Cosmopolitan Promotional Strategies

Cosmopolitan Promotional Strategies A case study into the promotional strategies of a consumer magazine and how these integrate into the marketing strategy of the sector of magazine publishing. Promotional Strategies What I chose and why For this case study I have chosen to critiqueCosmopolitan. This magazine was chosen for numerous reasons. Firstly for itshistorical role within the landscape of womens magazines in the UK. Alsobecause up until recently Cosmopolitan was the highest selling womens magazinein the UK. Due to the launch of Glamour, Cosmopolitan has lost this title. Iwill explore the promotional strategies Cosmopolitan has employed to try toregain their past position as top of the magazine rankings, and look at howsuccessful they have been to date. Cosmopolitan has been the magazine of choiceuntil Glamour launched in 2000. Glamour broke convention by printing in asmaller size that could fit in a womans handbag. Glamour ultimately ushered inthe era of convenience in magazines. Women no longer turn to magazines foropinion, unless its on makeup and clothes Cosmopolitans target audience According to the Cosmopolitan media pack: Cosmo women are young, ambitious, informed. Themajority are in full-time work. They earn and they spend! Cosmo women spendover 1 billion a year on fashion. They account for 1 out of every 11 spenton cosmetics and skincare in the UK. Cosmo readers live well: they spend over2 billion on their homes, 3.5 billion on food and almost 1.4 billion on newcars.1 PEST Analysis Political Future When the title launched in the UK in 1972, theeditor Joyce Hopkirk -and fashion and beauty editor Deirdre McShany bothcame from the Sun. Left-wing views were quite prominent in the UK version. Infact, in the second UK edition, Germaine Greers husband caused a stir byposing nude in the magazine an inside joke for feminists. In its early stages, Cosmopolitan was constantlyin the headlines. The Daily Mail was shocked by its use of the wordvirgin in an ad, and London Transport insisted that the wordfrigid, used in another ad, must be covered up with a black strip.However, the black strip wasnt long enough, and on some posters the advertread, I was f.d!. The current trend in womens magazines is movingaway from political and social issues and more into the world of celebrity andsensationalism. Despite this, Cosmopolitan is determined to maintain itspolitical routes. In January 2005, Sam Baker, the magazines current editor,contacted the leaders of the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties forinterviews in the magazine to coincide with the 2005 general election. In aninterview with Louise France for The Observer she explained herreasoning behind these political features: Bakerdoesnt care what her readers vote, she just believes that they need toexercise their rights. If we dont, were in danger of disenfranchisingourselves. And if we dont start voting we run the risk of never voting.2 Economic Future The magazine market has hada5% year-on-year rise in the number of copies actively purchasedaccording to ABC figures released for the period to December 2004. However,there has been fear about a possible saturation of the womens magazine market.ABC figures showed there was no cause for concern. This yearhowever, I believe is the year of the womens magazine market. These latestfigures reveal an upward surge in womens glossies such as Glamour,Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire. This increase in circulationindicates that womens appetite for glossies magazines hasnt abated or reachedsaturation point like many feared.3 Despite a clear rise in womensmagazine readership, Cosmopolitan which rose 5.08% from 397,272 in December2003 to 417,445 in December 2004 Cosmopolitan still finds itself in anunstable position, trailing in second place to Glamour magazine, which had a5.67% year on year increase, from 548,672 to 579,761. Social-Cultural Future Womensmagazines, especially fashion magazines, tend to address well-educated youngreaders who are seen as loyal, independent, and ready to spend. This explainsthe overall in conformity of magazine content, with their sections devoted tocelebrity features, fashion, beauty, health, interior and lifestyle. Butmagazine publishers like the media industry in general are now viewingyouth as an increasingly elastic category (Gough-Yates, 2003, p4). On a whole,Cosmopolitan has tried to fight this trend towards celebrity and fashion, bymaintaining a sexual orientation to its