Rising East Online

???

Reporting East

Chinese Magazine Industry: clothes horse for global fashion brands

—Zhang Wenhe

If there were no fashion magazines, fashion would not be a public phenomenon. Fashion magazines have already become the 'silent spring' of our age, so much so that those who don't read fashion magazines have been all but deprived of speech. The fashion magazine industry in China, though with a much shorter history than the century of American publications, has been going all out to catch up.

???

‘China has no fashion’

Early this year, a friend of mine, the director of the editing department at Fengyun magazine, told me that it had ceased publication because of financial problems. Before that, another fashion magazine, Fengqing, launched on the basis of Hongkong Fengqing (first In fashion more than 20 years ago), was re-launched several times last year before ceasing publication. Even in Guangzhou, an important city for media, that leaves only Xiaosa struggling on in the area of fashion periodicals for women.

At the same time, women media professionals had been moving from, for example, general editing director of a broken-down fashion magazine to executive chief editor of a newly-founded fashion magazine: everybody was busy changing jobs in small circles in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou. Frequent personnel changes became the norm. It reflects the Instability of the fashion magazine industry in China. New publications are born fast and die young. Meanwhile, the flow period for the personnel is so short that there cannot be organic growth of magazines or staff. The standards and stability of the whole industry are undermined as a result.

Xie Li, once a distinguished editor in Elle, said, 'home fashion magazines are too weak to bear even a single blow. It is totally hopeless to set up a new home fashion magazine. In fact, fashion dress advertising is not such a good prospect, and fashion magazines for women all lead a hard life.’

Photographer Zhang Hai'er, who works for picture agencies in France and magazines in China, after travelling to Europe for fashion shows, sighed that there is no fashion circle in China.

Wang Feng, executive chief editor of Fashione.Man, was not so negative, 'At present, there is fierce competition among fashion magazines: publications for men do better, for their orientation is clearer, When it comes to fashion magazines for women, there are too many magazines of the same kind.'

In Wang Feng's view, 'When it comes to income ratio, fashion magazines abroad are accessible to all, and it is not surprising that a good magazine in America maintains a circulation of over 1 million. But fashion magazines in China are too expensive for common people. The value of fashion magazines abroad is as a manual for life; they provide a service to readers. But the value of fashion magazines in China is as a guideline in life; they are supposed to provide concepts to readers.'

The difference in levels of consumption is so great that glossy, art-paper magazines remain rare in China.

???

Development of fashion magazine market in China

In the late 1980s, Reader, Zhiyin, Jiating, Nvyou, and Gushihui became the mainstream magazines in the magazine market in China. At the same time, a publication named Global Fashion Garden crept up almost unnoticed. Hachette Pilipacchi from France set up the first Chinese version of Elle in Hong Kong in 1987, and founded Renchezhi and Furongyaji later. On the mainland, Hachette Pilipacchi started Elle Fashion Garden in 1988, Sports magazine in 1994, Mingchezhi in 1995, and Health in 1997. Hachette Pilipacchi also started Elle She for Taiwan in 1991.

Hachette developed lots of local brands in local markets, purchasing Jiaren magazine along the way. Elle’s appearance on the Chinese mainland came about in cooperation with Shanghai Yiwen Press – an historic breakthrough at that time. Elle is published in over 30 countries throughout the world, and different language versions can share the parent company’s resources, yet high investment is still required. Elle’s Chinese version incurred high costs in translation and revision, especially when it first started, although now there is more local content and the quality of localised content is rising.

Fashion magazine was started in year 1993. It was printed on all-colour art paper, and was full of delicate ads and pictures of world brands. Five years later, Fashion·She cooperated in copyrights with Cosmopolitan, the famous American magazine for women, and cooperation in copyrights became the model, subsequently extended to cooperation in management. Fashion Men entered into a cooperative agreement with Esquire in September 1999; Hirst Company of America granted Harper’s Bazaar to Fashion Group on 8^th October 2001; in November 2001 National Geographic Traveler, a subsidiary of National Geograhpic Association of America, signed a formal agreement on copyright cooperation with Fashion Travel. Besides, Fashion Group also started 15 magazines, including Fashion Jiaodian, Fashion Health for Men, Fashion Health for Women, Fashion Housekeeper, Fashion House, Fashion Time, Fashion Cultural Geography in China, Fashion Car and the Chinese version of Audi. Every Fashion Group magazine was a Top 10 contender in circulation and advertising.

