MUCH HAS been rightly said about woman&home’s quality, it’s sales performance and the power of editor Sue James and her top notch team.
But what makes the cover work? Why is it flattening the opposition month in, month out?
In the first instance, it’s all about the image. Helen Mirren is often touted as the glamorous older woman, but few pictures prove it like this does. Fantastic styling, dynamic pose, and a small hand tattoo! If there is retouching, I can’t see it.
Then there are the coverlines. Like Essentials, they pack a lot on without it feeling crushed. The type has power, but I never feel I’m being over sold.
And of course, the words themselves are first class. Positive, personal and all exceptionally useful, this is a master class in how to craft lines that shift copies.
TV & Satellite week is no stranger to the honour of cover of the month, their reputation as the Grazia of TV listing titles is now pretty well set. I’ve blogged on this before and much of my comment then still holds true.
With this cover, the team have managed to get one of the BBC’s best franchises look as if they are doing it for TV& Sat and them alone. It doesn’t matter how they’ve got the access, the sharpness of the picture (look at the eyes!) proves that this is premiere division HD editorial.
The NME was the winner last month, here they are again with their 100 gigs list cover. It is a piece of Art, and needs to be enjoyed as such. It looks brilliant, but it also looks back. And that is a challenge for a title with a much younger demographic than Mojo, Uncut and Q, who are always doing this sort of thing.
That said, I think it will sell, because the picture holds a powerful pull over British Butter fanatics everywhere, regardless of age.
For what it’s worth, I really like the current NME cover, featuring the Vaccines in a post modern washed out punk pink. I’m not sure this will sell, but it certainly caught the eye of myself and Simon Freeborough when we whizzed past the stands last week. And had a pretty intense conversation around ‘pink’ as a result.