'GQ' to join style slugfest

MEDIA: The iconic men's lifestyle magazine is going to be launched in India soon. It is at the candle-lit dining table of a diplomatic home in New Delhi's posh Chanakyapuri that an Australian journalist pooh-poohs the idea that Vogue India, launched as recently as September 2007, sells "" or at least prints "" 50,000 copies, retailing at a cover price of Rs 100.

Alex Kuruvilla might understand that. In a market where lifestyle magazines claim incongruously steep circulations of between 80,000 and 100,000 copies, Kuruvilla, who is managing director of Conde Nast India (a 100 per cent subsidiary of Conde Nast International), sighs, says, "This is one of our challenges, to explain that most magazines that use sheet-fed printing, cannot have runs in excess of 5,000 or 6,000."

Vogue India, on its part, has addressed the issue head on. "We have asked our advertisers to join us at the press over a glass of wine as we print," he says. Having locked in the print-run, Conde Nast says it will review the figure once again in September 2008. "Some issues have been sellouts," Kuruvilla says, "but we do not reprint additional copies because it is good to have demand."

Having partnered with India Today over distribution, Kuruvilla says subscriptions are growing fast, and Kingfisher and Jet Airways buy bulk copies.

But this isn't about Vogue India but about Conde Nast's decision to launch their next title, the bestselling men's magazine GQ, also in September 2008. The five decades-plus magazine is perfect for India, according to the group, "because nobody is in that space". Not Maxim? No, says Kuruvilla, that's a laddie magazine with which premium advertisers might be uncomfortable. Not Man's World? "Our standards are very different," he insists. "We import our paper from Finland, our edit costs are very steep, we use global photographers to shoot our covers "" because that's what the market deserves" "" and with an international size, around 225-250 pages and a cover price of Rs 100, GQ India will have a "classic mix of fashion, grooming, cars, watches, lifestyle, food and dining and wine, and relationships".

The magazine, which has announced formerly UK-based Sanjiv Bhattacharya as editor, and an expat team as art director, senior editor and features editor, will likely attract advertising "from luxury brands that have entered the market in the last 12-18 months".

Kuruvilla says that "international and Indian players" will willingly pay the price "for editorial and production quality".

As for marketing relations, he dismisses the notion that international advertisers negotiate deals from Conde Nast's office in New York. "Our relationships," says Kuruvilla, "are global, but all the deals are done in India."

Operational breakeven for Vogue India is expected to occur in year one, something GQ hopes to repeat on possibly the same print-run. But like the cynical Aussie scribe, Kuruvilla's rivals in that print space say he's fudging figures "" both his and theirs.

Whatever the truth, one thing is certain, with GQ in the fray, at least the gentlemen can slug it out in style.