Magazine Imitates a Catalog and Has a Charmed Life, So Far
By DAVID CARR, NY TIMES
Publishers of women's magazines realized years ago that an ad was more than an ad. Lush fashion advertisements, festooned with pretty models, name-brand photographers and soothing text, were an important part of a reader's relationship with a magazine.
But Lucky, published by Conde Nast Publications, may be the first consumer magazine in the United States to use advertising motifs to design every page of editorial content. Articles, in the traditional sense, are nowhere to be found, and neither are celebrities, instead replaced by pages and pages of extended photo captions extolling merchandise that is accompanied by manufacturers' names, price tags and toll-free numbers.
That Conde Nast, a publishing house that defines the high end of the magazine rack with publications like Vogue and Vanity Fair, would publish such an unpretentious product and hire a relatively unknown editor like Kim France surprised many in the industry. And even more doubted that consumers would pay for a catalog, regardless of how well it was executed.
But Lucky has led a charmed life so far, with a candylike appeal to readers and advertisers alike. Executives at CondeNast, a unit of Advance Publications said it would make money sooner than any new magazine in the company's recent history, although it still could take several more years.
When Lucky was first published in December 2000, it promised advertisers 500,000 paying readers. In the first half of 2002, total paid circulation grew to a monthly average of 780,000, more than Jane magazine, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. And Lucky sold 207,095 of those copies at the newsstand, a telling indicator of consumer interest, outperforming fashion stalwarts like Harper's Bazaar and W. Read more (free reg. needed)