How to Pitch: Pashion Magazine
January 17, 2016 Consumer Magazines
Cairo-based Pashion magazine has been a source of inspiration for fashion-conscious women across the Arab World since it launched in 2003. MediaSource spoke with Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Susan Sabet, about the magazine, new digital projects in the pipeline, and how PR and brands can best collaborate.
Pashion bills itself as ‘The Modern Arab Woman’s Fashion Source’ - what can readers expect?
We cover fashion, beauty and luxury and, being a quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter), put the focus on each season’s trends, as well as forecasts for the upcoming season. We compile the best and must-have looks of all trends and our readers look at us as their seasonal guide on what’s trending and new – and, ultimately, what to buy.
The magazine is published in both Arabic and English. Tell us about this decision.
Pashion is sold in nine Arab countries and, being a pan-Arab publication, it is only natural that we address our readers in Arabic. Many women in our region, especially in the GCC and those aged 35+, prefer to read in their mother-tongue. The English caters more to our expat readers.
What are your deadlines, and is there a best time to pitch to you?
It really depends on the product launch, shelf life and news relevance. Fashion is all about ‘the latest’ so an event that happened two months before our publication date is obviously ‘old news’. So the closer you are to our deadline the better. Yet it can also backfire, as we are usually full by then - if you are too close to our editorial deadline date, we might not be able to fit you in.
Do you have a preferred method to receive press materials?
We prefer to receive press releases in both English and Arabic, especially for beauty, jewellery and watches as they include a lot of terminology that can be difficult to translate correctly. I miss the days of CD’s, or even memory sticks. They were handy and didn’t use up space on my computer, and best of all didn’t expire like WeTransfer links. Dropbox is better as it doesn’t expire, but the preview image is quite small so not very time-efficient either.
Any advice for PR and brands looking to get their story featured?
Being a quarterly, we are always overfull with content every time we close an issue and have to take off pages. So we give priority to the latest and most-trending products and news, exclusive features and ‘firsts’. We do encourage talented local designers and brands and try to give them the exposure they deserve.
How else can brands collaborate with Pashion?
We are very strong in the events department and have organised many VIP events for our clients, especially in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We are also completely revamping our website, which should be live soon. The site will, on one hand, have its own entity giving brands a medium for the wider income bracket range versus Pashion’s print mainly A and A+ readers and, on the other hand, will appeal to our print advertisers who are looking for a good mix of print and online.
How can a PR best assist you with a story?
By sparing no effort in going that extra mile to get us the information we require to make a story unique.
What’s the best way to build a relationship with you?
Being both Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, my relationship with brands is very often with both the marketing and the PR sides. For our advertisers, our full PR support goes without saying. So the relationship is very much about personal contact to work on special features, interviews, reader promotions etc to support the advertising campaign.
If our readers are not relevant for a brand to invest in, then they probably won’t be too keen to publish their product and news in our magazine anyway. When a brand is targeting my readers, then I am of course always happy to work closely together with their team to develop the brand’s presence in Pashion and pin-pointedly address their target group.
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