Bingo group sets up lifestyle mag

The National Bingo Game Association is to launch what it claims will be one of the largest national lifestyle magazines in order to tap into the 3.2 million people who play the game every week.

The quarterly magazine, which has been given the working title of Bingo!, will have a print-run of 1 million copies and will be launched in November. The content of the magazine will focus on general lifestyle topics such as food, clothing and cars. The magazine will be available free in the 550 licensed bingo clubs around the UK and will be ABC-audited.

The magazine will carry an editorial-to-advertising ratio of 55 to 45 per cent, and several large brands are understood to have already signed advertising deals. The magazine will also carry retail sales coupons.

Custom publisher Profile Media Group is creating the magazine for the National Bingo Game Association. Julian Scriven, marketing director for Profile, says Bingo! will be the largest magazine to reach the “C2D audience” on the market.

He says typical bingo players are one of the hardest groups of consumers to reach as they do not generally read lifestyle magazines.

He says: “The bingo crowd is a rare C2D audience with a relatively high disposable income, which is quite attractive to a lot of advertisers. The magazine’s content will be about aspirational lifestyle for that type of consumer.”