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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

WWW- What Women Want

Gill India Communications Pvt. Ltd. (also the publishers of Today’s Traveller, B2B- Today’s Traveller Newswire & Pharma Health Newswire) has launched the magazine called “What Women Want” in December 08. According to Mr. Vivek Mittal, VP of GICPL- W3 is positioned against Femina & Good Housekeeping. Content wise also, it is going to target the housewife & working women from the age group of 18-60 years.

Content
It seems that editors of W3 had decided that they will touch every aspect of a contemporary woman's life. That is why the content of W3 is talking about beauty, home, recipe, fashion, health, bollywood, investment, real estate, trends, food, society, family, love, sex, relationships, travel… and what not… (huff… looking at the wide range they have tried to covered, I think they should have named it- “What women don’t want”).

On one hand it sounds very impressive that each single issue is covering such a wide range of content, but on the other side, it looks like a mess of variety of article. They must have tried to hook their TG reader in at least one or another article, but it clearly shows the lack of editorial direction to remain W3 focused. Apart from the main content of the magazine, regular extra columns are also their like jokes, horoscope, Gossip & top of that Poet’s corner!

Entire issue is divided (rather badly structured) into various sections which are carrying a couple of mediocre articles on the same topic. Entire issue looks more or less a compilation of various articles picked from any color supplement of a local newspaper. To distinguish each section from the other, a section cover before every section is put which again shows their lack of presentation. Selection & the language of the articles also fails to hook the reader into the magazine.

Design
As poor as content... Even the basics of design and layouts are kept aside while making of W3, that is all I can say about the design. Even a good photograph for the cover is not executed properly to make it a great cover. There seems no clarity in thoughts of putting cover stories & other elements to make it more newsstand friendly cover. Even the master head of W3 looks like very immature.

Inner pages are also designed badly & layouts have lots of basic flaws & inconsistencies. Fine, inconsistencies could be taken care if things were correct in first place. Even the basic grid for a regular page is not defined. On some pages it is three columns layout and on some pages lines of text are running across the page. Sometimes it right justified, sometimes it full or left or even centre aligned!! Type faces are also clashing for body & box elements. No consistency is maintained for text to be wrapped around the pictures. Pictures are not shot exclusively for the articles, but are taken from web or stock only. That is why most of the articles have non-Indian faces in their pictures.

Printing
Printing is not that bad I can say, but pre press work is pathetic. It seems that not even a single image is corrected before sending it to print. Since most of the pictures are taken from web or stock, the pictures are printed pixelated and over stretched.

Product
This 100 page monthly magazine is priced at Rs.30 which does not look too much as a cover price. But once you go through the issue, lower quality of paper used, average quality of printing (due to pre-press) and top of that, the disoriented content makes this product a substandard product.

Generally, people think that it is very is easy to create the content around general interests to make wider TG and also the wider scope to get advertisers in, but it becomes most difficult to manage the quality of that kind of content. Content planners must be extremely careful for selecting the topics & the articles which need to be carry. And then how they should be presented is also equally critical. As a conclusion all I can say is that W3 fails to serve "what women want".

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Friday, December 26, 2008

Stuff India: Disappointing Desi Edition

“World’s Best-Selling Gadget Mag” (as they claim top on the mast-head itself), Gadgets-Gear-Technology magazine, STUFF is launched in December in India in its desi avataar. You must be aware that its international edition was made available by Haymarket (also the publishers of Autocar, WhatCar? and What Hi-Fi), at lower price for Indian readers in November 2007. Now, almost a year later, this Indian edition is released with lesser pages, poor presentation, and inferior product quality at same lower price- Rs.100.

Though lots of life style and men’s magazines today also carry the content on Gadgets-Gear-Technology, but STUFF has its direct competitor already in the Indian market- T3, which eventually is also celebrating its second anniversary in the same month. And on news-stand, the launch issue of STUFF is looking very inferior product in comparison with the special issue of T3.

Content
Since this is the launch issue of Stuff, it has lots of burden on its shoulders- competing with competitor’s special issue, setting up its own image in readers’ mind, meeting with the expectations from launch issue etc. I think, launch issue of Stuff is failed to meet all of these. Since last November, pages were already getting reduced (from 202 in Nov.2007) in every issue and now in the launch issue it is slashed down to 114 only.

Content of the magazine is divided into three (almost equal in terms of page numbers) major sections- Hot Stuff, Features & Tested. Product range covered in the issue is good, but while looking at articles covered in Feature section, it doesn’t seem as this issue was planned to be the launch issue. These kinds of stories could go in later issues because they leave a wrong impression about the overall content goes in a regular issue of Stuff.

