Results and Effectiveness

Women took the time to write in over 7000 articles. 60 made it to the issue. The rest made it to our Facebook page. Of course, the readers-turned-writers did their share of word-of-mouth promoting. And boy, can women talk! 12.1 million impressions on Facebook. Everyday. 41,435 new Facebook fans. Most importantly, a whole bunch of 25-year olds accepted a friend request from a 60-year old magazine.

Creative Execution

We rolled out our ad campaign in magazines, newspapers, and on the internet. And put up an app on Facebook for women to send in their work. Women just loved the idea. They shared their stories by the thousands. And then we allowed them to chip in as editors as well, via Google Hangouts. And it all came together in a neat little magazine, all put together by the reader’s themselves. In keeping with the spirit of the magazine, we decided to crowd-source the advertising for the issue as well. By asking women to send in a letter each, and get creative with it.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

It’s a tough time to be a magazine. Readers have far more engaging options. And far shorter attention spans. And of course, they have the internet. It’s harder still if you’re India’s oldest English women’s magazine, with an ageing and declining readership. So then, how does a 60-year old magazine get young women to turn around and take notice? And more importantly, engage with it? Instead of fighting the internet beast, we decided to join forces with it. By creating the country’s first fully crowd-sourced magazine - Femina Made by you. We invited young women across the country to take over the magazine. Completely. For an entire month. Young women who’d been posting on facebook walls and blogs, loved the idea of having a printed magazine to themselves. And Femina needed to connect with a younger audience. It was a perfect fit.