05 December 2018

ESQUIRE GOES BI-MONTHLY AND INCREASES COVER PRICE AS IT AIMS FOR ‘LUXURY POSITIONING’

Men’s lifestyle magazine Esquire will move from a monthly to publishing six issues a year under new plans from owner Hearst UK, with each new issue costing £6 – a cover price hike of 38 per cent.

The change to a bi-monthly publishing frequency will come into effect from February 2019, when the first issue of the new print edition will go on sale.

Esquire UK currently costs £4.35 and has a total circulation of just under 60,500 of which roughly half (28,500) are given out free, according to ABC figures for the six months to the end of June this year.

Hearst said it will invest in Esquire to “enhance” the magazine’s “luxury positioning” with a bigger size format, better quality paper, more pages and new sections and contributors.

Esquire editor-in-chief Alex Bilmes said the changes would “ensure we will be the men’s magazine brand of decades to come”.

Alongside print changes, the Esquire website will also be updated and a new series of bespoke events, called Esquire Evenings, will launch across London.

Esquire already runs two other events: Esquire Townhouse, a “four-day luxury brand experience” and Esquire Self-Made, a “one-day entrepreneur-focused luxury summit” which launched this year.

A spokesperson said Hearst will double Esquire’s marketing spend “to ensure greater impact” where it is sold and in a bid to reach a “high-net-worth audience” at events and exhibitions.