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Vogue Australia dressed for coronavirus success

Vogue Australia editorial director Edwina McCann reveals the secret behind her brand’s success even in times of crisis.

Fashion model Kym Ellery in one of Vogue Australia’s isolation photo shoots during the lockdown. Picture: Vogue
Fashion model Kym Ellery in one of Vogue Australia’s isolation photo shoots during the lockdown. Picture: Vogue

During lockdown, the editorial director of Vogue Australia spends her time in Zoom meetings with some of the fashion title’s biggest names, but in her local market, Edwina McCann’s iconic brand stands alone.

Having led the luxury masthead since 2012, Ms McCann has ­successfully driven the value and trust of Vogue Australia through the development of diversified streams of revenue — something she thinks has been the point of difference between her and her competitors.

“We’ve developed a very diverse set of revenue streams through a strong digital channel, social channel and a VIP subscriber channel, which has done exceptionally well through the COVID-19 lockdown in terms of gaining new subscribers,” she said. “The fact we’ve aligned with the pay-and-stay strategy of users is quite different to any other ­traditional magazine brand in our marketplace.”

Ms McCann’s comments follow Bauer Media’s decision last week to fold seven of its fashion, lifestyle and celebrity titles, just days after acquiring Seven West Media’s Pacific Magazines.

The embattled German publisher is understood to have sacked 60 of its inherited staff and halted publishing magazines, as the family-owned business looks to cut costs as advertising revenue plummets during the crisis.

Bauer’s decision to drop Vogue Australia’s strongest competitors out of circulation has opened up a lot of space in the market. For Ms McCann, COVID-19 has exposed the “weaknesses” in the titles that have been paused or shuttered completely.

“The amount of leading women’s titles competing in this space was overcooked anyway,” she said. “What COVID-19 has done is accelerate these inevitable outcomes. It has magnified the underpinnings of the brand structure, which didn’t include diversified revenue streams to see it through to the other side.”

Ms McCann said she never could understand Bauer’s transition into becoming brand-agnostic, a move she believes was a play to attract a wider audience. She said the attitude she took with Vogue, focused on attracting a subscription-based audience, was key to surviving the crisis.

“Clearly, there was a strategy there, but for Vogue it was about building an audience that pays and stays, as well as being an expert in content creation and to help build up other parts of the company,” she said. “It is about the audience but also about leveraging the strengths of the brand.”

Despite having to direct from afar, Ms McCann said watching her team shift to other parts of the business best suited to the current environment was “inspiring”.

“Ingenuity is born out of necessity, so we’ve discovered other ways of working which are a lot more cost-effective.”

The team at Vogue Australia has produced its first remote photo shoot, with the photographer, hair and makeup, and stylist in Sydney, while the model was at home in Adelaide. Ms McCann said the result was on a par with what would have been produced prior to the pandemic.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/vogue-australia-dressed-for-coronavirus-success/news-story/74f189983bde43702e6266ca72070e6c