features. However, elasticity in thereadership is more wide spread. Currently, there are large proportions ofBangladesh, Indian, Black Caribbean, Black African and Chinese women in thedemographic that Cosmopolitan targets4. Again, Cosmopolitan hasresisted this cultural change; the majority of non-white faces in the May 2005edition were from the advertisement pages. Technological Future Cosmopolitanhas not bought into technological change as much as its contemporaries. Mostwomens magazines now have an online version of the magazine for people toview. However, Cosmopolitan choose provide a service with their online presence;a means for its audience to purchase the branded items, and access otherservices related to the magazine and its readers. Cosmopolitans website ismore of a Cosmopolitan portal. From the PESTanalysis, it is clear that Cosmopolitan does not adjust well to change. It seesitself as an institution due to its early political routes and is finding ithard to shake this responsibility. Promotional strategies employed The Message The strapline for Cosmopolitan is For FunFearless Females. While it emphasises strength in women, there is anunderlying element of not being afraid to be feminine, indicated in the use ofthe world females instead of women. This coincides with McCrackens (1993)belief that when buying a magazine we are buying into a feminine ideal. Infact, she believes that women readers are duped bymagazines into becoming slaves to trends in fashion, beauty and femininity. The Cover It isconvention among womens magazines to have their featured star celebrityadorning the covers. This is a major promotional tool in the currentcelebrity-focused climate. Cosmopolitan strays from this slightly. While themagazine will have a celebrity featured in every edition, these celebrities areoften not featured on the cover. Instead, Cosmopolitan has created a coverelement called Cosmo Loves, and a celebrity of choice is placed on the coverunder this banner. There is a page inside the magazine that offers the coverstar a small focus without this, the audience would feel cheated. Cosmopolitanstill uses cover layout conventions and takes note of page real estate, withthe word Sexy a word synonymous with what people expect of Cosmopolitancontent written in a large font in the top left hand corner. There is alsothe use of numbers in the top left hand corner, and even a circle in the area -a tool used in shops to mark sale or special items, the red circle has become asymbol of the good deal. This real estate formula of putting the items mostattractive to buyers in this area was due to product placement, but is not asnecessary as it used to be. Before magazines where overlapped on the newsstandsand their only exposed area was the top left hand corner. Now larger magazineslike Cosmopolitan are given premium space on magazine stands in shops like W HSmith, and the whole front cover is visible. However, making use of page realestate is still valid if you take into account that people generally read fromtop to bottom, left to right. Content Cosmopolitan has seven main sections: Celebs New Real Life Love, Sex Success Youniverse Health Shops Every Month The celeb section only has four features andthere is notably no features section. Instead the magazine is verycompartmentalised with standard pages like Cosmo Money, Cosmo Careers andCheats Guide. Cosmopolitan is ultimately a service magazine. It offers a lotof advice and how-to information. Where there are features, the focus onreal-life stories, which often have a sensational element. This paired with the colloquial use of languagecreates intimacy. Not only is Cosmo your friend, its a life manual; it is anecessary element in the readers life. This element of necessity of key in themarketing strategy of the magazine, and also the overruling strategy of itsparent company, Natmags, which publishes other manual-like titles includingGood Housekeeping and Mens Health. It also has a Cosmo Offers section. This month,the offers consist of 20% off at Oasis. Affiliation with particular shops is anewer magazine promotion convention; it gives the reader an added motive to buythe magazine, and broadens the scope of the magazines ethos, by including theconnotations of the shop they have chosen to be associated with. Layout/visual In an effort to reclaim the top spot,Cosmopolitan has copied Glamours handbag size. The have also copied otherlayout elements from Glamour magazine, like the information strip at the top ofthe magazine. They do still produce the magazine in