City AM launches luxury magazine
City AM, the free London business newspaper, is to launch a monthly luxury lifestyle magazine to capitalise on its recent advertising revenue uplift from luxury brands.
Bespoke will be aimed at the paper’s late 20s to mid 40s professional and affluent readership. It will include features on fashion, restaurants, films and exhibitions.
City AM claims it has increased its advertising revenue from luxury brands by 60 per cent over the past two years, making it the fastest growing sector of the newspaper’s advertising. Advertisers set to feature in the magazine include Tag Heuer, Lexus, IWC, Mercedes and Jaeger-LeCoultre.
The first issue of Bespoke will launch on 19 September and will be distributed for free in the main newspaper over three days. A further issue will be released in December before going monthly from January next year.
The launch marks City AM’s latest brand extension since the launch of its high-end recruitment service, CityAMcareers.com, last year.
Harry Owen, City AM’s commercial director, says: “We have responded to demand from both readers and advertisers to increase our lifestyle content and we’re in an unrivalled position to launch the magazine with a distribution footprint that crosses London from Saville Row to Shoreditch. Bespoke’s content will continue to play to core City AM strengths and reflect the readers’ lifestyle: cosmopolitan, fashion-conscious, affluent and time poor.”
Rival business publisher Bloomberg is also set to scale up its luxury credentials, announcing earlier this month that its biannual Bloomberg Pursuits magazine is to go quarterly from 2013.
The publisher hopes that the new version of the magazine will help the 310,000 subscribers to its Bloomberg Professional service understand that the brand has a “compelling” lifestyle offering. It is also bidding to generate more interest from luxury advertisers.
Bloomberg Pursuits will feature ads from brands such as Ralph Lauren, Ritz Carlton and Brooks Brothers.
Ron Henkoff, Bloomberg Markets and Bloomberg Pursuits editor, says: “We have this exclusive global audience and we have exclusive access to them which is how we are positioning the title. It is an important addition to the news and media group that, for the first time, brings a global luxury lifestyle product to our users.”
Last year the Financial Times launched an iPad version of its “How To Spend It” lifestyle supplement. It racked up more than 100,000 downloads just seven months after its launch.
