Dolly’s new look explained

It’s been four years since Dolly had last seen a change, so editor-in-chief Lucy Cousins thought now was a good time to get up to speed on what’s relevant to Aussie girls.

Taking into account the younger generation of today tends to know the ins and outs of the internet, Bauer Media’s girls youth mag is taking a more focused approach of the World Wide Web.

B&T previously reported the change yesterday, detailing how the magazine had refreshed itself to “make it different to anything else on the market”.

“One of the things we focused on is trying to bring the element of the internet and the Tumblr sites they’re following and the Instagram accounts their loving and pulling that into the magazine to make it a more current offering,” Cousins told B&T.

So far the response rate has been pretty positive, according to Cousins.

“In this market the response is immediate and generally positive. Anyone can look on our Facebook site and our Instagram site and see the responses of our readers and they’re loving it.

“You’ll find things that say oh loving the new Dolly…love the new sections, it’s a really supportive and positive readership we have and they really love what we’re doing.”

In keeping with this new internet theme, Dolly is harnessing much of their attention on social media, a Dolly blogsquad of young fashion bloggers, as well as keeping up-to-date with the biggest YouTube stars.

“We’ve got a few new activations in there [the new issue] so we’ve used the viewer app, which is like an augmented reality app, and we’ve got a really fun page, the back page, called the Dolly photo crush where you can take a photo or a selfie with a star,” Cousins explained.

“Our first one was Channing Tatum, so it looks as if you’ve just run into Channing Tatum. People have been taking the photos and putting them up in Instagram, it’s been really fun.”

The refreshed Dolly also has a few new sections such as the Dolly MyStyle, the Dolly photo crush and a health and wellbeing section.

“We’ve got a new health and wellbeing section so we’re really focusing on healthy eating and we’re making fitness fun. We’ll never talk about diets or slimming down or anything like that.

“We’ve made more clearly defined sections and we’ve put a bit more of an emphasis on fashion and beauty and we’ve still got some very instructional beauty because these guys really want to try and work out to everything fits.”

But you can’t do a refresh without letting your audience know you’re doing one.

Cousins explained how Dolly created a major social media campaign across its channels, asking its readers questions about what they might want to see in the new issue, as well as a five-day countdown.

Check out Dolly's refresh YouTube clip below.

The refreshed Dolly went on sale Monday, February 10.

Lucy Cousins was appointed editor-in-chief of both Dolly and Bauer Media's women's magazine Cleo in November last year.

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