The first issue of Monocle is like a Pandora’s box.
I have been reading these 242 pages with attention and interest.
And on pages 216 and 217 I found a nice surprisse.
Tyler Brule’s magazine selects the “ideal media menu” for the “perfect Sunday morning” in Lisbon, and one of the most recent works of INNOVATION gets great marks from Monocle:
“Expresso, says Monocle, is Portugal’s best quality Sunday paper.
Founded by ex-prime minister and journalist Francisco Pinto Balsemao, it is renowned for its intellectual weight and surprisingly objective reportage.
Its compact format and award-winning design makes it our current favorite Sunday scan.”
Well, as nobody is “perfect”, Monocle makes a little mistake. Expresso is not a Sunday but a Saturday paper, read during the whole weekend.
The results after the relaunch of Expresso are spectacular:
More circulation, more advertising, and more young readers.
And this in a time of intense and extensive competition in the Portuguese market.
But Expresso did the right thing: improve the content and the presentation, and then promote the changes with a marketing blitz.
They just got 16 awards from the Society for News Design and the “best-designed European weekly newspaper of the year.”
The full color weekend package is impressive:
Two hard news sections, plus two superb magazines (UNICA and ACTUAL), and the best offer of advertising sections with homes and jobs.
Another example of how hard news and quality journalism, well-promoted, works and sells.