Men’s mags fight over Anna Kournikova Hudson Bawden
THE war of words between the top two men’s magazines continues, with FHM and Ralph getting into a verbal blue over Anna Kournikova.
FHM is fuming at its competitor, following Ralph’s decision to release a 24-page poster book of tennis pinup Anna Kournikova, the same time FHM put her on the cover.
The two magazines have developed an intense rivalry. Ralph editor-in-chief Mark Dapin admitted the Kournikova poster book was released to spoil FHM’s cover but said it was always in the pipeline.
“I had it prepared to go out as the first of a couple of poster books.” Dapin said. “It was due out in September so we had all the stock and all the paper ordered in, and I knew we had half the shots in already.
“Then, when the FHM book came out, I thought we could just throw all this together immediately and get it out and hopefully take away some of their sales,” Dapin said.
FHM editor John Bastick said the consumer is losing out.
“FHM is the leading men’s lifestyle magazine in Australia. We have a lot of followers, following the leader. I don’t think it does anything for the consumer,” he said.
“The men’s magazine market is still quite small and really growing. We should be trying to grow the market and do the right thing by consumers,” he said.
Recently, FHM launched a global branding campaign highlighting the brand’s core values.
Ralph’s Dapin said the strength of his title was its high level of local content and colloquial writing style.
“[FHM] hasn’t got an Australian flavour to the language. Ralph sounds realistically Australian,” he said.
