IPC plans major marketing push for revamped Loaded
Redesigned Loaded promises to be ‘a quality environment’ for advertisers.
IPC is relaunching men’s monthly magazine Loaded with new editorial content and a supporting six-figure marketing campaign.
The magazine’s circulation has steadily declined in line with the market sector as a whole. The revamped title will include a redesign, new celebrity columnists such as Richard Bacon and Ross Kemp, and an expanded Loaded Fashion section.
The new magazine appears this week with a January cover date, and the supporting marketing includes partnerships with television channels MTV and Extreme.
There will be a campaign in sports bars across the UK and cross-promotions in IPC properties such as the weekly Nuts and the free-to-play games website Mousebreaker.
Group advertising director Andrew Goldsmith says: “The all-new Loaded delivers a quality environment for our key consumer clients. The re-introduction of the Loaded Style section, complete with a brilliantly shot fashion story, makes Loaded relevant to both high street and high end fashion labels and retailers.”
Publishing director Jo Smalley told Marketing Week that the publisher undertook up to nine months of reader research before introducing the changes and that the relaunch was not a “knee-jerk reaction or trying to turn the brand into what it isn’t”.
He adds: “We have seen other brands in the sector carry out refreshes very badly but we think we have got the perfect mix of what young men want.”
Loaded posted a 23% drop in average net circulation year on year for the period December to June 2009 to 72,679 in the last round of ABC figures. FHM dropped 16.2% to 235,027 year on year. Dennis Publishing killed off the print edition of its title Maxim in April, this year.
