IPC To Promote Loaded With Regional Cover-Girls
IPC is to promote the latest issue of its flagship men’s lifestyle magazine, Loaded, on a regional level in an effort to increase sales.
The initiative will see the October issue of the magazine, which reported a 1.2% year on year increase in circulation in the latest ABC results, feature a different cover-girl for each major region in the UK. IPC claims the initiative represents the first time that a men’s lifestyle magazine has “made such an effort” with a regional audience.
The promotion will see Welsh-born London’s Burning star Jan Anderson appear on the cover of the Welsh editions of the magazine; London-born Angela Saunders from Sky One’s Dream Team feature on the front of the Southern editions; Coronation Street‘s Nikki Sanderson appear on the Northern issues and GMTV‘s Jenni Falconer feature on the Scottish editions.
A spokesperson for Loaded explained: “The promotion is based on a national survey which found that men in different regions find different kinds of women attractive. We wanted to make the most of these findings to give our readers exactly what they want.”
A 32-page supplement listing the “most wanted” girls from each region of the UK will also appear in the magazine, which will be bagged with targeted coverlines designed to reflect the regional bias of the different editions.
The men’s lifestyle sector has had a rough ride over the last few year’s, with the majority of high-profile titles seeing circulation decline following their rapid rise in the mid-nineties (see below). Former Loaded editor and chief executive of I Feel Good Publishing, James Brown, has been highly critical of the market leading titles, branding them “stale” and “unoriginal” (see James Brown Unveils Jack) and earlier this year editor of FHM, David Davies admitted that the lad’s mag craze is over (see Lad’s Mag Phenomenon Is Over).
However, while a number of titles continue to see circulation decline, ABC results for the first half of 2002 reveal a relatively encouraging performance for the ailing sector (see ABC Jan – Jun 2002 Men’s Lifestyle Magazines) indicating a possible return to stability.
IPC Media: 0870 444500 www.ipc.co.uk
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