Canadian men’s lifestyle magazine Sharp is going international.
The publication is partnering with Russian publishing house Smart Readers to produce a Russian edition of the nearly three-year-old title. Sharp Russia will have a circulation of approximately 150,000 and use the same design template as its Canadian counterpart.
About three quarters of the magazine’s editorial content will come from the Canadian edition said Michael La Fave, editorial and creative director for Sharp’s Toronto-based publisher, Contempo Media.
According to Contempo, Sharp is the first Canadian magazine licensed to serve the international market. La Fave said that Sharp had been eager to license its brand and content to foreign markets since debuting in April 2008, but that the company was first approached by Smart Readers.
In a release, Dmitry Cherkasov, general director of Smart Readers, said that the men’s segment has been “insufficiently served” in Russia, prompting his company to begin seeking out a leading magazine capable of addressing the interests of the country’s male readers.
“We were off to the races pretty quickly,” said La Fave of the partnership, which took about three months to finalize.
Sharp caters to upscale consumers—its target is affluent males aged 25 – 54 with a household income of $150,000-plus—and according to La Fave is a perfect fit with Russia, which boasts a burgeoning luxury goods market.
La Fave said that Sharp’s Canadian edition—which has a circulation of 146,000 and a readership of nearly 400,000—also continues to grow. In addition to its newsstand presence, the publication is distributed via The Globe and Mail, Air Canada’s business class lounges and special events like Fashion Week, TIFF and invite-only parties.
At 140 pages, the magazine’s December issue was its biggest ever, he said, while the publication also launched a bi-annual style guide called Sharp: The Book for Men last fall.
La Fave said the premium publication, which sells for $14.95, is on pace to outsell Esquire’s similar title The Big Black Book two-to-one on Canadian newsstands. A second edition will appear this spring, coinciding with the launch of a French-language version.
Contempo is also actively seeking to expand into other foreign markets said La Fave. “The benefit of being a relatively small company is that we like to move fast,” he told Marketing. “I would say that over the next year we will be aggressively seeking opportunities like this one.”
