February 28, 2011

Cosmopolitan and Company to give £1m to a reader

The National Magazine Company is embarking on one of the UK magazine industry’s biggest giveaways by offering one lucky reader the chance to win £1m.

The publisher of Cosmopolitan and Company magazines has forged a joint promotion between its two glossy monthly titles to offer the cash prize.

To be in with a chance to win, all a reader need do is purchase the March or April issues of Company or the April edition of Cosmopolitan and look inside for the winning ticket.

The promotion will be supported with a marketing campaign which will incorporate TV advertising slots, retail support and online, social media and mobile activity.

Meribeth Parker, Company publishing director, said ‘Not only is this an amazing prize for someone to win, but we are also thrilled to be collaborating with Cosmopolitan on such an exciting campaign.

‘With such a strong reach across the UK, we anticipate huge interest and demand for this promotion.”

The giveaway is likely to provide a boon to the sales of the two magazines, which already jointly sell over 600,000 copies each month.

According to the most recent figures available from the Audit Bureau of circulations Cosmopolitan sold an average of 400,575 magazines each month in the second half of last year.

This marked a 6.9 per cent fall in sales year on year. However, Cosmopolitan remained the sixth most popular women’s glossy and the 17th biggest selling magazine in the UK.

During the same period Company had an average monthly sale of 217,491. This constituted a year-on-year drop in sales of 9.4 per cent as the magazine became the 15th largest selling women’s glossy and the UK’s 41st biggest selling magazine overall.

The promotion comes at a time when NatMag’s parent company – the US media giant Hearst – is poised to takeover LagardÃ¨re’s 102 international magazines – including its UK business Hachette Filipacchi, publisher of Elle and Red magazines – in a â‚¬651m (£560m) deal.