According to the publishers, the new launch is the culmination of a three-year business strategy engineered by the parent company, ¡Hola!. Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, with a total of 34 international editions (including HFM) in 30 countries, and a combined readership of 20 million; the ¡Hola!/HELLO! group is one of the leading global publishing houses in the media landscape today.
HFM is set to target a readership of 18-35 year old women, who are fashion savvy and readily mix designer with high-street. Drawing from decades of experience and a unique understanding of the magazine market, HFM has identified that their increasingly busy reader doesn’t have time to plough through the thick fashion ‘bibles’ already on offer each month, says HELLO!.
Priced at £1 and up to 148 pages each month, HFM is affordable, glossy and informative, packed with the latest high-street buys and catwalk looks, style tips and beauty news as well as interviews with style-setters, designers and industry insiders. It will also be supported by digital versions on tablet and smartphone and the brand new hellofashion.com website. With a short print deadline of 12-days the magazine says it will offer readers more up-to-date news and fashion content in contrast to many competitor monthly titles.
The magazine will be launched by Publishing Director Charlotte Stockting, Editor Juliet Herd, Deputy Editor Jill Wanless, Development Editor Ally Oliver and Consultant Creative Director, Jonathan Clayton Jones. In addition to the main editorial team, Hilary Alexander OBE will also contribute to the magazine as Editor-at-Large.
HFM Editor, Juliet Herd, says: “Our main priority is listening to our readers and understanding their needs and wants. Through our extensive research and experience within the industry, we have identified that women are eager for a new type of fashion magazine – a magazine that fits within their increasingly manic schedules yet still indulges their need for aspirational yet affordable fashion with a glossy twist.
HELLO! Fashion Monthly will be packed full of both high street and designer labels along with celebrity style, unique behind-the-scenes celebrity wedding features, and topical fashion and beauty articles. We are excited about this bold step forward in the monthly print market.”
The launch of HELLO! Fashion Monthly demonstrates the Hola! group’s desire to continue to grow their portfolio of titles, expand their digital platforms and to invest in the magazine industry at a time when, says HELLO!, other publishing houses are closing titles, and comes fast on the heels of HELLO! announcing confident year-on-year ABC figures (Jan-Jun 14) compared to other competitor weekly and monthly publications – some of whom have seen double digit declines.
Director of ¡Hola! Group, Eduardo Sánchez Pérez said: “Publishing the biggest celebrity magazine around the world enables us to be bold and innovative and allows us to buck the trend, but importantly work with our core DNA of celebrity fashion, beauty, glamour and positivity. I believe print is at the heart of what Hello! offers and HFM, appealing to a much younger target audience, allows us to expand the brand to a multi-platform experience. HFM has already had great success in Spain, Mexico (as Hola! Fashion) and Greece and with the unique fashion culture that exists in the UK, I am confident that this new monthly title will be an enormous success.”
Publishing Director, Charlotte Stockting comments on the creation of HFM UK: “The launch of HFM is an exciting and natural brand extension for us and something we have been working towards for some considerable time. We know through our qualitative research that our target reader wants the combination of a luxury print magazine combined with a fully rounded digital experience: fashion that works with their lifestyle and can be appreciated on the go.
Our findings tell us the format of HFM is what readers are looking for and will occupy a unique position within the market - a genuine cross between a monthly and a weekly, offering previously unobtainable deadlines for editorial and advertisers. Not only is this project exciting from an editorial perspective, it has also enabled us to invest in the industry at a time when many publishing houses are doing exactly the opposite.”
