Vogue and VICE to partner on a new website

Vogue's Wintour and VICE co-founder Shane Smith

It's a matter of very strange bedfellows as VICE Media and Vogue magazines plan to launch a joint venture, a new website produced by editors from both magazines, called Project Vs.

The multiple platforms, to launch in the spring 2019 will contain videos, photos, long-form stories, and more with content produced from a dedicated team of both Vogue and Vice editors, rolled out over a 100-day period in early 2018.

“Vogue and Vice may appear to some to see the world through different lenses,” said Anna Wintour, Condé Nast artistic director and editor in chief of Vogue [in a statement]. “But, in my view, both are fearless, breathtaking, with unquenchable curiosity and vigor. This collaboration will benefit from two talented editorial teams working together to produce relevant and exciting stories about the way we live now.” Tom Punch, chief commercial and creative officer for Vice, called Project Vs a “high-speed collision . . . juxtaposing the many social, political, and cultural tensions of our times to create a capsule commentary on the world we live in.”

The idea seems a little, um, unfocussed and as Jezebel writer Hazel Cills said, she imagines Wintour was making her statement through gritted teeth and "which, considering the brands, means that they’ll probably be sending Gigi Hadid to investigate a Japanese cuddle cafe or something."

Two leading western business magazines collaborate to talk about pipelines

Two of Canada's leading business publications -- BCBusiness and Alberta Venture -- have collaborated on a joint project to discuss various, often contentious, pipeline plans between and across the west.

Canada's Pipeline Dialogue has been in the works since the spring, and Alberta Venture editor Mike Ganley and BCBusiness editor Matt O'Grady and their respective staffs have collaborated on features, profiles and slide shows. There are also the results of a survey by Insights West which shows that the notion of the economy taking priority over environmental issues is not supported by a lot of people in both provinces. 

The two magazines are also moderating a conference in February, sponsored by Cenovus, that will include a panels in two places at once -- two in Calgary, two in Vancouver -- discussing pipeline infrastructure and what it means for BC and Alberta. 

Walmart Live Better launched as Canada's largest circulation title

Walmart Canada's  magazine Walmart Live Better, which with its 1 million circulation automatically becomes Canada's largest circulation magazine, has been launched. Announced in December, it is a partnership with Rogers Media Inc. and six times a year will focus on beauty, fashion, food and home trends.  

In addition to the print edition, it offers a free downloadable tablet edition, a website, e-newsletter, single advertiser e-blasts and social media via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

"Canadians want to be inspired by new ideas and stay on budget. With Walmart Live Better they don't have to make a choice. Our team of experts provide great ideas on how to make dollars go farther with style," said Sandra Martin, editor-in-chief of the magazine, in a statement.

Walmart told the Toronto Star that any relationship between the glossy, 100-page magazine and the concurrent launch of a chain of Target stores (and their more downmarket flyers) across the country is purely coincidental. 

"Walmart Live Better is really about making inspiring ideas accessible, attainable and affordable to Canadians," said publisher Christopher Loudon in a company release. "The unique partnership brings Canadians a fresh and informative multiplatform magazine."  (Loudon was at one time the founding editor-in-chief of  Rogers's HELLO! Canada magazine, group publisher and editor-in-chief of Marketing magazine and editor of Inside Entertainment and TV Guide.) 

The magazine's media kit  offers advertisers 1 million circulation and access to 20 million monthly shoppers in the Walmart Supercentres. It says more than 8 million customers visit Walmart each week. A full page is $27,000 in the print edition, and a standard digital ad unit is $40/M. 

The magazine carries advertorial single-sponsor showcases (example at right) in food, health, home decor, baby and child care and fashion categories, which it describes as 

"a contextually relevant environment that supports and reinforces brand messaging. Labelled as Live Better Promotion (not "Advertisement"), these innovative and guaranteed placement options can be custom-tailored for any advertiser, and will be closely aligned in style and content to the rest of the magazine. All promotions are available as single or multiple pages."

The Nation and National Review meet in the middle to sell ads

Though they're at opposite poles politically, The Nation magazine and National Review (left and right, respectively) have collaborated on creating the "Purple Network" to jointly sell the two magazines as a deep-discounted ad buy. The two magazines both pursue "opinion leaders" and, according to a story in Folio:, by joining forces they hope to allay nervousness among national advertisers and corporate marketers about aligning with only one side of the political spectrum, even though both magazines offer attractive, engaged audiences. 

"When we sell this audience to people separately, we run into the same hurdle," says Scott Budd, executive publisher of National Review. "They love who these people are, but they can't put a publicly traded company into such partisan magazines."

By joining forces, the thinking goes, marketers can buy both magazines, reach the desired demographics and sufficiently neutralize any political backlash. 

