Intelligence: Glamour’s EIC Says Women Won’t Read “Stuffy” Websites
Images via TNP
Ahead of Glamour‘s nationwide date night tomorrow night, the magazine’s EIC, Cindi Leive, sat down with The New Potato to talk about food, dating, and how women are changing the way media is delivered.
Leive is no stranger to the changing publishing landscape and figuring out how to adapt to the new way people are consuming media. “I think media in general, not just for women but probably particularly for women, has become more visually oriented,” Leive told TNP. “If you look at a website from ten years ago, it looks like you’re looking at the encyclopedia. It is all text. And that’s just not how anyone thinks in any medium anymore.”
But particularly with women and media, Leive believes in reaching audiences by tapping into the casual power of the human voice. “Anything stuffy is rejected in favor of things that feel more raw, authentic, and organic. Things that sound like they were produced by humans, because they were,” said Leive. “And we don’t believe in hiding our editors anymore, because we want our readers to connect with them as humans. That’s what people want now.“
Along with the casual voice, Leive noted that publishers need to understand the audience’s short attention span. “I think that women are very discerning and sort of quick to decide what they think of something,” said Leive. “We are in a bit of a snap judgment culture, and so I think really understanding that the visual needs to work is crucial.“
Glamour‘s website publishes 50 pieces of content per day, but even at that high volume, it’s important for each story to look good. The approach is just tweaked a little from print to online. “In print, people are really looking for a certain kind of more curated visual. They want to be surprised and delighted visually, but there’s a higher expectation of the visual content,” Leive told TNP. “I think online, depending on what part of our digital empire you’re talking about, sometimes people are looking to shop, and sometimes they’re looking to browse…It’s a much more immediate and conversational medium.“
· Cindi Leive [TNP]
· Why Glamour’s EIC Wants You to Go on a Date [Racked]
· Five Major Takeaways From Glamour’s Dream Job Panel [Racked]
