Clock – Shortlist and Stylist

Brief

Shortlist Media, publisher of free weekly men's and women's lifestyle magazines Shortlist and Stylist, asked Clock to create a digital presence for each of their magazines.

With a 12-city distribution network and total weekly circulation of almost 1m, Shortlist Media had a well-established readership to build on but wanted to change the nature of their relationship. The brief was to turn a weekly, one-way dialogue into a more constant and integrated two-way conversation.

Solution

The first stop was an online destination for each magazine. Both publications have small editorial teams used to the flexibility of print layout and not versed in the dark arts of Content Management Systems. So it was imperative that we built a CMS and site template that was really easy to pick up and fitted into their daily editorial workflows but was also flexible enough to accommodate the fluctuating demands of two individual lifestyle brands.

The two sites are powered by one shared template and bespoke CMS but each site has a very distinct and beautiful branded theme. Modules can be automatically or editorially positioned throughout the site allowing individual articles and sections to be built in the CMS and have a distinct layout and personality.

A portfolio of sponsorship opportunities are managed easily via the CMS. Including predefined and bespoke creative placements within individual sections or articles, as well as scheduling, tracking and management - ensuring extremely quick turnaround times and reduced production costs for very rich and engaging offers.

Result

The Shortlist site has seen a massive uplift in users since the redesign, over 900% increase since launch, and is continuing to grow at a steady rate.

“The launch of the Shortlist and Stylist magazine sites has been hugely successful - they look fantastic and are easy to use but most importantly we are attracting a large amount of new users and great interest with advertisers and brands” Matt Baskerville, Digital Manager, Shortlist Media.

Future

The launch of the two magazine sites was just the start of an on-going relationship with Shortlist Media. We can’t tell you much about our current projects except that we are working on some exciting customer monetisation, insight and retention pieces for them as well as some entirely new standalone projects.