Day 351 - New Magazines

Well, last week, the first issues of Romanian editions of Esquire and Harper's BAZAAR went on the market - published by Sanoma-Hearst Romania. First, Esquire cover is not "glossy", they opted for a matte finishing. Apart from this, the content of both two titles is 50% (Esquire) 90% (Bazaar) taken and translated from the English/American editions. In my opinion, Esquire arrived too late on the Romanian market and it will be very tough for them to catch-up. And Esquire means, above all, strong editorial content and this is another very tough task on the Romanian market, because they should start producing very quickly more original content. Anyway, the graphic concepts for both magazines are taken from original editions.
BAZAAR is, in my opinion, completely futile on Romanian market, for the moment. We do not have that wealthy smart upper middle-class readership able to sustain this kind of high lifestyle.
The problem is that: all the Romanian editions of foreign glossy magazines - Elle, Cosmopolitan, FHM, Maxim, Playboy, Beau Monde - are not made for readership, but for winning as much advertising possible. Bazaar seems to make no exception from this wrong rule. If you don't win your readership, you don't have content so you can't gain that needful authority. But this is normal on a market where advertising companies are looking not for strong editorial content and authority, but only for circulation and the quality of print - they want to see their client's ads impeccably printed in a large number of copies. Nobody is thinking about the clever reader.
Esquire, on the other hand, have more Romanian original editorial content - well written - which is a good start.
The best magazine in Romania so far - in my opinion - is National Geographic, but this is an exception, because this is an unique formula working everywhere, being only about strong journalistic content.
So. Back to these two new editions: good graphic concepts, good quality of print. Something else is to be... expected. Both magazines have the same quality of product, but Esquire is far more better than BAZAAR in terms of editorial content.

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