Men’s magazines need to stimulate intellect too

Just a week after men’s monthlies revealed massive year-on-year sales declines, so weeklies have done the same. And there may well be a freebie on the way to rub salt into the wounds, by creating a new reason not to pay for soft porn (the internet being another).

It seems that men have tired of these magazines, which rely upon a very small pool of glamour models holding a very small number of poses, and may well be using back issues to get their kicks.

FHM is the first to blink, aiming to ‘create a magazine that a man could happily leave in a place where his girlfriend might find it’. That means putting cover girl Rachel Stevens in a t-shirt. Meanwhile, proclaiming that, at 29, Stevens has ‘still got it’ is sure to reassure said girlfriend. Not.

This sector is coming under increasing pressure to provide reasons to buy and that means offering the boys something they haven’t seen before. With the porn route now exhausted we can expect an increase in other forms of stimulation and more interesting opportunities for public relations professionals.

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