Same stories, different sells?
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Different magazines, published at different times, with almost identical cover pitches. Women's magazines are bizarrely homogeneous in their content, with sometimes barely perceptible differences in branding.
This image got posted in a Fitocracy group about body image, and it crystallizes some thoughts I've had about this toxic high-circulation magazine market.
These magazines are painfully repetitive, but in a quest for some kind of novelty they often run through all kinds of goofy flavor-of-the-moment solutions. Men's magazines do something similar, and this phenomenon is a big contributor to people's confusion about what works and what doesn't. And then there's the flaks for various would-be (and already-are) gurus, actively pitching more sketchy stuff on top of it.
I'd love to see a magazine about fitness that just built the repetition into the editorial calendar. November and December could be about stress management and family issues. January is "Tune up your eating habits" month. February is "Heart health." Maybe March is something about the pros and cons of alcohol and how to keep it a safe part of your overall pattern. And so on.
The sheer variety of strategies that are effective for different people in handling these larger issues, combined with the developing science (physiology, behavior) around them, could provide a magazine with page after page of genuinely helpful information, month after month, year after year. It could be interesting, "fresh" (as they like to say), and *good*.
... then I wake up....
This image got posted in a Fitocracy group about body image, and it crystallizes some thoughts I've had about this toxic high-circulation magazine market.
These magazines are painfully repetitive, but in a quest for some kind of novelty they often run through all kinds of goofy flavor-of-the-moment solutions. Men's magazines do something similar, and this phenomenon is a big contributor to people's confusion about what works and what doesn't. And then there's the flaks for various would-be (and already-are) gurus, actively pitching more sketchy stuff on top of it.
I'd love to see a magazine about fitness that just built the repetition into the editorial calendar. November and December could be about stress management and family issues. January is "Tune up your eating habits" month. February is "Heart health." Maybe March is something about the pros and cons of alcohol and how to keep it a safe part of your overall pattern. And so on.
The sheer variety of strategies that are effective for different people in handling these larger issues, combined with the developing science (physiology, behavior) around them, could provide a magazine with page after page of genuinely helpful information, month after month, year after year. It could be interesting, "fresh" (as they like to say), and *good*.
... then I wake up....
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It's not totally pointless, after all. None of this is timely information; the best you can say is that we know a little more about healthy dieting and efficiency in workouts than we did two years ago. The available topical timely material is fairly thin, and people who get magazines off newsstands respond to them (well, buy them) more frequently when the headlines are relevant to their interests. Even the sort of cover headlines Cosmo ran in the 80s are excessively verbose by today's standards, so three word phrases that imply direct involvement and promise immediate benefits are all that fly.
And once you've trimmed things down that much, there's really only so many ways to use three words to convey, "Follow this particular tried-and-true exercise regimen daily and if you are diligent you will be healthier, and healthier bodies look better and are more attractive."
For whatever it's worth, "Outside" magazine did publish a one-year exercise regimen sometime in the late '00s, leading the reader through a progression of routines with various goals in mind, such as optimizing for seasonal sports. I don't think they continued it, though.
There are so many - so very many - ways to do exercise and nutrition info right, it could fill 10,000 magazines.
But would it sell ad pages? Probably not.
But it's not. It's strategies and tactics for putting that into practice.
- quizzes about weaknesses and preferences that help you choose the right tips and tricks
- recipes, recipes, recipes ... and teaching people how to quickly and accurately gauge what's in a food so they know what they're eating
- umpty brazillion different forms of exercise than can be highlighted on an editorial calendar - "You know you need a strong core, but you hate crunches. Good news! Every month we'll highlight another exercise that helps you stay strong - and stave off back pain."
- etc etc etc
That's the sad thing: the *good* info has all the variety - and efficacy - any editor would claim they want.
And the ad pages almost always work to elicit insecurity and then sell quick fixes. Whoops. No sale for the good stuff.