Which Magazine Would You Buy If the Cover Showed: (a) British Chic Personality Liz Hurley, 40, Shown Full Length Modeling A Bikini, or (b) Facial Shot of American Actress, Jane Fonda, 67, Wrinkles and All?

Philip M. Stone September 15, 2005

The headline to this story is not meant to be sexist. It’s a real choice. See the cover pictures below. And that type of question is increasingly being asked at many big name magazines. Do you need sex to sell, or can the face of a 67-year-old star on the cover of a magazine read mostly by females over 30 do the job?

At the British edition of Good Housekeeping the original plan was to have a 23-year-old model front the cover. But then the editor saw the proofs of a Jane Fonda photo shoot and she decided Fonda should be the cover girl. Fonda agreed but with one proviso – the picture should not be retouched. That means wrinkles and all get printed.

Truth be told Fonda looks really great at 67. She admits to some plastic surgery to remove fat around the eyes, but otherwise it’s all-natural. But still in the magazine business where so much depends on the newsstand sale will that face sell October’s edition?

Which one would you buy?

(Editor’s Note: So which magazine cover would prompt you to buy – Hurley or Fonda? Mail us at  vote@followthemedia.com  and use just two words in the subject line: your sex and either hurley or fonda. We’ll print the results in a future update.)

Apparently that was the subject of much heated discussion by the National Magazine Company, publisher of Good Housekeeping. They eventually let the editor have her way, no doubt making sure of all the pre-publication promotion for such an unusual cover.

As for Ms. Hurley, she is a 40-year-old actress, former companion for several years with British actor Hugh Grant in a relationship that basically ended when he got arrested in Hollywood with a prostitute, the “face” of Estée Lauder, the unmarried mother of a 3 ½ year-old son by Hollywood producer Steve Bing, and entrepreneur launching a baby food line and designing swimsuits including the bikini she modeled for the cover of Shape Magazine.

The questions being asked in the industry about that cover is whether product placement has crossed the line with editorial. For the cover picture she is made up with Estée Lauder, in the editorial pages she promotes her favorite cosmetics which, surprise, are also Estée Lauder and, oh yes, Estée Lauder just happened to buy the two-page advertisement inside the front cover.

The official line is that its all coincidence. Lauder bought the advertising space before knowing their star would be on the cover and arrangements for the article were not made through the Lauder publicity machine. The magazine said its editorial and advertising departments worked independently of one another.

For some magazines, sex seems to be losing its allure. That perennial favorite Playboy has changed tactics and has launched this month an online version. The print magazine has been losing circulation for years, and is now down to 2.8 million subscribers, losing $2.3 million in Q2. Individual digital issues are sold at about the same price as the print edition, and subscriptions will be slightly higher than the print edition.

A basic rule of thumb for digital magazines is that they seldom sell more than 5% of the print circulation which means Playboy is probably budgeting to bring in around $3 million annually from digital subscriptions.

And Martha Stewart, one of America’s most celebrated jailbirds, apparently is contemplating starting up a magazine aimed at the woman over 30.  After five months in federal prison followed by five months of house arrest on her conviction of lying to authorities about a shares sale, and nearly ruining her multi-million dollar media empire in the process, the lady is on the rebound, But a sign of the times is that the new planned magazine probably will not have her name on it. Before her conviction her name brand was worth a fortune.

She already has two television shows. And two fairly recent magazine acquisitions that don’t carry her name are doing quite well. Martha Stewart Living, her flagship magazine that suffered dramatic ad losses upon her arrest, let alone her conviction, is said to be making an advertising comeback. 

Men’s Vogue has also just launched in the US with actor George Clooney the cover model wearing very stylish sophisticated clothing. “ He's the embodiment of the man we're talking to ... someone who has achieved some success and is looking to expand his horizons," says Editor in Chief Jay Fielden

Maybe so, but most men would be more inclined to buy the magazine if it had Liz Hurley on the cover modeling that bikini!

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