It’s all about the brand, any publisher today will tell you. Cosmopolitan and Playboy are the epitomes of brand extension. And with Oprah Winfrey exiting the stage to start up her own television network, has everyone got brand on the brain? The latest culprit is HGTV superstar Mike Holmes with his new publication Holmes: The Magazine To Make It Right launching today.
Moving past his HGTV shows Holmes on Homes and Holmes Inspection, he is literally extending his star-studded status through the confines of the television screen right into our laps. But as someone who watches HGTV regularly, I’m a little sick of Holmes. If he says, “I’m going to make it right” one more time…
Frankly, I’m sick of all these brands. The problem with brands is that they saturate audiences, watering them down to the point where they don’t want to be your audience anymore. Oprah, God love her, is everywhere. The Cosmopolitan network is suffocating, featuring dorky trivia questions between every commercial, constant replays of Sex and the City and irritating chick flicks every night. Ironically, with a name likeCosmopolitan, it seems to have a pretty one-dimensional view of who its audience is.
About the author
Whitney Wager was the Visuals Editor for the Summer 2010 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism.