'What Tyler Brûlé did next', The Guardian

Monday, November 27, 2006

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Dispatches: What Tyler Brûlé did next by James Silver

Expect eyewitness reportage from the Taliban frontline, think-pieces on Slovenia's emerging wine market and fun-size features on designer flip-flops. Launching in February with an operating budget of €7m, Monocle is the new glossy magazine and "global, European-based media brand" from Wallpaper* magazine founder Tyler Brûlé. But who will its readers be?

"Monocle sits on the commissioning editor's desk at Jyllands Posten, in Globus shopping carts in Basel, as the featured browser at Paragraph in New York, and in the laps of Yamanote-line commuters in Tokyo," says the press pack.

The target readers are "time-pressed" as well as "well-travelled, well-informed" and, naturally, "well-heeled". They are aged between 25-55, "travel regularly for work and play", typically work in "finance, media, IT, manufacturing, retail and hospitality" and "live in prosperous urban enclaves in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania".

Speaking from Paris, Brûlé, who will be the magazine's editor-in-chief, says this distinct and growing audience is under-served. "If you are in Los Angeles one minute and you are going to be in Copenhagen the next, you want to make sure you are getting the same global story wherever you are in the world. That's the opportunity for us," he says.

Monocle will contain five "iconic sections", under headings A to E. Affairs, as in current affairs; Business will cover stories such as "the rise of Valencia as the new creative hub"; Culture pledges not to be "a forum for played-out celebrities"; Design will "bypass hype"; and Edits sets out to cover "all the essentials of daily life" from the perfect wine to buy to the best Korean massages.

Brûlé, 37, has poached the Independent on Sunday's executive editor (features) Andrew Tuck, to be Monocle's editor in London - which will be the venture's main base - as well as New York Times travel magazine editor Anne Marie Gardner, to head its Americas bureau. There will also be bureaux in Zurich and Tokyo.

Monocle.com, a multimedia website, will run in parallel with the print edition, featuring bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats. "We want to use monocle.com in a way which is broadcast-focused, not simply a site on which you can just read articles from the magazine," he explains.

"If we do a fantastic piece of reportage and out of that we get an amazing one-on-one with somebody, a few quotes might appear in the article but it might also make a 10-12 minute broadcast piece on the website. Likewise we're looking at doing discussion formats online and mini-documentaries which might complement or enhance the features in the magazine."

Monocle will be profitable by the time it hits its initial circulation target of 75,000. But Brûlé hopes to reach 200-250,000 within five years. Rival companies will doubtless be watching with interest to see whether there are enough Slovenian wine-sipping designer flip-flop buyers out there willing to shell out £5 a copy.

(The Guardian, 27th November 2006)

Posted by James Silver - On Monday, November 27, 2006

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