The Australian Women’s Weekly this year celebrates its 90th birthday.
Are Media, the publisher of the Women’s Weekly, is supercharging the title, investing in the evolution of the brand to become an omnichannel content commerce engine.
Nicole Byers, Women’s Weekly editor in chief, said that there was the belief for a long time that you were either in print or you were on digital, but that just hasn't been the case for the Women’s Weekly, as both wider technology changes and the publication’s readership figures have proven that audiences want a different experience on the different platforms.
“If they've got loyalty to a brand, that loyalty will trickle through to the different channels, so now the approach that we have is very much around how they want to receive information and what they want to receive on the different channels,” said Byers.
“We know that just replicating the long form stories from the magazine in digital is not the play for us in an omnichannel future - it's around how we extend the brand and extend the relationship we have with that audience on those different channels.
“That's why we're launching a new website this year, dedicated to the Women's Weekly and dedicated particularly to our lifestyle pillars, because that's where the research and our audience has led us to believe they would like more interaction with the brand online.”
Byers said that although the brand has evolved massively from its founding back in 1933, it has remained true to the core of delivering authentic and long form storytelling.
“While there's been a lot of disruption to media in many different ways, being able to remain true to that core has kept us unique - we still tell stories that you don't read in other places and we still raise up women's voices that don't get heard otherwise,” said Byers.
“I think the fact that we've remained true to that core, while still evolving to reflect the times, is why it still resonates with women so much and why are we still seeing increases in our readership.”
According to the latest Roy Morgan readership data, the Australian Women’s Weekly print readership is up 4% QoQ and 9% YoY to 1,309,000, with a cross platform audience of almost 2.6 million a month.
The age-related demographics of the average reader are also dropping - in 2019, the average age of a Women’s Weekly reader was 52.89, while in 2022 it was 48.01.
Left: the first Women's Weekly from June 10, 1933; right: a cover from December 4, 1937
Byers said those trends of increasing readership and younger audiences is a result of marketing and social media efforts, but that the brand has always had the advantage that it's a magazine that’s shared around, whether through neighbours and friends or passed down through generations of families.
“That's one of the joys of being around for 90 years - it's a brand that you'd be hard pressed to find someone on the street that hadn't heard of the Women's Weekly or hadn’t had a cake from the children's cookbook, so we definitely have brand recognition in spades,” said Byers.
“Now it's about messaging what we are today to women - that's the important thing that we always want to reflect, the contemporary lens that we have through the magazine as well. Making sure people acknowledge and remember the nostalgia, but are also aware of where the magazine is today and where it's heading tomorrow.”
Byers said that as media has proliferated and digital media is coming to audiences in so many channels, trust in media institutions has generally been eroded, but to be a trusted brand for 90 years is something that can't be replicated by newcomers and can't be created overnight.
“It's something that we have to keep at the core of what we do if we want to be successful in a content commerce way and delivering content digitally.”
Left: a cover from November 19, 1949; right: a cover from August 29, 1956
Byers said the Women’s Weekly team recently looked at how advertising has changed toward women through the decades. The issues of the mid 20th century featured a ‘homemaker’ slant with ads focusing on the likes of ‘how to be a great provider’, ‘how to have a great home’ and ‘how to be a great cook’. As the 1970s came into being, the tone of the ads shifted to ‘how to be a career woman’, focused more on the job than the home.
“It was really interesting to see how the magazine has reflected those changes in the way the advertising is, but also in the way we connect with brands,” she told AdNews.
“I think the success of the Women's Weekly is around authenticity, trust and respecting our audience's intelligence and that's what we always talk to brands about - this audience is complex.
“Women are not singularly focused: we can really care about having great hair and great skin but also care about the plight of refugees and international crises. Our readers are intelligent, and they want to understand the brands they're engaging with, whether it's the Weekly itself or whether it's the brands that advertise with us.”
After beginning life as a newspaper, the Women’s Weekly shifted to a tabloid format before becoming a weekly magazine which now comes out monthly. Byers said that as the medium and regularity of the publication shifted over the decades, the audience has followed the journey throughout.
“As I've grown in confidence as an editor in covers, personalities and stories that we've tackled, that’s something I’ve found - the appetite from readers. They're very willing to go on that journey with the Weekly because they trust that there's a reason we're taking them where we're going,” said Byers.
“It's a great feeling to know you can evolve - you don't have to stick to something that's always worked in the past.”
Left: a cover from April 22, 1970; right: a cover from October 1999
Those covers have also changed over the years – in the 1950s, an era Byers describes as “probably the most beautiful decade for covers”, it was very much a visual treat, with few words but designs conceived and drawn by an in-house illustrator.
“The covers then were very much a visual connection - sometimes it was a vase of flowers, sometimes it was a fashion moment, but it wasn't a news cover or a celebrity; it was sold on the basis of the way it looked,” Byers told AdNews.
“Then you have that evolution through to the 70s and 80s, where it became very personality driven by a royal or a celebrity, which was indicative of the times when we became a bit more obsessed with royals and celebrities.”
The Women’s Weekly have a number of different celebrations planned to mark the momentous occasion of 90 years, beginning with an exhibition at Bendigo Art Gallery that opened at the end of May and runs through to until 27 August.
The exhibition showcases The Weekly’s rich history: the stories, the fashion and glamour featured in the brand over the past nine decades, while also paying tribute to Australian women’s creativity and care-giving in the domestic and public sphere.
The launch of a nationwide cultural and societal survey, “The Voice of Australian Women”, will be released later this year, following on from a survey carried out by the magazine in the 1980s that asked women everything from the state of their relationships and their finances to how they felt about social issues and politics.
“It was just a fascinating read for us when we were looking at it – it was like a time capsule - and we thought how interesting it would be to look at it again and ask similar questions now,” said Byers.
“Just being able to have that fixed point in time that we can now look back on and charter a little bit of how women's views have changed on things. It’s just a great way to involve our audiences and readers with the brand.”
The Australian Women's Weekly: 90 Years of an Australian icon exhibition
Classic cookbook covers at The Australian Women's Weekly: 90 Years of an Australian icon exhibition
Garments worn by recent cover stars at The Australian Women's Weekly: 90 Years of an Australian icon exhibition
The publication has also created The Esme Fenston Fellowship as part of the celebrations, designed to mentor a regional freelance woman journalist as part of The Walkley Awards.
Byers said the Women’s Weekly really wants to make sure that what occurs during these celebrations is acknowledging the past, but also supporting women into the future.
“One of the things that I've been really excited to talk about is the impact the Weekly had on journalism for women as well, the impact and the dedicated vision that they had from the very start for this to be a magazine that employed women really meaningfully.” Byers told AdNews.
“In 1933, less than 10% of journalists were female and they were mainly doing social events and puff pieces. The Women’s Weekly became somewhere where women came and worked in large numbers for a long period of time.
“Some had to pivot from being columnists to war correspondents and going out to the field, and then editing the magazine. And I think that's a really important legacy, as well as the brand, is the way it's supported female journalists and women working in general.”
As the Women’s Weekly looks towards its 100-year anniversary, Byers said the publication is in “a really strong position” for the next decade.
“To be standing here with the print brand growing in readership, a new website launching, a cross-platform audience already over 2 million - I feel like in the next 10 years, we're in a pretty unique position to grow a broader audience and get new demographics to the brand.
“I'm really excited about that.”
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