House & Leisure rebrand. Long-term vision. Short-term results.

The House & Leisure magazine has long been inspiring their readers with highly curated features relating to home décor, art, culture, food and lifestyle. In today’s environment of real-time digitised content and changing consumer behaviors, their print circulation fell 13,7% in Q4 of 2017 and if the ABC’s were anything to go by, the decline was set to continue, as is the case for almost all the local consumer magazines. The brand faced a serious challenge. How can they increase print sales in the short-term while simultaneously attracting a new digitally savvy consumer and not alienate their most loyal older readers in the long-term?

The team from Associated Media Publishing approached Mutant with the challenge. The first realisation was that the brand can no longer view themselves as just a print magazine, but rather as a media content brand. The objective being to remove the brand’s reliance on the printed magazine by following a channel agnostic approach, where the content can be pushed through multiple media platforms. In other words, the brand should transcend the printed channel.

Working off an extremely cluttered newsstand, the Mutant team used design principles specifically to enhance the product. Andrew Whitehouse, ECD and founder points out: “By applying a little neuroscience and simple design principles, the House & Leisure brand can elevate itself out of the category with a refreshed look that over time will build brand recognition and equity that is far more valuable than print sales."

Mutant’s design solution was to use shape and colour to build pattern recognition. The process started with the O in the logo wordmark and a complimentary holding device for the cover image. The O also represented the lens through which House & Leisure views the outside world and gives the editorial team an angle through which they can curate all their content and features.

Furthermore, the brand positioning was shortened to HERE / NOW, a nod to a new audience who prefer instant gratification while still holding true to their promise of celebrating the pleasures, the talent and the creativity of living in South Africa now.

The new magazine hit the shelves in April 2019 and by August 2019 the ABC’s had reported an increase in sales of 28% - one of only two consumer magazines that stood up to a declining print market.

"In line with our desire to constantly swim upstream and at the same time continue creating spotlight for our brands, the new-look House and Leisure provides us with a beautifully crafted solution to a problem all publishers are facing: how to create a point of difference in the sea of sameness that is the newsstand in SA. I believe the new design and concept behind it does that job brilliantly," says Julia Raphaely, CEO of Associated Media Publishing.

Mark van Rooyen, MD of Mutant concludes" “Design and the value it can command in a brand’s ecosystem should not be undervalued. Consider a logo and how permanent it is – sometimes lasting decades. Wouldn’t you want to invest in it the right way?”

About Mutant

Founded by Andrew Whitehouse and managed by Mark van Rooyen, Mutant is an award-winning identity design agency based in Cape Town. Mutant is a member of the FoxP2 Group and the Dentsu Aegis Network. To get in touch, email Mark van Rooyen or call the office on 021 424 4802

www.mutant.co.za