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Cosmo wants you
Contest to pick the media male with the most
By Jeff Bercovici
Somewhere within the heart of every buttoned-down media guy there dwells a preening, vainglorious Adonis desperate for recognition as the living embodiment of male beauty.
At least that’s the idea behind "All About Media Men," a contest sponsored by Cosmopolitan magazine that aims to pick out the nation's top media stud from the media duds.
The contest was created to promote the November "All About Men" issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.
Published in the past as a newsstand-only one-off, "All About Men" will this year appear as a magazine-within-a-magazine in an apparent attempt to jolt sales of the title, which have been slipping of late.
From now until Aug. 3, any buyer or planner with a Y-chromosome who thinks he’s got it can send in his picture to have it posted on www.cosmomediamen.com.
Following the deadline for submissions, visitors to the site will have three weeks to vote for the foxiest guy of their choosing.
The winner will be announced Aug. 24, the same day the November "All About Men" issue closes. The prize is a portable DVD player.
Cosmo has received about 30 submissions so far, and Esther Laufer, associate publisher of the Cosmopolitan Group, expects to have around 150 by the deadline.
Media Life asked Laufer the obvious question: Just how studly are media men, anyhow?
Her answer: "I think they’re better than average. As you know, there’s a disproportionate number of women in media. The media men really do stand out."
But Laufer says "All About Media Men" is less a beauty pageant than a popularity contest.
That's for several reasons.
First, the site is posting only thumbnail head shots. Laufer explains that larger pictures would make the site unbearably slow to load. Also, the head shots that are coming in wouldn't benefit from being blown up.
"The pictures we’re getting are not of amazing quality," says Laufer, noting that many of them appear to have been cropped from group shots taken at parties and sent in on the Media Man’s behalf by a co-worker.
Would-be entrants can have a Cosmopolitan sales rep come over and snap their photos, but it doesn’t guarantee a better result, says Laufer.
"Our reps are great, but they’re not the greatest photographers."
Then there are the official contest rules, which are pretty loose. Visitors to the site can vote as often as they please, which would seem to ensure that the male with the most friends, rather than the niftiest pecs, will win the DVD player.
"All About Men" will be published as a self-contained section within the November issue, on newsstands Oct. 16.
The section will have its own cover and will feature a centerfold of a yet-to-be-named celebrity. Cosmo used to run male centerfolds but stopped 30 years ago.
Hearst plans on "All About Men" being a big seller at the newsstand; the rate base for the November issue will be 2.7 million, up from the usual rate base of 2.6 million (raised in January from 2.5 million).
That may have something to do with why "All About Men" was done as a regular issue this year.
After several years of steady growth, Cosmopolitan’s circulation slipped 9.2 percent to 2,592,887 in the second half of last year, according to the publisher’s statement filed with the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Single-copy and subscription sales were both off by around 9 percent as total paid circulation fell to its lowest level since 1997.
June 27, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life
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