We continue our long march into a glorious future

[andrewducker]

Following on from my post on society slowly changing there was some questioning in the comments as to whether it was really happening, or if it was just me in my liberal bubble.

I'm very happy to provide some evidence for the former. In this case, the UK's biggest Tech magazine (basically a monthly collection of the latest toys) - "Stuff". Which has, until this point always had a swimsuit model on its front cover, following the simple line of thought that "Tech is for boys. Boys like sexy women. Stick a woman in a bikini on the cover, holding an iPhone, and you increase the sales."

However, an increase the number of complaints they've had from readers about this practice, combined with a sudden realisation that 40% of their readership is now women, made them try out some covers without the models. And sales went up between 6% and 10% when they did so. So they're going to stop doing it.

As the current editor-in-chief says:

"What we want to do is make sure we’re not creating a barrier,” said Findlater. “It’s the right thing to do in 2014, because attitudes have changed. I think the audience is ready for it, the market’s ready for it, and we don’t want anyone to feel alienated by our covers."

Seems things really are changing for the better*.


*Even if some politicians, judges, and sections of the population still live in the 1950s.

Comments

[rmc28]

Holy wow! I am one of their target audience actively put off by swimsuit covers. Thank you, I may actually look at that section of the magazine racks again :-)

[andrewducker]

Fab! I hope it does bring them new readers.

And yes, I always felt awkward carrying around scantily clad women on magazine covers, when all I wanted to know was what cool tech was coming out!