Dress up in “Elle” designer clothes to go drink a vitamin juice in a branded café, before going to an “Elle” spa, of course. For the night, go to your hotel in the colors of the women’s magazine or better, your very select residence… Beyond the magazines, the “Elle” empire has grown significantly in recent years in a whole range of products (clothing, accessories and shoes , perfume, decorative object, lingerie etc.), as well as in tourism and even recently real estate.
The brand has just opened its first residence of 180 apartments, with a real estate partner, in Miami, with luxury equipment (gym, spa, swimming pool, meditation garden, etc.) in the “Elle” design.
Still managed by Lagardère, now in the fold of Vivendi, despite the sale of the French edition of “Elle” to CMI, the non-media license (retail, excluding real estate) of the women’s brand represents around $550 million in figures. business for all 200 partners, present in 80 countries. “The success of diversification is based on the strength of the brand and a central organization in Paris, well structured which takes into account local specificities,” explains Constance Benqué, president of Lagardère News and Elle International.
Adaptation
For each designer garment or café opened, Elle International takes between 3% and 10% of turnover in the form of “royalties” and gains, each time, a little more visibility. On the other hand, “for manufacturers, experts in their professions, to whom we entrust the license, this allows access to a world of fashion, decoration and culture by creating value,” she continues.
Asians in particular are very fond of “Elle” products, particularly in fashion in the broad sense. Asia also represents 60% of non-media licensing turnover, ahead of the Europe-Middle East zone (20%) and the American continent (20%).
But Elle International is not just diversification outside the media: Lagardère also manages the international editions of the magazine. Because when Lagardère sold the title to Daniel Kretinsky’s CMI group, it retained ownership of the entire “Elle” brand, “the leading women’s brand with a global audience of 180 million readers worldwide (magazines, digital, networks editor’s note),” continues Constance Benqué.
New editions every year
Concretely, Lagardère grants publication licenses in around fifty countries to partners, such as Hearst (United States, Great Britain, China, Japan, etc.) or CMI in France. Even if the magazine is not in top form in France (-8.6% to almost 260,000 copies according to the ACPM in 2023), seven new editions have been launched, for example in Côte d’Ivoire, in Uzbekistan or even in Lithuania.
Universal values
Complicated to promote the values of “Elle” everywhere? “They are universal. We have a very precise charter for the brand which decodes its values, the tone, the visual identity with, first and foremost, women empowerment; they are then illustrated in different ways in each country, depending on their cultural specificities,” explains the manager. Thus, there may be veiled women in certain editions and we can talk more easily about female “taboos” in others. The expectations of advice are not the same, we will more easily recommend compression stockings to be sure of ourselves in meetings in certain areas of Asia than in France.
Here again, publishers pay between 3% and 7% royalties. From Paris, Lagardère also manages fashion series, which magazines can acquire – or not – and ensures the syndication of articles. For example, an interview with Michèle Obama will be piloted by the American editorial team and then proposed to all editions. Finally, Elle International provides international advertising management, that is to say the sale of advertising campaigns to large global advertisers.
