Men’s Fitness revamps cover
Specialist magazine Men’s Fitness is redesigning its front cover style to make it more accessible to a broader audience.
Dennis Publishing marketing manager Juliette Cooper says the transformation is the first of a number of changes to the title in the coming year as part of a wider editorial and marketing review of the magazine.
The fitness title, published by Dennis Publishing, is keeping its traditional shirtless male cover model but is injecting more “fun and playfulness” by showing the models interacting with the page furniture and moving away from static poses used by health and fitness titles.
The first issue to take the new style is the September issue, available from today (21 July), and shows the model lifting the corner flap of the cover.
Later issues will show the cover model swinging from the masthead and tearing through the paper.
Pete Muir, Men’s Fitness editorial director, says the changes aim to reflect a “changing attitude to fitness, in a more lifestyle focussed way”.
“Men’s Fitness has always portrayed fitness as inclusive to lifestyle and now we’re reflecting it in the cover. The message we are getting from readers is that they still take their health and fitness seriously, but they don’t want it to be a chore. They want to build fitness into their lifestyles,” he says.
Dennis also plans to review the title’s retail and promotions strategy for 2011.
In the latest magazine ABC figures, Men’s Fitness circulation increased 0.1% year on year to 68.037.
Dennis publishing acquired Men’s Fitness in the UK and Ireland in September last year. It was previously published under licence from American Media.