Ruili, the third empire in Chinese fashion magazines, began in 1995 with Japanese backing, when it obtained the copyright for Housewives' Friend of Japan. It has since published Ruili Dress Beauty, Ruili She Fashion, Ruili Fashion Pioneer, Ruili House, and Ruili Lovely Pioneer.

These three groups account for almost 80 per cent of the fashion magazine market in China. When CCMC carried market research 10 major cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Chengdou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shenyang), among high-price fashion magazines, Ruili Dress Beauty took up a market share of 21.09 per cent, Ruili She Fashion followed closely, and Fashion Cosmo came third, with market share of between 10 and 15 per cent. Ruili Fashion Pioneer and Elle stood fourth and fifth respectively. Three Ruili titles therefore took a combined market share of nearly 44 per cent. In addition, Fashion Esquire, Elle and Fashion Health for Women, all with less than 10 per cent, seemed to be competing for limited market space.

If we take the (Japan-dominated) Ruili Group, (American-influenced) Fashion Group and (Europe-backed) Elle group out of consideration, there is only 15 per cent of the market left, fought over by dozens of indigenous fashion magazines.

Besides these, China Fabric Press cooperated with Japan Jiangtan Press and started Xiwei, introducing most advanced magazine technology from Japan; Zhuiqiu magazine prints the name of France's Figaro Group on its copyright page; Fashion's Good Housekeeping cooperated with America's Good Housekeeping; Jiaodian cooperated with Fashion ·COSMOPOLITAN Girl; and Hudong Group's Youth Generation cooperated with America's SEVENTEEN. Time-Warner’s Instyle will also bring out a Chinese version soon, while Vanity Fair has already studied the Chinese market several times, waiting for the proper time point to enter. Copyright cooperation has almost become the grim reaper of Chinese fashion magazines, so much so that some people hold the opinion that fashion publications will be nothing except copyright agreements with existing titles.

In such a maze, it is very hard for local fashion magazines to progress. Those which are relatively successful include Big World for Women, Shanghai Dress, Health's Friend, City Housewives, City Beauty. Unfortunately, in the face of global publications which possess strong financial support, international editing operations and state of the art technology, local magazines are undercapitalised and weak in resources and talent. Also, many magazines based in Hong Kong and Taiwan are interested in the Chinese youth market.

In Guangzhou, there are many ads for the Chinese version of Vogue, which started publication in August 2005. Its slogan is: ‘Vogue: ultimate fashion in China’, and many magazine professional would go along with this. It generated a great deal of advertising revenue even before it began publishing. Top brands had been complaining that there was no appropriate advertising platform in the Chinese market, so they queued happily to send money to Vogue. The debut of Vogue looks set to re-configure the seating arrangements previously dominated by the Big Three magazine empires.

???

Segmentation and Integration

Levels of enthusiasm are as high as the start-rate and death-rate for Chinese fashion magazines. Who knows how the market will pan out? But there is certainly market segmentation. As the competition hots up, so the market becomes more segmented. The reason why fashion magazines divide readers into groups is that there appears to be increased specialisation among advertising clients. For example, in the discussion about why the market for fashion magazines for men has been formed, some professionals pointed out that the main reason is the increase in gadgets specifically for men. So, fashion magazines in China follow the pace of global fashion brands, dividing China, step by step, into market segments, while magazines divide their readers into groups according to the target consumption groups of advertising clients.

Current trans-national media groups usually integrate their industry divisions, such as resourcing, sales channels, capital operation, post-product development, which has close relationship with the operation of publications, into a complete industry chain, all under group control and thus facilitating the operation of the group while reducing transactions cost. Yet, generally speaking, the media industry in China lacks the integration of industry chains, which has considerable effects on operational profits. However, to our joy, one or two magazines have already fostered their own industry chains, such as Fashion. Nevertheless, we must recognise that there is currently no fashion industry in our country, even the embryo hasn't been formed, and fashion magazines in China are no more than a clothes horse for the international fashion industry.

Zhang Wenhe is editor of Art and Design in China.

Return to top

---

© 2004·06