IPC Launches Pick Me Up To Boost Weekly Portfolio
IPC has announced the latest title to be added to its women’s weekly portfolio, creating Pick Me Up!, a 60-page real life title backed by what it claims is the UK’s largest ever sampling exercise and a £6 million marketing investment.
The title will launch next Tuesday with around 3.5 million copies bundled with key titles from IPC’s women’s portfolio. Sales of Woman, Now, Chat and What’s on TV will all include a copy of the new magazine, with the title’s first paid-for issue going on sale on Thursday 20 January.
The magazine will be edited by June Smith-Sheppard, currently editor of IPC’s Chat magazine, leading a highly experienced team of journalists. The project was developed under the codename Project Spitfire and was overseen by editorial director Mike Soutar. He said: “June Smith-Sheppard is second-to-none in her understanding of women’s weekly readers. Under her editorship Chat has scaled new heights. Who better to launch the magazine which will redefine this important sector?”
Although the woman’s weekly magazine market is a busy one, competition amongst real life titles remains relatively light. H Bauer currently leads the sector, with its Take a Break title notching up a circulation of 1.2 million in the six months to June 2004. Elsewhere, IPC’s largest circulating real life title Chat commanded a total of over 606,000 in the same period.
Commenting on the new title, Sylvia Auton, chief executive of IPC, said: “The real life sector has enjoyed significant growth and represents an incredible one third of all women’s weeklies sold in the UK. There is clearly a huge appetite for enthralling real life stories. With Pick Me Up we have truly created a magazine that gives its readers ‘real life as you’ve never seen it before’!”
A heavyweight national TV campaign will support the magazine’s launch, with £6 million committed to marketing the title in 2005. MediaCom will plan and buy the campaign, while Heresy will produce the ad creative. Pick Me Up will join IPC Connect’s portfolio of women’s titles, including Chat, Woman, Woman’s Own, Woman’s Weekly and Now.
IPC recently lost a closely fought court case against rival publisher Highbury House, claiming that Highbury’s Home magazine was too similar to its Ideal Home title and that copyright laws had been infringed (see Highbury Wins IPC Media Copyright Case).
IPC Media: 0870 4445000 www.ipcmedia.com
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