Women's magazines: Style versus substance

Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Who reads the numerous women's magazines on the market? For 27-year-old career woman Saraswati, the answer would be "housewives with lots of spare time or working women who are very aware of their appearance".

The stories in women's magazines are often padded with playful graphics and ads camouflaged as articles.

But those magazine publishers certainly know how to attract their prospective readers -- young women on good salaries living in the countries' major cities, according to a recent survey by Nielsen Media Research.

"If I were a media owner, I would target the niche market with the highest consumption level -- young women with money at their disposal," AGB Nielsen Media Research Indonesia manager Hellen Katherina said at a media gathering on Thursday.

The National Media Index survey, representing 93 percent of the country's population over the age of 10 showed magazine readers were mostly females between the ages of 10 and 39 who lived in urban areas.

Hellen said a woman who subscribed to Femina would buy Her World or Harper's Bazaar on the odd occasion, if the cover caught her eye.

"This might explain why so many magazines are targeting that segment," she said, adding that more magazines would target women in the future.

Nielsen's survey showed that urban women enjoyed shopping more than rural women.

About 44 percent of women in urban areas agreed to the statement "I enjoy shopping", compared to only 34 percent in rural areas, Hellen said.

This could be another reason why women's magazines are designed with urban women in mind.

"Women's magazines are becoming too similar to one another, there's nothing really useful to read, plus they're overpriced -- I've stop reading them, let alone buying them," said "Ariandi", 27, who works for a leading manufacturing firm in Jakarta.

She said that women's magazines needed to be responsible and not simply encourage consumerism in women.

However, sales of magazines like Cosmopolitan, which seem to be preoccupied with telling women what to buy, are not the highest in its class.

Nielsen revealed that sales of Cosmopolitan were fourth highest among women's magazines, after the religious-themed Hidayah, teen magazine Aneka Yess! and Cosmopolitan's direct competitor Femina.

Five of Nielsen's top 10 magazines -- read by urban females in the high-income bracket who are aged between 20 and 29 and graduated from university -- are religious-themed magazines.

"I don't know whether or not it is a good thing. There are now more woman who read expensive magazines that are lacking in content," Ariandi added.

It seems that no matter who reads these magazines, the winners are both men and women alike, publishers, advertising agencies, manufacturers -- and probably Nielsen?