People all set to debut on July 4

The Outlook Group has all the P's of its marketing mix in place, just ahead of the July 4 launch of the Indian edition of the celebrity magazine, People. Led by the editor, Saira Menezes, the magazine's core editorial team comprises: Sonal Nerurkar, executive editor; Bertie D'Souza, design director and Rajan Chaughule, photo editor. Menezes comes with a solid editorial background having edited Savvy as well as a Dubai-based newspaper, The Emirates Evening Post and was responsible for turning it into a tabloid from a broadsheet. In their previous assignments, Nerurkar was the editor of Metro, a series of nine independent weekly newspapers brought out by the Mid Day group for suburban Mumbai. D'Souza was the national design head of the Bennett & Coleman Group and Chaughule was the chief photographer of the 'After Hours' team at DNA. Vidya Menon has been named vice president, ad sales, and the entire team will report to Indranil Roy, one of the two presidents of The Outlook Group. Targeting readers in the A, A+ category, between the ages of 22 and 40 and residing in the top 35 cities in the country, "the editorial content of People will have four crucial components: entertainment; celebrity; achievement and news," said Menezes. "About 20-25 per cent of the content will come from the international edition." The group will roll out the first of many specials which are an important editorial property of People within three months of the launch. Priced at Rs 30, the magazine will be published fortnightly. "We have strategically kept the price lower than competition to ensure deeper and faster penetration," said Roy. "Our initial print run is at 1,75,000 copies." Full page advertising rate in People is at Rs 2,45,000. Outlook has over 35,000 retail outlets across the country and the magazine will be distributed through the same distribution network. As a part of its communication strategy, The Outlook Group published a pre-launch issue for the film fraternity distributed at the recently held IIFA awards in Bangkok. The current issue of Outlook will carry a 16-page sampler of the magazine which highlights the various section of the magazine. "The same will be distributed with Marie Claire and Outlook Traveller on 1 July," said Roy. (Pictured L to R: Vidya Menon, Indranil Roy and Saira Menezes)