This was the challenge facing BBC Magazines’ international team as we reviewed our strategy for the Nordic markets earlier this year: Top Gear is the UK’s leading car magazine, with 24 international editions around the world, but despite the success of the TV programme, merchandise, books and DVD in the Scandinavian region, the chance to license the magazine for a small population in a crowded consumer market had so far eluded us.
How could we promote our brand and give Norwegian readers the best possible content without huge start up fees or high financial or reputational risk?
The answer came by way of a partnership with Vi Menn, Norway’s leading men’s magazine. Vi Menn is a long-established brand in the region, known for its irreverence and humour, with a loyal following of intelligent, well educated men. In short, an audience and profile not dissimilar to that of Top Gear in the UK.
Vi Menn was looking for content for their monthly car supplement, Vi Menn Bil – and they saw Top Gear, with its quality content and outstanding photography, as a natural partner. Top Gear’s unique position in the global automotive market ensures that we get exclusive and first access to new cars, and our reputation for taking cars to different places and writing innovative and engaging stories, rather than just car tests, means that we were able to offer a wide range of content. Vi Menn Bil is distributed alongside Vi Menn as well as being available separately on newsstands.
In the first deal of its kind for BBC Magazines, the partnership will see Vi Menn Bil co-branded with the Top Gear logo. The publishers, Hjemmet Mortensen, are part of Egmont and we have many long-standing partnerships across the Egmont Group. Their values, as a foundational trust, are closely aligned to those of BBC Worldwide. We had to be satisfied that Vi Menn will uphold the same brand values as BBC and Top Gear but the partnership works for both parties. We have a way of building the brand in the region, getting quality content to Norwegian Top Gear fans in a way that they will recognise and enjoy. For Vi Menn they have access to some of the world’s leading automotive journalists and unrivalled access to features of new cars, drives and the crazy stunts that makes Top Gear famous.
It is exciting to know that among the background noise of convergence, recession and digital spin that there are still opportunities for market-leading brands to find new ways of executing print partnerships. We are thrilled to be starting this co-operation and we very much hope that we will continue to build our relationship with Hjemmet Mortensen across our portfolio.
If you are interested in looking at Top Gear for your territory, please do get in touch!
