Magazines: GQ - Audience & Industry

 GQ - Audience & Industries blog tasks

Audience

Look through the GQ Media Kit and answer the following questions: 

1) How does the media kit introduction describe GQ?

GQ explores the powerful and progressive new forces shaping culture, society and commerce in Britain. GQ is a digital, social, video and experiential powerhouse- a community where people gather to be inspired and exchange ideas around style, creativity and culture.

2) What does the media kit suggest about masculinity? 

GQ's authority has never been broader or firmer as masculinity evolves and men's fashion has moved to the centre of the worldwide pop culture

3) Pick out three statistics from the data on page 2 and explain what they suggest about the GQ audience.

61%, £7.7K, £1.2K

These show that the magazine GQ is for upper class and are mainly aimed to those who earn a higher income in the household.

4) Look at page 3 - brand highlights. What special editions do GQ run and what do these suggest about the GQ audience?

• GQ HYPE GQ Hype spotlights the stars who are moving culture forward: The actors, musicians, athletes, designers and innovators who are changing the way we think, live and experience.

• GQ HEROES: ISSUE & EVENT From the idyllic setting of Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire comes GQ’s first flagship event of the year.

• MEN OF THE YEAR In 2021, the iconic British GQ Men of the Year Awards reached a truly global audience, with more than 3,200 news articles generating over 9.8 billion views.

5) Still on page 3, what does the video and social series section suggest about how magazine audiences are changing? 

In 2022, globally-renowned GQ franchises including Actually Me, 10 Essentials and Iconic Characters launch in the UK, joining local series like Action Replay to create our most dynamic line up of video, ever. That video programming will also hit all of British GQ’s social channels, where audiences have grown more than 30% in the past year to top 2 million.

Media Magazine feature: GQ

Go to our Media Magazine archive and read the article on GQ (MM82 - page 12). Answer the following questions:

1) What are the elements that go into choosing a cover stars for GQ? 

The mistake, though, is to simply try to get the most famous person for

any given month who has a ‘hook’ – a ‘hook’ being a film/ TV show/ album etc they’re promoting, and hence the reason they would do the cover in the first place – but the reality is this often doesn’t work. It needs to be the right person at the right time – that always matters more than fame.

2) How is the magazine constructed to serve the target audience? 

GQ is a men’s style magazine, and so GQ is always in service to that, both in print and online. Certainly, GQ wouldn’t consider itself just this – at its best, it’s also a brilliant forum for excellent profile writing and world-class photography and design, along with award-winning longform feature writing and sharp culture writing – but men’s style is the magazine’s core, and, along with high- end watch brands, is where the vast majority of the magazine’s advertising revenue comes from.

3) What does the article suggest about GQ's advertisers and sponsorships - and what in turn does this tell us about the GQ audience? 

In terms of advertisers, is brands that want to promote themselves in the sphere of male, high-end, luxury lifestyle. So, everything from top-tier tailoring to the latest sports cars. These brands are often heritage brands, so the names wouldn’t change much from month to month, or year to year. Sponsors tend to be a little more fluid. These will often be the brands who, for instance, sponsor individual categories at the Men of the Year awards, or partner with GQ’s live talks event, GQ Heroes.

4) What is GQ Hype - and how does it reflect the impact of digital media on traditional print media?

GQ Hype – a weekly, online-only cover. Celebrities – and their agents/publicists – naturally want a GQ print cover, but with only so many on offer, previously the drop-off from not getting a print cover could be drastic – simply offering them an online-only interview, say, which was understandably a less- than-exciting prospect for established celebrities

 

5) Finally, what does the article say about additional revenue streams for print magazines like GQ?  

Extra revenue streams are critical to the magazine industry these days; without them, it is nearly hard to thrive. It is a matter of identifying and concentrating on the main areas where the brand excels.

Industries

Your industries contexts are divided into three areas - Conde Nast, GQ's website and social media content and the impact of digital media on print industries.

Condé Nast

Read this Guardian news article on editorial changes at Condé Nast and answer the following questions: 

1) Who was previously GQ editor for 22 years? 

Dylan Jones

2) What happened to the 'lads' mag' boom magazines such as Nuts, Maxim and Loaded? 

Seven years ago Jones, who edited men’s monthly Arena in the 1990s, was credited with keeping GQ above water while others, such as Nuts, Maxim, Front and Arena closed down or, in the case of Loaded, went online only after circulation falls.

3) What changes have been taking place at Condé Nast in recent years and why? 
Nicholas Coleridge, Condé Nast’s long-serving traditionalist chairman stepped down from the role at the end of 2019. Shulman left in 2017 after 25 years to be replaced by UK Vogue’s first black editor Edward Enninful, recently promoted to European editorial director with control of the British, French, Italian, German and Spanish editions of the magazine.

