No so long ago, tattoo magazines were tucked away in a corner in newsagencies, treated almost as an embarrassment in our range. Today, thanks to the love of ink by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Harry Kewell and their featuring on covers, tattoo magazines are more mainstream than ever.
We are recognising the broader appeal by giving tattoo titles more time outside their traditional location, chasing impulse purchases. Modern Ink with Angelina on the cover for example, has been given a run away from the tattoo titles – reflecting the more mainstream appeal of the magazine.
Newsagents have an opportunity with tattoo titles to grow sales when a star is on the cover. This is what we are pursuing with some success.
Interesting. We find tattoo magazines are one of the few categories in which a celebrity makes little difference to sales.
We experimented with this over the past 12 months, having already developed a very strong range of tattoo publications. The one thing we did discover was that people purchasing tattoo mags were very likely to purchase multiple titles in the one sale – hence our decision to significantly increase the range. Anecdotal evidence suggested to us that tattoo magazine customers seemed to be more interested in the actual tattoos shown, rather than the person they are on.
I think if you are going to blog about a magazine issue and include a photo of said magazine, the least you could do is get the title of the magazine correct.
Printing a celebrity on the cover of a tattoo magazine is as likely to significantly increase sales as putting Don Burke on the cover of a car magazine, which is perfect if you want to create a crossover for the gardener/ car enthusiast demographic.
The culture that surrounds the tattoo industry has thrived for many years on rejecting mainstream opinions and influences, and I can confidently say that anyone with any genuine interest in tattoo culture (besides using them as fashion accessories), may find most aspects of this publication fairly hard to swallow.