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Authenticity and customer knowledge in
fashion-based periodicals Condé Nast Inc. and
the development of a class-based strategy in the
British magazine market between the wars
Howard Cox and Simon Mowatt University of
Worcester, UK AUT University, NZ
Business History Conference St Louis, April 1-2
2011
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Samuel and Isabella Beetons Englishwomans
Domestic Magazine
Launched May 1852 as twopenny monthly aimed at
middle class women
Higher priced edition in 1860 included colour
plates of fashionable clothing from Paris
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Alfred Harmsworth
Launched first magazine Answers (1888) with
active reader participation
Devised a business strategy based
on mass-circulation magazines Schemo
Magnifico
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Harmsworth launched Penny womans
weeklies Forget-me Not (1891) Home Chat
(1895) Womans Weekly (1911)
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In US Cyrus K. Curtis began charting growth of
advertising from 1892 in Ladies Home Journal
In 1911 Curtis set up a Commercial Research
Division under Charles C. Parlin to gather data
on readers
Condé Nast had been appointed as Advertising
Manager of Colliers Weekly in 1897
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• Condé Nast develops a new business model for a
  class-based fashion magazine and acquires Vogue
  in 1909

Figure Jim starts Research Department
If you had a tray with two million needles on
it, and only one hundred and fifty thousand of
these had gold tips
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Nast launches UK-edition of Vogue (1916) and
gradually appoints US-trained business managers
such as Harry Yoxall (above) and Advertising
Manager William Davenport
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Study Background

• Locally adapted content very English!
• Edna Chase on Lady Patricia Ward she knows the
  right sort of people young, well-bred and
  sport-loving.

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• Vogues editorial team, connected to the fashion
  world in Paris.

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• Wherever people live graciously wherever
  fashion is in force, there you will find Vogue.
• The reason for Vogues international (even
  world-wide) leadership in its field is because it
  deals with the interests of smart and cultivated
  women in an authoritative, timely and beautiful
  manner.
• Advertisers in Vogue reach an incomparably rich
  market with the maximum degree of effectiveness.
• Vogue promotion to advertisers, Official Handbook
  of the PPA, 1938-9, PPA Archive, History of
  Advertising Trust, Raveningham f effectiveness.