Vibe magazine announces plans to spin off V-Style as separate title in fall

By Stephanie D. Smith
MediaWeek.com
(June 12, 2006)Targeting fashion-forward men is hard enough for publishers, but taking aim at stylish African American males has posed a bigger challenge. Hustler’s Larry Flynt published Code in 1999, but the magazine closed two years later. Since then, the genre has remained largely underserved, with men’s magazines barely touching upon the style sensibilities of African Americans.

The range of titles include the more debonair offerings of Condé Nast’s GQ and Hearst Magazines’ Esquire—the monthly has named hip-hop producer Pharrell and musician André 3000 Best Dressed Men in the World—as well as the urban hipster fashion title Complex, and laddie-inspired King, published by Harris Publications, and Star Media’s Smooth.

But now the publishers at Vibe believe there’s a market for an urban men’s fashion magazine somewhere in between the two extremes. In September, Vibe will debut V-Style, a stand-alone lifestyle supplement for progressive African American men that will cover the best in fashion, footwear, cars and spirits. The supplement will be polybagged with 200,000 copies of Vibe’s October issue, and mailed to Vibe’s male subscribers over 21.

“V-Style is where they can come to learn about fashion and accessories—what’s the right cigar, the right wine, the right books to have in your library, not just the ones to say you’ve read, but the ones you should have read to transition from a boy to a man,” said Len Burnett, Vibe’s group publisher.

Added Jeff Mazzacano, Vibe’s corporate accounts director, who spearheaded the project, “While V-Style men love sneakers and rims, they don’t need to be inundated with it in every book they pick up.”

V-Style expands upon the widening Vibe franchise, which now includes women’s fashion and beauty quarterly Vibe Vixen; Vibe.com, a video-on-demand channel carried on Comcast; the Vibe Awards; the Urbanworld Vibe Film Festival and Mobile Vibe. The new offering will be published in partnership with liquor conglomerate Diageo and other advertisers (who are yet to be determined). Diageo’s brands, such as Johnnie Walker and Crown Royal, will also be woven into the magazine’s editorial.

Vibe will publish one issue this year tied to New York’s Fashion Week and another in conjunction with next spring’s Fashion Week. Vibe and Diageo will host events nationwide to be taped and rebroadcast across Vibe.com, Vibe’s VOD channel and its new MyVibe.tv streaming video network that will launch June 16. If readers and advertisers respond favorably, Burnett said V-Style has the potential to be spun off into its own magazine.

Burnett recognizes the challenge to woo advertisers to a magazine catering strictly to an urban audience. “We always get Phat Farm and Sean John, but unfortunately the big houses don’t buy into the fact that this audience sets the trends and pushes them forward,” said Burnett. “Or if they do, they’re not investing in it.” However, there are some high-end labels in Vibe, including Dolce & Gabbana and Izod.

Vibe has struggled as of late with its ad pages. Through July, pages fell 8.2 percent to 624, reports the Mediaweek Monitor.

To ensure it had a strong ad base at launch, Vibe reached out to Diageo to be the supplement’s main sponsor. Not only will the high-end feel of V-Style mesh with Diageo’s top-shelf liquor bands, the partnership allows Diageo to safely place its ads into a 21-year-old plus environment. “V-Style is eclectic, [covering] technology to different people in the entertainment industry. It makes the aspirational piece a sound focus more than just the run of the mill hip-hop magazine,” said Jacquie Lee, Diageo’s director of multicultural marketing services.

Vibe’s strategy to test V-Style as a supplement also lets the magazine extend the brand to new areas without risking a huge amount of capital, especially after the failure of Condé Nast’s men’s magazines Cargo and Vitals. Media buyers believe V-Style has potential. “It’s an interesting concept,” said Beth Fidoten, senior vp, director or print services for Initiative. “They’re hedging their bet and doing it in a way that’s sponsored. That way they can see what the market demand is.”

Meanwhile, Vibe’s paid circulation fell 2.8 percent to 836,611 through the second half of 2005, missing its 850,000 rate base, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Newsstand sales grew 8.1 percent. Burnett noted that total circ declined in part to Hurricane Katrina.


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