their larger A4 format. Forthe May edition, the A4 version had a free book, while the smaller version hadno free gift. This could work adversely for Cosmopolitan, as it implies thatthe larger version is less valuable and so needs the book to justify the price. Price Cosmopolitan have opted for premium pricing, at2.95. There doesnt seem to be clear justification for this price, consideringGlamour, the market leader is a pound cheaper at 1.95, and Marie Claire, whichis rated just behind Cosmopolitan, is now 2.50. Considering Cosmopolitanappeals to the everyday aspect of its audience and doesnt by into fantasy viacelebrity, they make price themselves out of the market. For a magazine aboutthe real world, the price comes across as unrealistic. Advertising Cosmopolitan has earned a reputation for beingshocking and sensational through sexual politics. This has often beenrepresented in its advertising campaigns. In 2002 the magazine embarked on anad campaign that had visual ambiguous images. On was of an open fake fur bagwith pink satin lining; another was a woman in a bikini with a thin stream ofwhite liquid running down her stomach and another was a lipstick that was shotto look like a vibrator. Extreme tactics like the ones mentioned above arenecessary for a magazine like Cosmopolitan. Many sexual taboos no longer existin current society; without them there is no need for Cosmopolitan. There adcampaigns prove we still have problems with sexual themes, and thus validatethe need for the magazine. The May edition of Cosmopolitan has 300 pages(304 including front and back cover). Of these, 122 pages are advertising,excluding classifieds and Cosmopolitans own adverts. According to McCracken (1993, p91): It is no longer appropriate to assume that the magazineis only useful for advertising food and cleaning products. The magazine needsto increase the range of products it advertises to ensure consistent andongoing revenue. Brand Expansion Some believe that modern society has broken sodecisively from the past we have lost the certainty of the past and no longerhave traditions to live by. Without traditions we have no idea of how to live.Brands, however, can provide us with a substitute to traditions: brands havebecome the new traditions they shape and give meaning to everyday lives -brands are the new traditions in our society. (Grant, 1999) Cosmopolitan have strived to create a brand,through extended products. They have associated magazines: Cosmo Girl! andCosmo Bride; they have their own awards, which is an extension of theirposition to recommend people and products; and they also have a lingerie line.On top of this, their cover mounts are often branded. For the A4 May edition,the free book is an edited version of a book that has not yet been released,and has Cosmopolitan edition written on it. Overview/conclusion Cosmopolitan have maintained their politicalstance and prove that there is still a need for what some might call a femininepolitical crusade with the use of shocking sexual advertising and the recentcoverage of the general election. These have marketing strategies andpromotional strategies that it has employed since its launch in the 1970s.However, with social changes, and the readers new love affair with celebrity -which is not just fuelled by other womens glossies, but also by the influx ofwomens weeklies Cosmopolitan will need to do more to regain its position asmost read womens magazine. Reference Cosmopolitan Media Pack France, L. Cosmo is not just about sex. Observer Magazine. 16 Jan, 2005 Top 100 Selling Consumer Magazines. ABC. 2004 Gender. National Statistics. October 2004 Bibliography Gough-Yates, A. Understanding Womens magazines: Publishing, markets and Readerships (Routledge, 2003) McCracken, E. Decoding womens Magazines. (Macmillian, 1993) Grant, J. The new Marketing Manifesto. (Texere, 1999)

Deception Point Page 90

