New Media and Woolworths have once again teamed up with the launch of the very modern W: a bespoke, editorial-driven fashion magazine with complementary distribution to 350 000 loyal Woolworths cardholders.
The fashion complement to the award-winning food magazine Woolworths TASTE, W will be a customer reward to 350 000 Loyal and VIP Woolworths cardholders, who will receive the magazine free of charge. The new custom glossy from New Media premieres with the Spring 2011 issue, which is all about fashion’s new modern mood.
“It’s our business to read people, and we think we’ve really got it right once again with W,” says Irna Van Zyl, New Media’s Group Content Director. “What Woolworths TASTE has been to food, W will be to fashion. It’s very exciting to bring a solid fashion glossy with such panache to the market; one that could proudly stand side-by-side against any international magazine, but retains a purely South African feel.”
Van Zyl adds: “W is also in keeping with international retail trends. Retailers such as the UK’s H&M and Asos have created their own massively successful fashion magazines, which add additional valuable channels through which they can engage with their customers.”
Behind the matte cover emblazoned with a bold black ‘W’ is a fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazine luxuriously conceived: with high quality thick glossy paper and typography, smart and informative editorial content and striking modern photography, evocative of the very best fashion magazines on the international scene. It’s also a tangible investment Woolworths is making in its customers; one that is bound to be an absolute treat as well as an educating read.
Editorial talent has been recruited for the inaugural issue of W, which in addition to fashion also features home décor and food. Well known beauty editor and writer Marianne Campbell of Femina fame brings her seasoned and smart take on colour to the mag. Overseeing W’s luscious food pages is Maranda Engelbrecht, long-time food journalist/stylist and founder of foodie-lauded Babel Restaurant; and insightfully articulating the home décor South Africans love to live with is Paul Duncan, head of design and homeware at Woolworths and former editor of Condé Nast House & Garden.
In W’s premiere issue, Fashion and its inseparable Muse are paired up in a rocking celebration of music’s generation Next that includes a chat with actress/singer/songwriter Zoë Kravitz of Elevator Fight Jam (more widely known both for her role in X-Men First Class, the brand’s newest instalment, and as the daughter of rock legend Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet). Other featured musos are local all-around musician and designer Spoek Mathambo, Machineri band-members Andre Geldenhuys and Sannie Fox, and Gabi-Lee Smit, vocalist and guitarist of The Pinkertons.
In keeping with the music theme, the charming and universally appealing Johnny Clegg is the subject of ‘Alpha Zulu’, the first in a series of regularly slotted interviews that will focus on an iconic South African. With his new album Human and ensuing tour wowing American audiences, and his soundtrack for the newly remade Jock of the Bushveld a resounding success, Clegg has never been better or more interesting, as his recent chat with top journalist Sue de Groot discloses.
Our current ‘70s obsession gets a nod with a retrospective feature on the great Yves Saint Laurent, which reveals how he was shaped by society’s own transformation, and how his influence continues to permeate fashion today.
Two regular W features are ‘New Talent’, which in this issue profiles local textile designer Laduma Ngxokolo whose signature Xhosa-designed sweaters are piquing international fashion attention, and ‘Fashion History’, an informative timeline that follows the evolution of a fashion item. The Flare seems like a fitting choice for this issue, with its mix of the modern and the nostalgic.
Upmarket advertisers like Elizabeth Arden, Tag Heuer and Land Rover are showing their support for this new sophisticated consumer magazine, which will be published quarterly. At just under 100 pages, W is big on content and value, which is why New Media’s Van Zyl says “W is a great read!” The magazine will also be available for purchase at selected Woolworths stores nationwide for R24.95.
“At Woolworths, we pride ourselves on our engagement with our customers, which naturally leads us to want to understand and respond to what our customers want,” says Hannah Ross, Head of customer, Woolworths Marketing. “Our long-running synergy with New Media is based on this type of commitment and a mutual understanding of what really makes the Woolworths customer tick and we are thrilled to be behind the resulting stunning fashion and lifestyle read.”
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