Friday, July 6, 2012

Assignment 4


            On Thursday we were able to visit White Sposa at their offices. Simona Polli, the editor, gave us a tour around the office and then gave us details about how the magazine is produced.
            White Sposa is an Italian wedding magazine that releases a new issue during 3 months of the year. Each issue has a new creative theme inside.
            The theme can be anything that they want, and usually has nothing to do with brides. It can be a region, flower, and color. One issue the theme was rose. They were able to feature a scent inside of a rose on one of the pages.



            In Italy this magazine is very popular among the bridal market. They print 60,000 copies and distribute them through Italian newsstands, international bookshops and subscriptions.
            Currently the Italian wedding market has been decreasing since 2010. In Italy, a woman is now 35 years old when she gets married. This is because it is very expensive to have a wedding. Since the age has changed, the dream wedding has changed. A 35 year old doesn’t want a princess gown and 300 people to see her marry the man she loves. She wants a simple dress and 60 close friends and family to be there for her.
            In 2009, they created a contract with Japan. This then created the Japan version of White Sposa. At first they would take editorials from the Italy magazine and use it in the Japan version. Quickly they realized they had a different market and to reach them they needed to use a different technique. They were allowed to change the cover of the magazine. This was a big deal because the cover of the Italy version says nothing on it, but in Japan they needed to have text on the cover. If they added text to the cover this would add a larger market and they would sell more. They were approved to do this.
            Their distribution is very different from other magazines. At first they wouldn’t sell their magazine. At different trunk shows they would hand the magazine to people who walked by. They did this because they needed to make themselves known in this market.
            After 5 years they decided it would be a good idea to sell the magazine while at the trunk shows. They didn’t want people to think that the magazine was worth no money, so they started selling it at 1 euro. Eventually they started selling the September issue and May issue at the same time for 2 euro.
            Whitemagazine.it is the official website for the magazine. Currently it has 90,000 pages visited and 12,000 visits per month. To keep brides involved in the website they have other bridal sections. Some sections that they talk about are wedding planning ideas, experts’ free advice (if you are a registered member), and design ideas.
            Simona explained to us the roles that are involved in creating a magazine. There are 10 roles that need to be taken care of while publishing a magazine. These roles are Publisher, Editor (Simona), Art director, Graphic, Editorial Staff, Journalists, Fashion Editor (Christina), Print Production, Accounts office, and Sales managers. Every job within the magazine is very important.

Editorial featured in White Sposa
            
            During the visit Simona mention that there are only 3 people who produce this magazine. After seeing the magazine it is amazing that 3 people can do this amount of work.
            I really enjoyed learning about the bridal magazine market. I have always had an interest in weddings and magazines so it was interesting to learn about the two together. I never realized that so much work goes into a wedding magazine, especially this one. I was so impressed that only three people can create an amazing magazine. What they do is simply spectacular.
            This visit benefited me in my future career because I didn’t realize what it was like to work on a magazine that doesn’t produce a lot of volume. I wanted to work in a fashion magazine and being able to see what it takes to create each issue opened my eyes. I think that being able to see this side of the industry really helped me deicide what I want my future career to be.