Building bridges to the normals

Member Press The new Migros magazine keeps its distance from celebrities. People from the people are its heroes. "As of May 25, Brückenbauer will no longer exist," reads an ad created by Wyler Werbung that appeared this week in Brückenbauer (BB) itself. But already on the next page it is to be read that the Migros organ carries out only a name and appearance change and is now called Migros magazine. A certain nostalgia is likely to linger here and there, however, as Migros is signaling with the change of title that it attaches greater importance to corporate identity than to Duttweiler's idealism, which the previous name still expressed. The new logo - an orange and a white "M" for Migros Magazine (MM) - does not appear timid, but rather takes up almost a quarter of the cover. Two other elements dominate the front page: a strong headline for the lead story and a green dot pointing to the Cumulus information. In the future, the Cumulus offers will appear weekly in the MM on a specially designed double page, which will save the bimonthly Cumulus magazine.
"Normalos" instead of celebrities
But this is only one of the content innovations. The most important of these is that the MM stories - unlike those in the Coop newspaper, which was also recently upgraded - will in future focus less on celebrities and more on "ordinary" people with special characteristics: they have a large family, an unusual hobby, a good idea. Whether it's the cover story or topics such as health, politics, business, sports, culture, cooking, travel - real ordinary people always form the hook, with expert opinions or tips at the end. Marius Hagger, Head of Migros Press, puts it this way: "Our stories generally get in through people and thus lead to the topic. At the same time, the service character is very important to us: readers should get a concrete benefit from each article."
The two new sections "Single of the week" and "Just a question" are also tailored to normal people. The former is a kind of oversized contact ad in words and pictures. "Just one question" reflects the result of a survey: 42 Migros customers (with photo) answer an everyday question.
Nevertheless, the MM will not completely dispense with celebrities. "Personalities whose names are familiar serve as fixed points or points of reference and make the mix of topics attractive," says Hagger. They have their say, for example, in a three-page interview, but also in a factual story or one of the numerous columns.
Box of two with the Romands
Another new feature is that the editorial team of the German-language MM now works closely with that of Migros Magazine in French-speaking Switzerland. As a result, the two editions will in future also contain stories from the other part of the country. Ticino is not included because the Migros cooperative there is taking a completely different course: For example, it already carried out a refresh last September, but retained the title Azione and also the newspaper format. "There is certainly potential for cooperation here," says Monica Glisenti, Head of Corporate Communication at Migros (see interview on page 25). It has not yet been decided whether MM will spread the weekly campaign ads throughout the magazine as before or whether it will bundle them in a removable center section, following the example of the Coop newspaper. In any case, this decision will only be made after the relaunch.
The Zurich-based Studio Achermann also broke new ground in the graphic design of the magazine's interior: the three-column pagination, a much larger basic typeface, the more generous imagery and an idiosyncratic scroll font for section titles are striking.
When the relaunch was announced six months ago, the Migros press talked about a closer connection between MM, the Migros portal www.migros.ch and the cooking magazine Saisonküche. According to Hagger, "Saisonküche does the cooking advice and recipes for MM. But the cooperation is still expandable." And in the Internet area, a new website (www.migrosmagazin.ch) will be launched for the relaunch - designed by Ringier subsidiary Previon. The closer connection to the Migros portal, on the other hand, will not take place until next year, as this is also undergoing a relaunch.
Cover of the new Migros magazine: the massive logo stands out.

Large base type, bold flourishes: page from the MM.
Migros pays for its own advertisementsAbout the annual budget of the Migros magazine, Marius Hagger does not want any
details. Only this much: "The magazine must be profitable. Migros' own advertisements are charged to the company at the usual rates. So far, the bridge builder has generated around 30 percent of its advertising revenue through third-party ads.
A four-color ad page continues to cost 28,000 Swiss francs, and a b/w ad 16,158 Swiss francs. The introduction of a standard rate was deliberately avoided. "We would otherwise have lost a large proportion of our third-party ads," says Hagger. The German- and French-language editions can be combined (2.67 million readers in total), but Azione still has to be booked separately. As before, it is also possible to book inserts that can be distributed via the magazine according to postal codes or Cumulus data. However, the latter are only available from those Migros customers who have expressly released this data for commercial purposes, says Hagger. "The data can be selected by consumption habits for this purpose." (mk)
Markus Knöpfli