UK Luxury Mags and the Smell of Money

“[It is] something to do with the sheen of the paper, the way that the ink sits on the page, the smell of money and desire that wafts off the page.”

It’s called the “magazine moment.” It’s that certain something that the luxury magazine experience provides that simply can’t be replicated in digital. And advertisers are keenly aware of it, notes Mark Sweney in The Guardian.

Sweney interviewed Nicholas Coleridge of Vogue who tried to pin down why the luxury fashion niche was seeing such strong growth in advertising and page count.

“It is very hard to replicate the physical allure of a luxury magazine on other platforms,” Coleridge said. “[It is] something to do with the sheen of the paper, the way that the ink sits on the page, the smell of money and desire that wafts off the page. Readers move into a different mode when they engage with a glossy. Advertisers understand this.”

The proof is, as they say, in the ad spend. Forecasts for this year’s UK market have the general consumer magazine market falling, while the luxury print market is breaking records on the positive side.

We’ve been talking about print’s luxurious future for months now, and we are seeing it playing out in the UK and US markets. Fashion magazines are getting bigger, a trend we see continuing for several seasons now as Vogue, Hearst and the rest go huge.

To be certain, digital media is having an impact on the consumer magazine market, and media brands are painfully aware of the need to reach digitally-engaged consumers. Yet the future of the high-end fashion glossy looks anything but dull.