Ladies’ Home Journal lets
readers write the magazine
LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL from p. 1
such as medicine and beauty, but it will
start with consumers where it can.
“We really flipped this model,” said
Editor-in-Chief Sally Lee. “Usually
content creation begins with an editor.
We have content creation that begins
with a reader.”
While other publishers have dab-
bled in the practice, its adoption by
Ladies’ Home Journal, a title that
guarantees advertisers an average paid
circulation of 3. 2 million, is significant
since it is the largest traditional media
brand to commit to so much user-gen-
erated content on an ongoing basis. If
it’s successful, other mass-circulation
titles may follow. “I’ve been asked a lot
about whether we foresee this becom-
ing a model that other magazines will
start to implement,” said Diane
Malloy, publisher of Ladies’ Home
Journal. “My answer is, ‘Gosh, yes, I
think everyone is going to sit up and
take notice.’”
The magazine says the changes
were driven by research revealing that
readers wanted a greater role in filling
its pages. But the move could also help
LHJ, which competes in the very
mature category of women’s service,
improve its traction with advertisers.
The median age of
Ladies’ Home Journal readers has declined slightly, to
55.8 from 56.1, according to
the most recent round of
research by GfK MRI. But
its readers remain much
older than the U.S. population as a whole (GfK MRI
puts the median age at 45.8),
and somewhat older than
readers of magazines such as
Good Housekeeping, Redbook
and Woman’s Day. So LHJ is
trying to make itself “relevant
to the next generation without
annoying some of the core readers,”
said George Janson, managing partner
and director of print at Group M, the
media-buying and -planning conglomerate.
Ad pages fell 13.6% at Ladies’
Home Journal last year but slipped just
2.6% in monthlies as a whole, according to data compiled by the Media
Industry Newsletter. A major downturn in food advertising that undermined the mass-market women’s service books was partly to blame.
“I commend them for trying to add
new life into a very mature magazine
that has been around for a very long
time,” Mr. Janson said. “The redesign
seems to be very clean, much bolder and
much more energetic in terms of the
visuals. The photography is pretty stunning. And I think it’s a novel concept.”
SALLYLEE:
“We really flipped
this model,” said the
magazine’s editor-in-chief.
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How the effort plays out over
time remains to be seen. User-gen-
erated content is certainly no
magic bullet: San Francisco start-
up 8020 Publishing introduced
two magazines several years ago
filled with consumer content that
was first posted to the web and
voted up or down by the public.
The magazines—a photogra-
phy title called JPG and a travel
magazine called Everywhere—
both left print during the worst
of the recession, although JPG
And there are plenty of questions to
answer. Mitch Fox, the magazine veter-
an who ran 8020 Publishing for a time,
argues that readers will remain out-
siders, not a community, unless they
also have a say in choosing which sub-
missions get to be in print. “You’re still
screening the content without any kind
of community involvement,” said Mr.
Fox, now president at WGA Global
Marketing. “It’s a half-step.”
Ms. Malloy, who was named pub-
lisher in October after her predecessor
moved to Univision, said the magazine’s
big audience gave it an advantage over
startups, like 8020, that try similar
strategies.
“We feel very, very confident that
the consumer is going to receive the
new product well,” Ms. Malloy said.
Hyundai—yes,
SOUTH KOREA: THE NEW JAPAN?
Hyundai—aims
to be new badge
of luxury
HYUNDAI from p. 1
of Innocean, Hyundai’s agency in
Huntington Beach, Calif. Hyundai’s
vision is to “be more inclusive, reward-
ing people in terms of design, and more
reflective of the economic climate,” he
said. “Maybe Tiffany was old luxury,
and Apple is about style and function
that justifies a price premium.”
The aim is to supply that halo to the
overall brand rather than spin off a
nameplate, like Toyota’s Lexus. “We
want to provide more than expected val-
ues and experiences to our customers
across all segments, from small cars to
luxury,” said Wonhong Cho, Hyundai’s
chief marketing officer, based in Seoul.
Interestingly, the new “modern premium,” while initially created by
Innocean, could be carried out by another shop. Mr. Cho said that while the in-house legacy agency will handle the
“first wave” early in 2012, “for the second campaign we haven’t made any
decisions.” Hyundai “may be able to
seek partnership opportunities with
another agency,” he added.
It’s a striking statement coming from
Korean headquarters, given that
Innocean is part of the Hyundai conglomerate and that the automaker’s
North American chief, John Krafcik, has
said that using Innocean is pretty much
a mandate from the Seoul C-suite.
The move comes when Hyundai is
on a high. In recent years, the company
has hammered a value message with its
“Assurance” powertrain warranty, a
South Korean brands such as
Samsung, LG, Kia and Hyundai
have become household names
and earned a reputation for
quality. But will consumers ever
feel the type of bond with them
that they have felt, at various
points, with über-brands such as
Apple, Sony and VW?
At the Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas in 2010,
Samsung’s head of U.S.
marketing, David Steel, told Ad
Age that the electronic giant’s
central challenge was to
transcend a reputation for value
alone and create an emotional
connection with consumers.
AndAt Ad Age’s Digital
Conference in 2011, Samsung
CMO Ralph Santana said its goal
was to become “an indispensable
part of consumers’ lives.”
Of all the Korean brands,
Samsung can probably make the
strongest claim to having
succeeded. Just this
fall, it ousted Apple as
the world’s largest
maker of
smartphones, based primarily on
its Android devices. But volume is
a poor proxy for brand value, and
while Samsung makes Millward
Brown’s top 100 most-valuable
brands list (No. 67), it’s way behind
Apple (No. 1), Google (No. 2), IBM
(No. 3) and Microsoft (No. 5).
The difference between a
brand that signifies great value
and one that has an emotional
connection with consumers is
meaning.
“The brand needs to stand for
something larger than itself,” said
Simon Mainwaring, former
creative director for Nike
at Wieden & Kennedy
and founder of the brand
consultancy We First.
trade-in value guarantee and a job-loss
protection plan that made it a friend of
working people.
According to Automotive News
Data Center, the Hyundai division
alone accounted for 645,691 units sold
in 2011, up 20% from 2010. The
brand has had stellar success with its
“fluidic sculpture” models, the Elantra
and Sonata; a racy hit with the sporty,
three-door Veloster; and a performance entry in the new Genesis. It’s
also preparing a fully revised bread-and-butter model, the Santa Fe SUV,
for April.
But Mr. Cho said despite the
Hyundai group’s growth—some of it at
the expense of the Japanese, affected by
last year’s tsunami and earthquake—he
hears footsteps. “The Chinese, the
Indian players, will be a threat to us in
three years, in five years,” he said. “We
can still make a lot of improvements.”
“Modern premium is a very serious
subject around here,” Mr. Sanfilippo
said. “We’re not the only [automaker]
that wants to succeed up-market. That’s
where the margins are.”
Hyundai has been leaning in this
direction for several years. In late 2010 it
fired its first volley into luxury car
sweeps with the $60,000 Equus,
designed to compete with Lexus and
Acura and ruffle feathers at BMW. Its
tagline was “New Thinking, New
Possibilities.” Mr. Cho insists that the car
met sales targets, though according to
Automotive News data, only 3,193
models were sold in the U.S. last year.
