this magazine locally?" and "Is it an international title?" He is at once proud and saddened: The facts are: Lucire is NZ-owned, and has been since he started it online in 1997. "The comments I get are meant to be complimentary," he says, "but they suggest that quality and locally owned don't go hand in hand in the minds of many people, particularly when it comes to the fashion press.

"It's not unfamiliar territory for me. Most people have assumed in the last eight years that the website was American, and we began with a 70% American readership [now 44%]. Our domestic readership hovered between 5% and 10%. Yet in New York, the team goes in to Fashion Week and, in their American accents, each staffer tells others they are working for a New Zealand magazine. It surprises Americans less that Lucire is Kiwi-owned than my fellow citizens."

A New Zealander challenging Vogue? And doing it monthly? And to start from a website? Yan says he found it amazing that many people in influential positions called it impossible. "The fact I do not have Nicky Watson or Charlotte Dawson or Rachel Hunter on the cover does not make Lucire any less Kiwi. If I can get a Brazilian supermodel on the cover, I should. She might not have sung on NZ Idol, but I should not care.

"We are developing a magazine that is more New Zealand than any other. We did the typefaces here - every other magazine in this sector has imported theirs. Kiwis work on the design and content. Foreign correspondents' work is edited, and sometimes rewritten, to have a Kiwi tone. We make the design top-notch because it is the right and obvious thing to do."

Yan says some people think Lucire should look "more Kiwi". "When they say that, it is a thinly veiled euphemism for 'dumb down', 'make it look less attractive', or 'sacrifice your export potential'. Why aim domestically when you can aim globally and take on Vogue and Elle? Call me old-fashioned, but $115 billion of debt for a population of four million and a dollar that is artificially strong are not signs that we should make things any less than world-class, nor should we ever sacrifice our ability to earn foreign exchange.

"Because the print edition of Lucire is still quite new, we can't yet give the agencies numbers, so it's still a struggle. A couple of agencies were very good to us though. Promotus looks for figures but they also look at the overall quality of the media they want to put their clients in. Total Media in Auckland is another.

"I'd like people to be proud of the fact that the world's best can come from here, not the US, not Europe. I'd like people to know that your Ordinary Bloke is capable of doing it. There is no other country in the world that is better for starting fresh ideas, and no better country in the world for finding like-minded people willing to give things a shot.

"Yet when I examine our national marketing, or what passes as cutting-edge export thinking, I see stuff that is about 20 years behind. There are exceptions, of course. Unlimited has probably single-handedly done more to help us believe in ourselves, by championing those who got it right. But it often reaches the converted and I am talking about a majority shift."

Everything in marketing - email campaigns, forwarded messages - suggests that consumers are the next drivers, not corporations. The next shift in NZ marketing, says Yan, is not about our creating underground successes, but about creating mainstream ones. "I really want to make this New Zealand's global fashion title, he says, "and y'know, bugger the pessimists."

c 2005 Profile Publishing Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand, and can not be used without prior permission of the publisher.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.