Our Founder’s Viewpoint:
I read a really interesting interview recently with Elle UK Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief Lorraine Candy who was commenting about the future of publishing in print form.
When asked to make a prediction about where publishing was heading, she replied:
“I think print will always be the mothership. It will always be the thing that women want to sit down, lean back and relax with. You’re paying for an edit you can’t get anywhere else. You can go online and see thousands of pages of merchandise. You can see loads of sites showing you how to put it together, but it’s not the ELLE team. They’re not shooting it with amazing photographers who’ve shot it on the world’s best models. They haven’t seen these pieces before they’ve even gone anywhere near the store or the catwalk. That edit is what you’re paying for. That will always exist because women will always want that. How and where they buy it will be different, because they’re not always going into news agents, supermarkets or traditional bookshops to buy magazines anymore. I think we’ll be selling magazines to them a lot more online. There will be a much more integrated, collaborative response and approach to everything, which I think will be really exciting. And I think it will be a very modern and playful world, where you’ll be able to read, shop, watch, and share. We have huge communities around ELLE that are interested in books, films, music and things and we target them in a very specific way. The core for them is fashion, but we say, “We know you’re interested in all these other things, so our content will be shaped by your interest in these things.”
My thoughts also echo this sentiment and supported by the fact that print still remains a trusted source of information and news above and beyond social and digital. I think the future of publishing is solid.
And I agree with Candy that people’s buying habits may lead to an increase in digital issues as oppose to print, but for someone like me to sits in front of a screen all day long most days, the luxury of sitting down with a nice glossy magazine will never lose it’s allure!
Ashley Rossiter, Former Fashion Journalist & Stylist and now MD of MirrorMePR
