Are Media’s latest podcast series, Captive, is a deep dive into the content that captivates Australian women. Never afraid to delve into what doesn’t work as much as what does, the podcast explores content in all its forms, with the help of its top editors and commercial content creators.
In the first episode, host Dr Xanthe Mallett is joined by The Australian Women’s Weekly editor-in-chief, Nicole Byers, marie claire editor Nicky Briger, Gourmet Traveller editor Jo Hunkin and editor of Home Beautiful and Real Living Elle Lovelock.
Nicky Briger kicks off the first episode – Making MAGic – Stories behind the covers – with a memorable behind-the-scenes story about the magazine’s 25-year anniversary cover starring Nicole Kidman – which took place just one day before lockdown in 2020.
The editors agree that the real ‘magic’ of a cover image is hard to pin down, but that they immediately know it when they see it. For Byers, the gold usually comes not from the expected shoot, but in more candid moments.
“There’s a look in their eye or there’s an emotion or an authenticity to that shot, and then I throw everything else out and I think ‘that’s the image’,” she said. “And that has been successful for us nine times out of 10.”
When discussing some covers that didn’t quite hit the mark, Jo Hunkin made the observation that magazines aren’t there to be ‘the first responders’ to news stories, but instead should offer escapism and uplift readers.
In order to gain such a deep understanding of what covers will resonate with their audience, Are Media’s editors need to understand everything about their readers – including what they like to eat and drink, where they like to shop, and how much they like to spend.
Home Beautiful editor Elle Lovelock points to Are Media’s research division, where “we can look through [the research] and really paint a picture of who they are. From that, you can pick up ‘I think they’d like this kind of content’.”
While research is important, it’s also critical to know when to ignore the numbers and go with gut instinct. “It’s about paying attention to how people live,” explained Lovelock. “I think that comes naturally to journalists. You really need to observe and see what makes people tick.”
In episode two, which focuses on connecting across digital and commercial creative, host Dr Xanthe Mallett is joined by Alex Bruce-Smith, digital editor at marie claire and ELLE.com.au, and Claire Catt, Are Media’s head of commercial creative.
For Bruce-Smith, the creativity of digital comes from a combination of interpreting the data and combining it with the broader cultural conversation, a lot of which is ‘gut instinct’. It also involves acknowledging that what people purport to care about, and what they will actually read, about are two different things.
In the digital world, shifts in the zeitgeist happen a lot faster as the cultural dialogue moves along at a rapid pace. Content that worked really well at one point might not work again later, and vice versa.
She shares the example of a story about the rebranding of just ‘going for a walk’ as a ‘hot girl walk’ – a term started on TikTok that went viral during the pandemic. When the team first published the story, it didn’t quite hit the mark because they were ahead of the trend. As the trend itself began to pick up steam, the article started to perform better and better. “The nature of digital content is that the story has a life beyond when you hit publish,” she said.
In the third episode, on setting and following the agenda, Nicky Briger describes her fight to put Barack Obama on the cover of WHO magazine following his inauguration in early 2009. Although the general consensus at the time was that male politicians don’t sell celebrity magazines, Nicky’s belief in the cover won out and was rewarded with an uplift of 29%. Yet again, gut instinct won out.
The podcast series comes as Kantar research proves that Are Media-created content has the ability to take consumers through the purchase funnel and deliver double-digit growth on metrics.
The new study revealed that Are Media’s commercial content drives brand uplift across every measure, with inspiration and information driving customers to take real action along every step of the purchase funnel.
As part of the research, 300 respondents were shown a condensed version of Are Media’s Country Style magazine, featuring a double-page spread for Porter’s Paint. The test content was shown in a ‘flippable’ truncated magazine piece, with content embedded alongside general editorial.
On average, the results found that top-of-mind awareness increased six-fold compared to the control group, while message association doubled and purchase intent and consideration increased by +11%.
The full white paper can be downloaded here along with a new three part podcast series Captive, revealing the secrets to capturing the attention of women.