AMV.BBDO wins £8m IPC launch

IPC Media has appointed Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO to handle the &£8m launch advertising campaign for its new men’s weekly magazine, Nuts. The campaign involves television, press and retail support.

Nuts will be launched on January 22 and will compete with EMAP Consumer Media’s new Zoo Weekly, which is set to launch in late January. Walker Media will handle the planning and buying for Nuts.

This is the first time AMV. BBDO has worked with IPC. It won the business in a pitch against unnamed agencies.

Zoo Weekly will sit in the IPC Ignite! division, alongside Loaded, NME and Uncut. One million sampler copies are being printed, to be distributed through newsstands next week.

EMAP has earmarked &£8m to back the launch of Zoo Weekly, but it has not yet named the agencies handling the business.

Both publishers are gambling that the 18- to 30-year-old male target audience is willing to buy a magazine featuring sport, TV coverage, off-the-wall features, news and pictures of scantily clad women, on a weekly basis.

IPC pioneered the “lads’ mag” market with the launch of Loaded in April 1994. Chief executive Sylvia Auton says: “The men’s weekly market is bursting with potential and we believe this launch will significantly boost the market.”