LONDON — Monocle’s third annual Quality of Life Conference, held late last month in Berlin, is the gift that just keeps on giving.
In between a cracking, back-and-forth debate about what the future of retail holds for high-end brands — and putting a great new foldable bikes brand on our radar — editors Andrew Tuck and Tyler Brûlé announced an all-new Monocle product landing this August: The Monocle Summer Weekly.
Officially arriving on newsstands on August 10th, it has a limited run of four issues (more on that below) at 48 pages each. The entire bundle is available now for pre-order at a price of £45 ($59), and, according to Monocle, the papers will offer “a snappy…energetic and action-packed complement to the main magazine.”
Some background: We’d heard rumors several months ago that Monocle had a new weekly in the works, or was at least thinking about doing one. We were eager to know both when it would arrive, and the format — newspaper or news magazine — it would take. Monocle has decided to retry the newspaper format here, in a nod to its first newspaper offerings, Monocle Alpino and Monocle Mediterraneo, two annual papers that eventually made way for Monocle’s annual Forecast and Escapist magazines.
This pattern of behavior shows that Monocle has been more than happy to play around with different publishing cadences. And, despite Alpino’s and Mediterraneo’s shutterings, it’s clear that their love for the newspaper format itself hasn’t waned. The Summer Weekly proves that, and very it’s possible it could be the start of something more permanent, if all goes well in August.
We gathered more details on the release from Tyler Brûlé who offered the following insights:
On the distribution strategy. In Berlin, Tuck and Brûlé alluded to a distribution strategy that will be aimed at select resorts in select cities. “We feel it’s key to hit our core audience where they’re spending their August – at their homes in the Alps, on the beach, chartering boats, connecting through airports and occasionally getting back to the city.”
On what’s different, aside from the weekly format. “The tempo allows us more room to play with a tight lead time and we’ll be giving the likes of our culture editor Robert Bound to do more with books, music and magazines. There’s much more space for comment and analysis. Also, the format allows us to stretch our design language.”
Is ‘Monocle meets the Economist’ an apt description here, or should you expect more of a lighter summer read? “For sure it will be topical like a news weekly but I’d say we’ve looked more to a solid format like Germany’s Die Zeit and its Thursday to Monday readership window as a model. While we don’t do ‘lite’, there’ll be ample scope for wit and a more playful, entertaining tone in parts.”
Are there plans to make this more permanent down the road? “The Monocle Summer Weekly will be on newsstands Aug. 10, 17, 24 and 31. Could it take on a bigger, more regular life? Why not? So far it’s been a smash hit with advertisers. All the right people are in it.”
Smart play: As with The Forecast and The Escapist, they’re offering category exclusivity for their advertisers. “Our ad partners were thrilled that a new paper was coming out in a confident, relevant format and there’s been a superb response to our sector exclusive positioning (Rolex is the sole watch, Pictet the only bank, Beats for audio, Peninsula for hotels et al).”
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