Fat of the land: March is an important month for lifestyle mags - usually the major pubs ship out their "Spring Preview" issues, fat with fashion pages and, hopefully, advertisers with product to show and money to burn. The archaic TENNIS magazine makes sure it doesn't miss that boat and attempts to stay relevant with this editorial featuring major fashion labels Shipley & Halmos, Trovata, Marc by Marc Jacobs, and Band of Outsiders, Y-3, American Apparel, + Superga.
While the images are beautiful and the clothing stylish, where are the true sports labels? Is Marc Jacobs or Trovata, for that matter, advertising with the magazine?? It seems pretty ballsy for TENNIS magazine to completely ignore real sports brands in a feature editorial at a time when ad dollars are few and far between these days. Plus, who exactly does TENNIS mag think it's readers are when they feature this type of spread?
Biting the hand that feeds - now that's a great marketing strategy!
(via TSF, images courtesy of Williams + Hirakawa)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
TENNIS mag's ill-fated attempt at relevancy, boots sports labels for fashion brands
Labels: advertising, fashion, magazines, media, Tennis magazine
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey Rich: in defense of the editorial, they also included Lacoste, Fila, Ralph Lauren, and adidas by Stella McCartney -- all tennis mainstays -- in the shoot. I chose to omit since I already talk about all those brands all the time.
ReplyDeletethanks for the update erwin - but still, who do they think they're speaking to in this editorial? tennis mag is so stale and uninteresting that it seems like a "quick fix" when the brand itself needs an overhaul!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. However, featuring the upscale brands helps them go after luxury brands in other categories: Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Piaget; Jaguar, BMW; Moet&Chandon, Grey Goose; Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc, etc. When they feature the mainstays editorially, the upscale brands won't entertain a sales call because they're "just a tennis magazine." It's a bit of a catch 22 - you don't want to bite the hand that feeds but you also don't want to pigeonhole yourself.
ReplyDelete