Roy Disney has gotten into the luxury magazine business. According to this story in the New York Times, Disney and the family’s private investment firm Shamrock Capital Growth Fund have invested $50 million into Modern Luxury Media, publishers of such high-end magazines as Chicago Social and Modern Luxury Dallas.
According to the article, the move signals the coming of much greater competition for the luxury-goods advertising. Such publications possess much of the production values that the target demographic would appreciate: beautiful photography, good writing and thick glossy paper stock.
“Mr. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, said Modern Luxury was exactly the sort of company that he and Shamrock liked to work with. “Its publications are the highest quality, with exceptional growth opportunities,” he said. Another company specializing in high-end local markets, Niche Media, already competes with Modern Luxury in Los Angeles (Niche publishes Los Angeles Confidential; Modern Luxury publishes Angeleno). Niche owns the New York target market with a publication called Gotham, said the New York Times, but it won’t be alone for long.
The strategy calls for publishers to sell national advertising via its network of local coast-to-coast publications. The new activity is expected to “increase the struggle among publishers for advertisers like Tiffany, Bulgari and Hermès,” said the Times.
“I’m not sure you need more than one in any market,” said Mark M. Edmiston, managing director at AdMedia Partners, an investment banking and financial advisory firm. “Even though these are very expensive products being advertised, the advertising budgets are actually not that big. It is unlikely that an advertiser is going to double his budget to accommodate both magazines in the market.”
