Today's Ideas

Monocle Looks At Audio Not Video To Extend Its Reach

By Piers Fawkes on August 17, 2009

PSFK had noticed that earlier this year that the number of the Monocle magazine video podcasts had declined and the lifestyle-meets-business-meets-travel publication had even experimented with video podcasts which had slideshows of images with accompanying narrator rather than moving image. Meanwhile the weekly and summer special podcasts had become popular and we wondered if the change had been made just because it’s easier and cheaper to produce audio than video content . In an interview in the Independent, Moncole magazine editor Tyler Brûlé shines some light on this topic as he discusses how they have taken the Monocle approach to their printed content and directed it to audio content.

After the success of Monocle’s weekly podcasts, which have become a favourite download on iTunes, he wants to take that experiment further. “We know what brands look like on a page or on television but I’m not sure how a lot of those brands sound commercially,” he says. “My feeling is that there is something there in terms of demand. You could be in Buenos Aires or on a beach in Ibiza. The World Service doesn’t do that much, we would like to have something a bit more toe-tapping.”

While other media entrepreneurs obsess over video, Brûlé, 40, says such content is of little appeal to consumers who are “listening with your eyes closed and lying in the sun”. Such jetsetters have already been able to enjoy five editions of Monocle’s Summer Series of podcasts, which are billed as “your audio travel companion over the holiday season”, “a global road trip” in the company of such luminaries as Savile Row tailor Patrick Grant, Icelandic singer Yohanna, retail guru Priscilla Carluccio and, inevitably, Brûlé himself.

There are also insights into the retailing venture where Brûlé admits that shops and online commerce were not part of the business plan but it hasn’t stopped him selling 5,000 tote bags.