Magazines salute real women, recreates Christmas

Christmas planning made easy

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The Christmas Magazine will cover what the season has to offer, from planning, gifts, décor, culinary and crafts, to holiday options and travelling, budgeting, spoiling your pets, planning the virtual way, and a health focus for the season.

The objective is to create that Christmas feeling and encourage people to plan and purchase early enough for the occasion. It also offers consumers and advertisers all season-related topics in one magazine.

Panorama Publications MD Urs Honegger says, "While buying presents is often the most time-consuming aspect of Christmas, there are many other areas that require attention if people are to survive the period with some form of sanity. We believe that the magazine will help people get on top of Christmas arrangements easily, allowing them to spend more time with loved ones instead of falling for the commercial rush."

With a frequency of October annually, the initial print run will be 25 000 and distribution will be via most main retail outlets nationwide.

Honouring real South African women

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Earlier this year, women from all over the country were invited to enter the essentials 'You Are Amazing!' competition. A judging panel, consisting of essentials staff and representatives from Yardley, the competition's main sponsor, selected 20 women from more than 1 500 entries.

At the finals function, essentials announced it would replace models on the cover with 10 real South African women who embodied the essentials brand.

Says editor Darren-Jay Hart, "This campaign kick-starts a new direction for the magazine - by using real women on the covers, we are making the brand more accessible to our market by proving that South African women are beautiful. Because of the similarities in our markets, Yardley was a favourable sponsor for this campaign.

"It was able to give us valuable insights into consumer trends, that women want uncomplicated, time-saving and cost-effective beauty solutions and both brands are committed to this undertaking."

"No cosmetic changes done"

Hart told Bizcommunity.com: "Despite basic retouching (stray hairs or marks on props), there were no cosmetic changes done to any of the women featured... This was a strict directive from our sister publication in the UK and every effort was made to get the right shot so that we would not compromise the message.

"South African women are among the most beautiful in the world and one only has to look at the June issue to realise this! While magazine art directors resort to Photoshop to modify images to suit the tone/style of their brand, we wanted to prove that beauty is not subject to race, age, colour, shape or size!

"If an image was not strong enough or we felt we had to manipulate it to support the 'glam factor' of the mag, we canned it! Teeth were not whitened, skin was not smoothed, under-eye bags were not removed... it is a real women issue in every sense of the word."

The June issue is available now at all leading retailers and outlets.

Updated at 9.51am at 27 May 2011.
Updated at 11.42am at 27 May 2011.