"Political magazines are always up against this with advertisers. This goes back a hundred years," adds Teresa Stack, president of The Nation. "They're skittish about advertising on one side or the other, and this mitigates it because they're talking to both sides."

Combined, the two magazines offer a rate base of 300,000 and a 50 percent discount off the standard 4-color page rate.

Toronto Star to publish Toronto edition of U.S. satirical pub The Onion

The Toronto Star has cut a deal to publish a Toronto edition of The Onion, the U.S. satirical weekly, starting this fall. The deal includes a non-satirical entertainment section offshoot the A.V. Club. It does not involve The Onion's online business in Canada.

The Onion has been shopping around the franchises of its paper for some time, looking for partners who wanted to take on responsibility for ad sales, distribution and administration of the free, city-specific street papers while leaving creation of editorial strictly in hands of Onion's management. This apparently suits the Toronto Star fine and it is therefore the first time that a print edition of The Onion has been distributed outside of the U.S. 

The Toronto edition would include some local content, though it does not typically accept freelance contributions.

The Onion now had 14 print editions, including New York, Washington, Chicago, Denver/Boulder, Philadelphia and Madison, Wisconsin (where it was launched in 1988). The paper has been launched and folded for lack of advertising support in at least two other markets, including  Los Angeles and San Francisco. In the past couple of years it has struck very similar partnerships with mainstream papers: The Denver Post, Austin American-Statesman, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Wisconsin State Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"The Toronto Star is pleased to enter into this agreement with The Onion," said John Cruickshank, publisher of the Star and president of Star Media Group, in a release. "It is an agreement that benefits both companies and provides the Star's business-related teams with another publication to offer to audiences in the Greater Toronto Area."

"Toronto has long been one of the Top-10 cities for The Onion's online audience," said Steve Hannah, president and CEO of Onion, Inc. "I think it's the perfect place for The Onion and A.V. Club to make their first foray outside the United States. Toronto has a tradition of great comedy as well as being a really smart, cosmopolitan city that has a natural audience for our pop culture coverage as well."

Recently The Star bought the startup digital beauty and wellness magazine The Kit, relaunched its street paper Eye Weekly as The Grid  and redesigned and relaunched Toronto.com.

Sharp launching Russian edition in partnership

Sharp, the Canadian men's lifestyle magazine from Contempo Media is partnering with the Russian publishing house Smart Readers to produce a Russian edition with a circulation of 150,000. According to a story in Marketing, the magazine will look the same and will contain three-quarters of the magazine's editorial content.

According to Contempo, Sharp is the first Canadian magazine licensed to serve the international market. [editorial and creative director Michael] La Fave said that Sharp had been eager to license its brand and content to foreign markets since debuting in April 2008, but that the company was first approached by Smart Readers.
In a release, Dmitry Cherkasov, general director of Smart Readers, said that the men’s segment has been “insufficiently served” in Russia, prompting his company to begin seeking out a leading magazine capable of addressing the interests of the country’s male readers.
“We were off to the races pretty quickly,” said La Fave of the partnership, which took about three months to finalize.

Sharp's Canadian edition has a circulation of 146,000 distributed mostly through the Globe and Mail and claims a readership of over 382,000, according to a company release. Contempo is actively seeking other foreign markets, says LaFave.

“The benefit of being a relatively small company is that we like to move fast. I would say that over the next year we will be aggressively seeking opportunities like this one.”

Rogers Publishing and Globe and Mail collaborate on website about international business expansion

Rogers Publishing and the Globe and Mail, with HSBC Bank Canada as a sponsor, have launched a new website called Business without Borders. Its aim is to provide business with expert information for expanding outside of Canada. According to a story in Marketing, the publishing partnership will bring together content from Canadian Business, Maclean's and Profit magazines and the Globe's Report on Business and ROB magazine.

"We're not merging newsrooms, but in a broad sense the project involves a very high level of cooperation and communication so that stories from Report on Business, Canadian Business and Profit can come together on the Business Without Borders website and yield a rich resource of ideas and advice that will be of use to business leaders," said Canadian Business editor and associate publisher Steve Maich.

"This program is designed to provide a road map, offering not only inspiring examples of Canadian entrepreneurs in action, but also advice and insights on how best to expand your business abroad," said Noel Hulsman, the Globe and Mail's custom content manager said.

Sponsor branding of the site is fairly discreet and low-key, the article notes. 

"HSBC was very clear upfront that they wanted this to be an editorial undertaking and they didn't want anyone coming to the print publications or the website and thinking it was just an HSBC promo," said Maich. "What they were keen to get is high-quality, independent journalism on this topic. They know the audience they're after wants to read real stories, providing real insights. They don't want thinly veiled sales pitches masquerading as editorial."