Face-to-face with him, Rachel felt like a teenager standing on the doorstep with a new boyfriend. â€Å"Thanks. No problem at all. Really.† Something inside her sensed Tolland wanted to kiss her. After a beat, he turned shyly away. â€Å"I know. You want to get to shore. We should get to work.† â€Å"For now.† Rachel smiled softly. â€Å"For now,† Tolland repeated, taking a seat at the computer. Rachel exhaled, standing close behind now, savoring the privacy of the small lab. She watched Tolland navigate a series of files. â€Å"What are we doing?† â€Å"Checking the database for big ocean lice. I want to see if we can find any prehistoric marine fossils that resemble what we saw in the NASA meteorite.† He pulled up a search page with bold letters across the top: PROJECT DIVERSITAS. Scrolling through the menus, Tolland explained, â€Å"Diversitas is essentially a continuously updated index of oceanic biodata. When a marine biologist discovers a new ocean species or fossil, he can toot his horn and share his find by uploading data and photos to a central databank. Because there's so much new data discovered on a weekly basis, this is really the only way to keep research up-to-date.† Rachel watched Tolland navigating the menus. â€Å"So you're accessing the Web now?† â€Å"No. Internet access is tricky at sea. We store all this data onboard on an enormous array of optical drives in the other room. Every time we're in port, we tie into Project Diversitas and update our databank with the newest finds. This way, we can access data at sea without a Web connection, and the data is never more than a month or two out of date.† Tolland chuckled as he began typing search keywords into the computer. â€Å"You've probably heard of the controversial music file-sharing program called Napster?† Rachel nodded. â€Å"Diversitas is considered the marine biologist's version of Napster. We call it LOBSTER – Lonely Oceanic Biologists Sharing Totally Eccentric Research.† Rachel laughed. Even in this tense situation, Michael Tolland exuded a wry humor that eased her fears. She was beginning to realize she'd had entirely too little laughter in her life lately. â€Å"Our database is enormous,† Tolland said, completing the entry of his descriptive keywords. â€Å"Over ten tera-bytes of descriptions and photos. There's information in here nobody has ever seen-and nobody ever will. Ocean species are simply too numerous.† He clicked the â€Å"search† button. â€Å"Okay, let's see if anyone has ever seen an oceanic fossil similar to our little space bug.† After a few seconds, the screen refreshed, revealing four listings of fossilized animals. Tolland clicked on each listing one by one and examined the photos. None looked remotely like the fossils in the Milne meteorite. Tolland frowned. â€Å"Let's try something else.† He removed the word â€Å"fossil† from his search string and hit â€Å"search.† â€Å"We'll search all living species. Maybe we can find a living descendant that has some of the physiological characteristics of the Milne fossil.† The screen refreshed. Again Tolland frowned. The computer had returned hundreds of entries. He sat a moment, stroking his now stubble-darkened chin. â€Å"Okay, this is too much. Let's refine the search.† Rachel watched as he accessed a drop-down menu marked â€Å"habitat.† The list of options looked endless: tide pool, marsh, lagoon, reef, mid-oceanic ridge, sulfur vents. Tolland scrolled down the list and chose an option that read: Destructive Margins/Oceanic Trenches. Smart, Rachel realized. Tolland was limiting his search only to species that lived near the environment where these chondrulelike features were hypothesized to form. The page refreshed. This time Tolland smiled. â€Å"Great. Only three entries.† Rachel squinted at the first name on the list. Limulus poly†¦ something. Tolland clicked the entry. A photo appeared; the creature looked like an oversized horseshoe crab without a tail. â€Å"Nope,† Tolland said, returning to the previous page. Rachel eyed the second item on the list. Shrimpus Uglius From Hellus. She was confused. â€Å"Is that name for real?† Tolland chuckled. â€Å"No. It's a new species not yet classified. The guy who discovered it has a sense of humor. He's suggesting Shrimpus Uglius as the official taxonomical classification.† Tolland clicked open the photo, revealing an exceptionally ugly shrimplike creature with whiskers and fluorescent pink antennae. â€Å"Aptly named,† Tolland said. â€Å"But not our space bug.† He returned to the index. â€Å"The final offering is†¦ † He clicked on the third entry, and the page came up. â€Å"Bathynomous giganteus†¦ † Tolland read aloud as the text appeared. The photograph loaded. A full-color close-up. Rachel jumped. â€Å"My God!† The creature staring back at her gave her chills. Tolland drew a low breath. â€Å"Oh boy. This guy looks kind of familiar.† Rachel nodded, speechless. Bathynomous giganteus. The creature resembled a giant swimming louse. It looked very similar to the fossil species in the NASA rock. â€Å"There are some subtle differences,† Tolland said, scrolling down to some anatomical diagrams and sketches. â€Å"But it's damn close. Especially considering it has had 190 million years to evolve.