More Santé for the Romands

Magazines With the expansion of the consumer magazine Bon à Savoir, French-speaking Switzerland will probably have an independent health press in the longer term. Although German-speaking Switzerland has two health magazines with a journalistic approach - Gesundheitstipp (Puls Media) and Gesundheit Sprechstunde (GES) - and a total readership of over 1.2 million, no publisher in French-speaking Switzerland has yet dared to launch a similar title. "The topic of health is similar to that of the environment: unlike in German-speaking Switzerland, both are less important in French-speaking Switzerland," explains Ratna Irzan, who knows what she is talking about because she runs the Lausanne publishing house Editions Plus. It has been publishing the magazine Bon à Savoir, the French-language counterpart to K-Tipp or Saldo, since 1997 and Tout Compte Fait, the sister magazine to K-Geld, since 2003. The owner of Editions Plus, Hans Räz, is also no stranger to consumer issues: he was head of the editorial team at the SF program Kassensturz until 1996. No wonder, then, that the question has been asked several times in Lausanne as to whether a parallel title to GES or Gesundheitstipp might also have a chance in French-speaking Switzerland. "However, our market research has so far always shown that the French-speaking population is not interested enough in a health magazine," says Irzan.
Nevertheless, the publisher has now decided to serve the French-speaking Swiss the topic of health in the form of independent and competent information. Not with a new title straight away, but initially in small, enjoyable snacks within the Bon à Savoir title. Specifically, an eight-page health special will be inserted into the monthly magazine every quarter, for the first time in the April issue. The special will stand out visually from the rest of the magazine and will also have its own title, "Ma Santé" - as a magazine within a magazine, so to speak. In order to do justice to the topic of health in terms of content, the editorial team of Bon à Savoir was expanded to include experts.
Now Lausanne is eager to see how the expanded magazine is received by subscribers and advertisers. Depending on the response, Irzan can imagine separating Ma Santé from Bon à Savoir one day and launching a line extension. But she can't say at the moment whether this will ever happen.
But the chances of this are intact. Before Bon à Savoir was published, French-speaking Switzerland was considered a wasteland when it came to independent consumer press. Within just five years, the title had already reached over 300,000 readers, and with 368,000 readers it has now even overtaken Ringier's long-established Illustré (366,000 readers). In terms of reach (27.5 percent in French-speaking Switzerland), Bon à Savoir can also be compared with German-language titles such as TV-täglich (27.8 percent in German-speaking Switzerland), Schweizer Illustrierte (24.6), Beobachter (24.4) and K-Tipp (24.8) - all titles with around one million readers. It is therefore quite conceivable that Ma Santé will also be a hit.
Still with KI MediaMid-March
Publimag announced that it had been entrusted with four new marketing mandates, including those for Bon à Savoir and Tout Compte Fait. So has the agency KI Media, which has managed these titles since their inception, fallen out of favor with the publisher Editions Plus? On the contrary, says publishing director Ratna Irzan, KI Media continues to look after the titles and the agency is working the German-speaking Swiss market - "and doing so successfully". In French-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, Editions Plus has been working with another partner since 2002, but the company parted company with this partner a year ago. After a transitional phase, a new partner was found in Publimag. Markus Knöpfli