QUOTE Something about Mary
Sally Jackson
December 21, 2004
LIKE people meeting on blind dates, magazine editors know that they have to make a good first impression or it will most likely be their last.
They have just one to 1.5seconds, according to the head of one US journalism school who calculated that was the amount of time the average newsstand browser spends looking at the cover of a magazine. The blink of an eye can make the difference between an issue selling out or being left to moulder in a dejectedly dog-eared heap.
Which is why this year editors loved Princess Mary, the Tasmanian commoner who married a Danish prince, and Hollywood tween queens Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. They were the faces that guaranteed sales success, between them appearing on the covers of at least seven of the best-selling magazines of 2004.
The standout of the year was the December issue of Vogue Australia, which sold close to 100,000 copies - almost double its average monthly sales of 55,000 copies - thanks to an exclusive photo shoot with Mary following her May wedding to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
"The [cover photo] was the last shot we did and when we held the Polaroid up we all just loved it, including the princess," says editor Kirstie Clements. "The purple against the green, the royal colour, looked so beautiful, and she's got such great eye contact and such a great look on her face ... It's a very modern interpretation of a royal."
Clements, who engineered the palace coup after more than a year of correspondence with the princess, believes Mary won't do a similar photo shoot for a very long time. "Royalty don't do that all the time, it's not like they're models," she says.
Despite its increased print run, the issue appears to have sold out (there has yet to be a single unsold copy returned from newsagents), a delightful rarity for any magazine and a first in Clements's five years at Vogue.
Mary also delivered for The Australian Women's Weekly and New Idea, both of which posted their largest sales of the year when she was on the cover. "Royal weddings always do well," says Weekly editor-in-chief Deborah Thomas, whose June souvenir edition was also "pretty close" to being a sell-out.
New Idea did its wedding special in May, one of 10 covers that editor-in-chief Jennifer Gilbert put the princess on this year. And more Mary is in the pipeline for 2005. "When she comes out for the royal tour in March there will be a lot of interest in that," Gilbert says. "And the first baby can't be too far away." .........