LONDON — Condé Nast has granted its Hong Kong-based licensing accomplice, Rubicon Publishing Ltd., the writer of Vogue Hong Kong, to launch an area version for the boys’s vogue title GQ, first digitally in the summertime after which in print for September.
It marks Condé Nast’s newest effort to reclaim among the sizable Chinese language males’s media funds left unbagged following the exit of GQ China final July when it broke off with its native publishing accomplice Zhizu Journal, a subsidiary of China Information Service, a state-owned information company based mostly in Beijing.
Within the Chinese language market, vogue glossies exist as syndications that copublish with a state-owned entity, which grants the publication its ISSN quantity, its Chinese language title and has the ultimate say on all editorial content material.
GQ China was launched as a partnership between Condé Nast China and Zhizu of China Information Service in September 2009. In recent times, GQ China has had an uneasy relationship with China Information Service, in keeping with former workers at GQ.
Whereas there was hypothesis of a revival of GQ China prior to now yr — with some claiming that Jonathan Newhouse personally intervened to enhance the connection between Condé Nast and the Chinese language authorities, hoping for a brand new allow — not a lot strong progress has been made to this point.
GQ China’s June subject.
Courtesy
The launch of GQ Hong Kong, nonetheless, can be a viable path to not solely increase Hong Kong’s voice within the world males’s media panorama but additionally entice massive, China spending from top-tier luxurious manufacturers.
Trend content material is predominantly consumed through social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, WeChat and Weibo, as a substitute of print within the Larger China area nowadays, which means it doesn’t matter as a lot as earlier than whether or not a canopy is from GQ China or GQ Hong Kong.
Rubicon Publishing mentioned GQ Hong Kong shall be revealed throughout social media platforms and a print presence in conventional Chinese language with a bilingual web site. It added that the administration workforce’s worldwide publicity and experience will grant GQ Hong Kong a global-local narrative for the area’s viewers.
Desiree Au, writer of Vogue Hong Kong, will even take the position of GQ Hong Kong’s writer. Jumius Wong, a vogue veteran from Singapore, will function GQ Hong Kong’s editorial director.
However what bought the native trade excited over the launch was the appointment of Alex Solar as government director of GQ Hong Kong.
Solar is the chief government officer of MC Model Media Co. Ltd., which publishes the Chinese language editions of W and Marie Claire. He’ll proceed to supervise each titles whereas consulting for GQ Hong Kong, in keeping with folks conversant in the matter.
Below his singular imaginative and prescient, each W China and Marie Claire China grew to become extremely regarded amongst readers and advertisers within the Chinese language market. Many would agree that MC Model Media is certainly one of Condé Nast’s greatest rivals within the Chinese language market.
With Solar overlooking the launch of GQ Hong Kong, some speculate that MC Model Media may need reached some form of settlement with Rubicon Publishing to develop the title’s attraction past Hong Kong and dip into the far more profitable mainland China market.
Through the years, GQ has developed a wholly completely different ecosystem and enterprise mannequin in China from the remainder of the world with the launch of the WeChat-based GQ Lab, which was helmed by Vogue China’s present editorial director, Rocco Liu.
GQ Lab, which is no longer owned by Condé Nast however China Information Service and was rebranded as Zhizu Lab, was a vogue digital media powerhouse with thousands and thousands of followers.
At its peak, GQ Lab might command round 500,000 renminbi, or $70,500, for a single social media put up. Condé Nast China again then additionally disclosed that GQ China grew to become probably the most worthwhile version as a result of success of GQ Lab, yielding 200 million renminbi in income in 2018, an quantity equal to a number of European editions mixed.
Other than WeChat, GQ Lab had greater than 4.8 million followers on Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu.
With Solar’s involvement, it’s logical to imagine that GQ Hong Kong would need to construct its very personal GQ Lab-style product match for right this moment throughout Chinese language social media.
Solar himself launched a well-liked journey life-style WeChat account throughout the first wave of the social media increase circa 2013. He now runs a profitable private account on Xiaohogshu, and each Marie Claire China and W China are extremely digitally savvy as nicely.
The extremely regarded editor started his profession in vogue media at Esquire China in 2009. He labored at GQ China as life-style director between 2011 and 2016 and later served as editorial director of Condé Nast Traveler till he joined MC Model Media in 2018, which was backed by Chinese language attire large Heilan Group and impartial buyers.
Solar has informed WWD in a earlier interview that the success of legacy media in mainland China “comes right down to doing the exhausting work and pushing for unique content material, content material that our friends are unwilling to place the trouble and cash into doing, or just haven’t any assets to supply.”
— With contributions from Denni Hu
