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FQ brings its style home with Life brand extension

Bauer’s Fashion Quarterly released its latest offering Fashion Quarterly Life this month which includes content about stylish interiors, health and well-being, wine trends, inspiring people and more. We had a chat with Fashion Quarterly’s editor Sally-Ann Mullin to find out why it decided to release the issue in an already crowded home and lifestyle market and to see what feedback has been like so far.

The new issue Fashion Quarterly Life will be released once a year in print but will be available 24/7 on the Life channel on FQ.co.nz, Fashion Quarterly editor Sally-Ann Mullin says. “The beauty of FQ.co.nz is that we’re not limited by space so will continue to extend our in-mag content to online via our ‘Life’ channel on the website,” she says.

Included will be things like extended photo galleries and interviews as well as unique content each week, she says. “The channel hosts home and interiors, health and wellbeing trends, food, travel and giveaways.”

First look: The first ever issue of Fashion Quarterly LIFE lands in stores Monday. This new issue is devoted to the…

Posted by Fashion Quarterly magazine on Thursday, 2 July 2015

The Fashion Quarterly reader is always passionate about keeping up with the latest and best offerings in fashion and beauty, she says. “But over the past year or so it had become apparent through our research and direct feedback that they are just as dedicated to a carefully considered approach around other elements of enjoying a stylish, vital and fulfilling life.”

“We were confident our simple, unique mix of stylish homes and interiors, health, wellbeing, food, wine and travel (short, mid and long haul destinations) as well as elements of social responsibility combined with our staple fashion and beauty coverage would satisfy reader’s thirst for a life replete,” she says.

Similarly, Mindfood has also released a new brand extension, which focuses on interior and lifestyle content called Décor that’s aimed at the home and living market.

About two years ago, Mindfood founder and editor-and-chief Michael McHugh says it conducted some research around potential brand extensions and looked at the interests of its readers. And the two areas it decided to focus on were fashion and home. 

When it launched its twice-yearly Style title last year, he said there was a gap in the market for something different that could compete with the established brands of Fashion Quarterly. And he believed Decor also stood apart from the range of other titles in this category.

But while Mindfood has bet Fashion Quarterly to the punch with its Décor offering which features some similar themes in regard to content, Mullin doesn’t sound too concerned.

“There will always be significant competition for readers in our market but we feel Fashion Quarterly’s readers enjoy our authoritative take on our regular content, so [we]know they’ll appreciate our perspective on the new topics and emerging trends introduced in the mag,” she says.

“Of course our content goes well beyond just interiors, we’ve had great feedback already, particularly around the pieces in the issue that spotlight interesting local people and their businesses and relationships.”

And, according to Statistics New Zealand data, there’s a fair bit of growth in the home and living retail sector. 

While Mullin hasn’t put a number on it, she says the issue has been selling well so far. “ … it has had strong early sales and we feel positive it will continue to sell well over the duration it will be on shelves thanks to the fact the content is less seasonally dependent.”

“We are thrilled to have had a very warm reception to this new title from our readers and advertisers alike. Lots of people wanting more,” she says.

Last month Fashion Quarterly released a campaign through FCB raising the profile of its recently launched site FQ.co.nz for which seven of New Zealand’s top designers stylistically came together under one roof to promote.

The designers posed in a retro Remuera mansion to artfully to push the online offering. This follows a recent announcement that Bauer would be investing $1.2 million in a marketing campaign to announce the launch of its new digital properties, following its decision to join the IAB.

Featured in the campaign, shot by Meek Ramon Zuiderwyk from Match is: Dame Trelise Cooper (Trelise Cooper), Denise L’Estrange Corbet MNZM and Benny Castles (WORLD), Georgia Alice Currie (Georgia Alice), Steve Dunstan (Huffer), Liz Findlay (Zambesi) and Helen Cherry (Helen Cherry).

Bauer head of digital Michael Fuyala said earlier the $1.2 million investment is in addition to the ongoing editorial, marketing and social funding support Bauer already gives to the titles that fall under its umbrella.

The campaign is being rolled out across print, digital and outdoor with display and video being distributed through social media, email and influential collaborators within the fashion industry, a release read, and last month the site was already tracking ahead of expectation with more than 77,000 visits in the seven weeks since going live.

Along with fashion and beauty news, the site includes wellbeing, travel and home. “Extensive research conducted by Bauer Media prior to launch indicated these areas are a growing interest amongst FQ’s target demographic. Already, the ‘life’ channel, which houses these categories is reflecting this and receives similar levels of traffic as the popular Fashion channel,” the release said.

On the print side, Fashion Quarterly continues to have a high readership, with the latest results from Nielsen showing that the publication still attracted 196,000 readers on average. However, this number had slipped from the readership of 228,000 recorded for the same time a year earlier. This slide is also reflected in the publication’s circulation figures, which dropped from 21,200 for the period ended 31 December 2013 to 19,100 a year later. 

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