Design
It is inferior to the international edition of Stuff. Right from the cover to the inside pages- including photographs, design and illustrations- it is substandard. It is disappointing to see such a badly designed cover of a launch issue- poor treatment of cover photograph, poor background (though it is looking much better with white back ground in subscription advertisement), flawed imaging, and badly placed cover stories… A dull cover for the inaugural issue!

Same quality of presentation you can see in inside pages also, be it product shot (Page. 10, 44, 52, 57) or illustration (pg. 39) or a concept shot (pg. 70) or a layout (Pg. 40-41, 70, 92). ‘Top 10 of everything’ pages are looking good and rich in content.

Printing
Printing is OK but when it is compared with its earlier issues which were available in Indian market, it seems inferior. Hence, the readers’ expectations which are already raised by its international versions can become a big problem for Indian Stuff. Few pages are heavily saturated and few have registration problem.

Product
As I said, Indian readers must have raised their expectations in last one year because of ‘low-priced-UK-edition’ but at the same price this product disappoints a buyer. Pre-press work also needed to be improved.

As a conclusion, I would like to say that a careful selection of products & stories and better design & layout can definitely make this magazine a great gadget magazine.

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Monday, December 01, 2008

Mega Modelz: Modeling in Fashion

If it is fashion… there are designers… if there are designers, there are models…ramps… if there are models, there are agencies…photographers…stylists…

…welcome to the dazzling world of glamour!

Both, the fashion & the modeling (most of the time) seem collectively as one not two, but surely there is a blurred line between these two. It depends up to you if you want to make that line apparent or you want to vanish it. May be it is a smart way to target both in one shot that is why '100 communications', a Delhi based fashion event company has recently launched a bi-monthly magazine- 'Mega Modelz'.

Rough ramp to walk
'Models & Trends' (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/06/four-fs.html), Style & Speak (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/09/style-statement.html), FAD (http://mediajunction.blogspot.com/2007/12/magazine-on-fashion-day-2-day.html), FnL, Images:BOF, Gladrags and Asiana (Wedding & Fashion) are few of existing magazines in the same space- a mix of fashion-trends–modeling which are going to be tough competition for Mega Modelz.

Content
Inaugural issue of 'Mega Modelz' clearly shows the confusion of editorial direction. The structure of magazine, selection of stories, presentation of content gives a very shallow & disoriented editorial impression. What worse it could be that the cover story of inaugural issue itself is a wrong story to be even in the issue, forget about putting it as a cover story. On the cover it says- 'New age supermodels?' which as a cover story doesn’t convey what it is all about. And top of that, in the 5 pages long & shorter than around 600 words story, it gives a negative verdict (page 31) – 'An era truly had come to an end' because new faces (cricket- bollywood celebs) have stepped in modeling!

Content is poorly scattered across the magazine. Everything is there in one issue but it looks like a mess. Photographers, fashion makers, and models of course… everyone is featured or interviewed under various sections/columns names. At the end of issue, it is carrying a directory of modeling agencies, advertising agencies & photographers. It could be useful for its TG if it wasn’t erroneous (entire list of photographers' names from A to L is missing from alphabetical listing).

Design
Cover is looking attractive but credit goes to stunning photograph. Other elements on the cover are placed badly. It could be a great cover with a little efforts on layout & placing text on the cover as it has got very strong & perfect picture for its kind of cover.

Inside pages are looking mediocre as they don’t have any design style sheet. No guidelines for putting text on pictures, columns, text leading, type faces, font sizes.. nothing seems as per guidelines (which is for sure not there). It seems that designer was free to pick & use any font whichever was installed on his machine.

Printing
Most of the pictures looks like stock pictures or seems as taken from agencies. That is why there is no consistency in quality of photographs. Prepress work is done carelessly as you can't see true skin color in most of the pictures. Printing could be improved and that could makeup the weaknesses of color correction work. Cover is printed well, specially the back cover was needed that kind of excellence to print that advertisement.

Product
A tall size (21 x 29.5 cms) bi-monthly magazine of 100 pages is priced at Rs100 which is quite OK for its kind of product. Unless it is opened, magazine looks very classy that gives it a look of a rich product.

As a conclusion, if it doesn’t improve on main content of the magazine and if it not kept focused editorially, it will start looking a me-too kind of magazine with some glossy pictures.

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Value for Money ...........: ●●◐○○
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