† Close is right, Rachel thought. Too close. Tolland read the description on the screen: â€Å"‘Thought to be one of the oldest species in the ocean, the rare and recently classified species Bathynomous giganteus is a deepwater scavenging isopod resembling a large pill bug. Up to two feet in length, this species exhibits a chitinous exoskeleton segmented into head, thorax, abdomen. It possesses paired appendages, antennae, and compound eyes like those of land-dwelling insects. This bottom-dwelling forager has no known predators and lives in barren pelagic environments previously thought to be uninhabitable.† Tolland glanced up. â€Å"Which could explain the lack of other fossils in the sample!† Rachel stared at the creature on-screen, excited and yet uncertain she completely understood what all of this meant. â€Å"Imagine,† Tolland said excitedly, â€Å"that 190 million years ago, a brood of these Bathynomous creatures got buried in a deep ocean mud slide. As the mud turns into rock, the bugs get fossilized in stone. Simultaneously, the ocean floor, which is continuously moving like a slow conveyer belt toward the oceanic trenches, carries the fossils into a high-pressure zone where the rock forms chondrules!† Tolland was talking faster now. â€Å"And if part of the fossilized, chondrulized crust broke off and ended up on the trench's accretionary wedge, which is not at all uncommon, it would be in a perfect position to be discovered!† â€Å"But if NASA†¦,† Rachel stammered. â€Å"I mean, if this is all a lie, NASA must have known that sooner or later someone would find out this fossil resembles a sea creature, right? I mean we just found out!† Tolland began printing the Bathynomous photos on a laser printer. â€Å"I don't know. Even if someone stepped forward and pointed out the similarities between the fossils and a living sea louse, their physiologies are not identical. It almost proves NASA's case more strongly.† Rachel suddenly understood. â€Å"Panspermia.† Life on earth was seeded from space. â€Å"Exactly. Similarities between space organisms and earth organisms make excellent scientific sense. This sea louse actually strengthens NASA's case.† â€Å"Except if the meteorite's authenticity is in question.† Tolland nodded. â€Å"Once the meteorite comes into question, then everything collapses. Our sea louse turns from NASA friend to NASA linchpin.†

Career and College Goals Essay

College and Career Goal It was the first year that psychology was being offered at my high school and I was eager to be a part of the learning experience. I knew instantly that psychology was my calling. I could see so many opportunities to make a difference in life, both big and small. I have never felt a stronger pull towards a goal and a career. Unfortunately, after high school I allowed procrastination and discouraging words from others stand in my way. Then as the years passed, I started a family and the excuses to not go back to school and get my psychology degree seemed more easily justifiable. I continued to let time pass me by but the urge I felt to commit to my goal remained. The desire was there, the goal was there, everything was there except motivation. I couldn’t motivate myself because I couldn’t justify giving up more of my time to something that wasn’t my family or my current career. Life was already so hectic. Then as my kids got older, I realized that I wasn’t setting a very good example for them by putting my dreams on hold. I knew that I would continue to keep telling myself â€Å"one day† and that day was never going to come unless I made it happen. I guess it finally hit me that my life is always going to be hectic. I have five kids for God’s sake! That day of realization was the day I decided to go back to school and earn my degree. I want my kids to follow their dreams, achieve their goals, and never give up. I can honestly thank my kids and my husband for my motivation and making me realize that getting my degree was a positive change of pace and that it would benefit us greatly. It is one of the best decisions I have made and I don’t have to take time away from my family. I am currently pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Columbia Southern. After I graduate I am committed to continuing my education and pursuing my Master’s degre e. One day I hope to have my own psychology practice. I have a deep passion to help people and I look forward to making a positive impact in people’s lives.

The War On Drugs in the USA Essay - 465 Words

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