Read this Press Gazette article on Conde Nast. Answer the following questions:

1) What does the article suggest about Condé Nast's recent strategy? 

Last year Conde Nast merged the global editorial teams at several of its international magazine brands including GQ, Wired, Vogue and Conde Nast Traveller under a new digital-first strategy designed to produce less duplication of content.

2) How does chief executive Roger Lynch describe Condé Nast and why? 

Nicholas Coleridge, Condé Nast’s long-serving traditionalist chairman stepped down from the role at the end of 2019. Shulman left in 2017 after 25 years to be replaced by UK Vogue’s first black editor Edward Enninful, recently promoted to European editorial director with control of the British, French, Italian, German and Spanish editions of the magazine.

3) What does Adam Baidawi say about Condé Nast, GQ and culture? 

Baidawi told Press Gazette: “Conde Nast, as much as anything else, is in the business of shaping and reflecting culture. Culture moves, and we have to move with it. “If you take GQ, for instance, I don’t think we were in a position to shape and reflect culture with 21 siloed businesses around the world centred around print products.”

Read this FIPP feature on Condé Nast diversifying into video and streaming content. Answer the following questions: 

1) How is Condé Nast moving away from traditional print products?

Condé Nast has announced 75 returning series and 50 new pilots across 17 brand channels for 2021-2022, capitalising on huge growth in streaming in the past year.

2) What examples are provided of Condé Nast's video and streaming content?

During its annual NewFront presentation today (4 May) which took place online, audiences heard about Vogue’s expansion into wellness, GQ Sports’ 2022 Super Bowl lineup, and Vanity Fair’s expansion into audio.

3) What does the end of the article suggest modern media audiences want? 

“Audiences want to be participants, not just passive viewers – and of course, they want content 100 per cent personalised for them,” said Chu.

GQ website, video and social media content 

Visit the GQ website, Instagram and YouTube channel. Note that some of these may be blocked in school. Once you have looked over GQ's online content, answer the following questions:

1) What similarities do you notice between the website and the print edition of the magazine?

Promotion of their products

2) Analyse the top menu of the GQ website (e.g. Fashion / Grooming / Culture). What do the menu items suggest about GQ's audience?

That the audience are aspirers as they seem to be interested in fashion.

3) What does GQ's Instagram feed suggest about the GQ brand? Is this appealing to a similar audience to the print version of the magazine?

The portrayal of various celebrities, taking into account their gender, age, and involvement in the media, appeals to a wider audience.

4) In your opinion, is GQ's social media content designed to sell the print magazine or build a digital audience? Why?
Make a digital audience by posting video on YouTube that allows viewers to connect with the celebrity being interviewed rather than directly marketing their print magazines. 

5) Evaluate the success of the GQ brand online. Does it successfully communicate with its target audience? Will the digital platforms eventually replace the print magazine completely?

I think it communicates with its target audience, particularly through YouTube videos, and that digital platforms will eventually replace printed publications because fewer people buy magazines now that everything is moving online because of technological improvements.

The impact of digital media on the print magazines industry

Read this Guardian feature on the struggled of the UK print magazine industry and answer the following questions:

1) What statistics are provided to demonstrate the decline in the print magazines industry between 2010 and 2017? What about the percentage decline from 2000?

Sales of the top 100 actively purchased print titles in the UK – those that readers buy or subscribe to – fell by 42% from 23.8m to 13.9m between 2010 and 2017. Since the start of the internet era in 2000, the decline is 55% from 30.8m.

2) What percentage of ad revenue is taken by Google and Facebook?

Google and Facebook account for 65% of the $6.5bn (£4.7bn) UK digital display ad market. They are also strangling attempts by magazine and newspaper publishers to build their digital ad revenues by taking about 90% of all new spend.

3) What strategies can magazine publishers use to remain in business in the digital age?

specialist magazines, catering for more niche audiences with interests ranging from shooting to model railways and ponies, are likely to always have a print fanbase. Wildman says for magazines to survive they must build a brand beyond the core print publication.

“It is overly simplistic to say it is just digital versus print,” he says. “Magazine businesses are much more diverse. We ran 100 events related to our magazines last year –  Harper’s Bazaar sold out in hours at £600 a head.

4) What examples from the Guardian article are provided to demonstrate how magazines are finding new revenue streams?

Time Inc in the US, which publishes People, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, has just been sold to rival Meredith for $1.8bn; the UK arm was picked up by Epiris.

5) Now think of the work you've done on GQ. How is GQ diversifying beyond print? 

In addition to striving to target people from all over the world with a variety of demographics and psychographics, it focuses a major emphasis on depicting masculinity in a distinct and different way than other publications.