South Africa’s only glossy weekly men’s lifestyle magazine ZOO Weekly/Weekliks has already established itself as one of the biggest retail sales value (RSV) magazine brands in the country, after its first official ABC figure was released recently (for the Oct to Dec 2006 period). The media company behind ZOO Weekly/Weekliks is UCM. Publishing Director Kim Browne says ZOO Weekly/Weekliks’ weekly average ABC sales figure of 35 340 translates into 141 336 copies sold on average per month since its launch in October 2006, generating annualised RSV of R22.8m, the same as Men’s Health’s annualised RSV based on the Oct to Dec 2006 ABCs. RSV (retail sales value) is a powerful measure of a magazine’s retail success that takes actual newsstand sales averages into account and multiplies it with frequency and cover price. In this regard ZOO Weekly/Weekliks performs very well as its high circulation, weekly frequency and premium cover price delivers significant value throughout the retail channel. “We are very pleased with ZOO’s first ABC figure,” enthuses Browne. “To put ZOO Weekly/Weekliks’ circulation into perspective, one has to look at the fact that ZOO sold more copies on average per week than a number of magazines such as GQ, Maxpower, Real Simple and others sold in a month for the Oct to Dec 2006 period,” she explains. ZOO Weekly/Weekliks also sold more copies on average per week for the period Oct to Dec 2006 than weeklies such as Mense, Finweek, Financial Mail and Autotrader. As is the case with UCM’s other brands FHM and heat, ZOO’s ABC circulation figure does not include any third party or other bulks sales. “It’s easy to bulk up circulation artificially through third party or other bulk sales,” Browne says, “but at UCM we only deliver high quality, paid-for, no-bulk circulation to advertisers. We would like to urge advertisers and their agencies to scrutinise the ABC certificates of all magazines and to question the media owners who bulk up sales to deliver artificially high circulation numbers.” Browne is encouraged that advertisers have been very impressed with ZOO Weekly/Weekliks’ first weekly circulation figure and advertising sales going forward have shown strong growth from top brands. “Advertisers have identified frequency as a major advantage of ZOO Weekly/Weekliks that they can use to reach affluent, urban guys with an average age of 22, through first language access into both the Afrikaans and English markets. Advertisers pay one rate and automatically get an ad in each language edition.” The English and Afrikaans split between ZOO Weekly and ZOO Weekliks is 60/40. According to Browne many of SA’s top celebrities are very supportive of and are working closely with the brand, including Cindy Nell who graces the most recent ZOO cover as part of the magazine’s major new Cricket World Cup Special. “ZOO Weekly/Weekliks is the only glossy weekly magazine with substantial sport content. Our initial feedback indicates that guys are buying ZOO for its amazing sport coverage as much as for entertainment, news, girls and other information and entertainment.” Browne elaborates that ZOO Weekly/Weekliks represents a growing local trend towards frequent communication, driven largely by the growth of fast internet (broadband) penetration. “ZOO Weekly/Weekliks is therefore an important trendsetter in its own right. It provides its consumers with just the right mix of editorial content. We’ve noticed that guys are responding very well to this frequent communication and are enjoying ZOO’s need satisfaction benefits in this regard.”