Right, I’m not going to pull any punches here. Future’s new lifestyle/car/motorbike magazine Redline is for sad boy-racers who can’t get girlfriends and spend all of their money and affection on lumps of metal which are only supposed to get them from A to B. They also probably still listen to Iron Maiden and wear Castrol GTX jackets.
“Appalling and frightening” are the terms used to describe the magazine by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents because of the title’s obsession with going fast. I would say that it is appalling and frightening that anyone would actually want to buy it.
Now don’t get me wrong, the magazine is very well put together and, in its way, is well-written. It’s just that the subject matter, the writing style and the overall tone are immature, inane and quite often offensive. This is the magazine where you can discover the joys of riding a mini motorbike around a supermarket, find out the best cars for “shagging in” (“the ultimate guide to getting your end away on the move”) and read about the various injuries inflicted through mindless use of cars and motorbikes (as one would expect, there are plenty of detailed pictures to illustrate these).
The problem here is that the target audience does not seem one which would be particularly attractive to advertisers. I would have thought that the guys who can afford to ride big bikes and buy fast cars are probably too old to be thinking about “shagging” in the backs of their cars and are probably not too interested in riding their motorbikes through inner city streets (another of the featured ‘highlights’ of the first issue).
It seems to me that the mix of articles run by Redline (focusing on wayward behaviour and sex) would be more appealing to adolescents who probably only fantasise about the latest Suzuki model while delivering newspapers on their BMXs. The number of ads for Playstation racing games seems to support this impression while the ads for porn lines and male “enhancement” products appear aimed at teenagers and thirtysomethings who still live with their mother.
As one would expect, the layout of the editorial is chaotic and brash, with pictures aplenty of “birds and boobs” alongside the standard car and bike shots.
Advertisers include Fred Perry, Playstation, Suzuki, Car Hifi Centre, Rip Speed Racing, JMC Engineering and Pulsar skates. The ad:ed ratio is 28:72.
Reviewer: Phill Knightley
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