At £1.90 Easy Living is one of the least expensive monthly women's magazines It even offered a £12-for-12-editions deal. As a result, the Cond?ast title, which cost £17m to launch, has recorded a first official circulation figure of 171,038 copies a month, including 15,000 subscription sales. "What appeals to us doesn't necessarily appeal to Italian women," she said. "We're more plugged into America, so we're more interested in stars. We've tried to feature only A-list stars; we haven't taken anyone from Big Brother or reality TV." While Grazia's unique selling point is its immediacy, Easy Living, launched two weeks later in March, used an aggressive pricing strategy to persuade its target readers, affluent women in their early forties, to pick it up. Fiona McIntosh, the editor-in-chief and a former editor of Elle, says 75 per cent of Grazia's advertising comes from fashion and beauty houses including Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss, Lancome and Estee Lauder.
The marketing budget for the first 14 months is £12.5m, Emap's biggest investment in a magazine to date. Claudine Collins, the press director at MediaCom, which buys advertising space, said: "Grazia has done a great job. It has brought something new to the market, although their rate policy leaves something to be desired." Detractors have accused Grazia of being more downmarket than was envisaged, saying it has a higher celebrity content than its Italian counterpart. The magazine is also Emap's most successful launch in advertising, having passed £2m, although some advertisers have baulked at the rates for a weekly magazine But success has come at a price. Emap are so confident of Grazia's success that last month the cover price was raised from £1.50 to £1.70. And the magazine has continued to sell well over target, some issues selling more than 180,000 copies. Organic roast cinnamon chicken with lemon and cider vinegar dressing and zucchini salad £12.95What about the wine list? A useful, democratic list categorised by style, running from a Mas du Soleil Merlot for £12.50 up to the seriously goodDesert? Raspberry and rosewater brulee with pistachio shortcake £4.95Average cost per head: About £30pp (the meal specified is £29.10pp).
They come in four flavours: sweet, salt, mango and bananaAnd for desert? Kulfi pistachio or rice puddingAverage cost per head: £15Paul HeathcoteChef/proprietor Longridge Restaurant, LongridgeTHE THREE FISHES, Mitton village in the Ribble Valley, between Preston and BlackburnAmbience: Gastro pub with roaring fires, strong emphasis on local producers and farmers. The weekly style title has long been a feature of the French and Italian magazine markets - Grazia was launched in Italy - but in Britain it was a new idea. Billed as Britain's first weekly glossy, Grazia's first officially audited circulation figure shows it is selling 155,157 copies a week, most at the news stand. Its formula of delivering news, fashion and celebrity in a glossy format to a weekly schedule has proved a hit with Emap's target reader, the difficult to reach upmarket, 30-something woman. Six months later, the magazine's publisher, Emap, has been vindicated, with Grazia easily achieving its declared weekly circulation target of 150,000.