and while at ad age...

A couple of other interesting articles in Advertising Age:
- CNN the TV channel is no match for CNN the website (the chart below tells the whole story)- McDonald's recruits moms to be the ultimate influencers: gatekeepers to go on field trips and hopefully return as evangelists.

monocle magazine

I got my hands on Monocle magazine's premiere issue. Magazines all over the world are dwindling, many are folding (George, Talk, The Face, to name a few), and most are getting slimmer, with fewer and fewer advertising pages. So it is laudable that somebody is willing to launch a new magazine given this scenario.
Monocle was launched positioning itself as a new type of business magazine. Well, it is definitely not a business magazine in the traditional sense. With sections categorized from A to E (Affairs, Business, Culture, Design, Edits), the magazine's premier edition brings an eclectic mix of topics, such as the emergence of Japan's navy (the cover story), an interview with Lego's CEO, the semiotics of Iran's president wardrobe, and a fashion editorial set in Okinawa.
The most interesting piece for me is an article about Miura Golf Clubs, the maker of Tiger Woods' clubs (Nike puts the logo on them, but they're actually made by Miura). Hint: following on centuries of samurai sword forging tradition they see themselves as forging specialists, not club makers, which gives an idea about the craftsmanship involved.
Some other features of the magazine:
- At 242 pages it is surprisingly big
- There's a "manga" supplement, complete with instructions on how to read it (from right to left, obviously)
- It clearly intends to be an international edition. With a head office in London, the magazine has bureaux in New York, Zurich and Tokyo.