So there’s been a men’s magazine in NZ for a while called M2, and apparently they have launched a women’s magazine, and I bought issue two when I went to Tauranga, for lighthearted entertainment and the free sunscreen sample. It’s not a magazine I would bother buying again really, even if the name didn’t sound so much like a sleazy personal ad (actually that link is hilarious, not sleazy). Here’s my notes on the good and bad:

• Good: that when they do the interviews with women on the street, they ask them about buying NZ products and if they’ve had a molemap, as well as asking them about the latest trends and destinations.
• Bad: they lack basic fact-checking. In the events page, they say that Coldplay have never played in New Zealand before, but I’ve seen them at the Big Day Out (from the stands, I didn’t really care for them) and I know they’ve played the Logan Campbell Centre, and probably at least another gig as well. This makes me ANGRY!
• Good: at least their review of The Women calls it “predictable fun and a girl fest”, which is totally the nice way of saying “it’s shit”.
• Good: their holiday destinations are Oman and Venezuela, and they’re written by locals, which is an interesting change from Thailand/London/The Pacific.
  
• Bad: their interview with Anne Hathaway, which has admittedly gorgeous pictures, is even more banal than most women’s magazines interviews are, as it’s all about her new contract with Lancome.
• Good: they did a photoshoot on the Mouraki Boulders. Pretty!
• Bad: there is a totally nonsensical article that surely exists only because Southern Cross put out a press release that loosely body image and child health (and when I say “loosely” I mean like Karl Lagerfeld wearing Beth Ditto’s panties x1000) and they try to drag out the article as a ‘theme’ throughout the magazine which means that the (one page! but listed on the cover!) story about Jeanette Thomas is subtitled “TV and radio star, Jeanette Thomas, on being a mum, getting her carpets cleaned and body image vs child welfare”, which at 20 words is nearly as long as this whole part:
  

  “A recent survey suggests that we care more about body image than the health of our children. What do you make of this?”

  “Not very much.”

  Heh. Okay, so I did cut short her answer, but really, it was lame.

• Good: I really like the headpieces made out of flowers in the wildflowers fashion shoot.

So yes, seriously light on content, design that makes advertorial look like editorial & vice versa and nothing memorable to take away (I had to look up my notes to write this). Yawn. It joins the pile of old magazines I have to give away (which I will post about as soon as I’ve done an inventory).