Multi-Culti Closure...

"Suede magazine, the Essence spinoff that aims toward a hip, multicultural audience, is going on "hiatus" after four issues because it launched too quickly and needs time to regroup, Essence officials said late today."

If this isn't a metaphor for Essence's Take Back the Music Campaign, I don't know what is.

Yes. Suede has folded. I'm not surprised, nor will I say that it will be dearly missed by me. Then again, I'm a broke student with a blog, not a Manolo wearing, SUV driving, $200-for-a -wash-at-the-salon kind of chick. But where are those "chicks"? The "multi-culti" fashionistas, whose social life is spent in high end department stores dangerously equipped with a credit card, a freshly brewed cafe latte mocha chai with a hint of expresso and kahlua and no foam but lots of whip cream with cinnamon sprinkled on top? Clearly, advertisers were looking for them as well.

Michelle Ebanks, President of Essence Communications Partners attributes this "hiatus" to high production costs that weren't being offset by advertising revenues. I would say that it is also attributed to jumping the gun by moving from a quarterly to a monthly within 4 issues. What's the rush?! Was there pressure coming from the show-and-prove "suits" at Time Inc? Was this a pet project of those opportunistic, money, hoarding, exploitists seeking to maintain "street cred" in the eyes of the black community?

Essence knew before the launch of Suede in September 2004 that there was a possibility that the company would be sold. Was this creation of this high end multicultural fashion and lifestyle magazine only done to sweeten the deal for Time Inc? One can only wonder.

As much as Essence is geared to women who are "not defined by age or income" I think it's realistic to say that the publication is intended for women in their mid-30's. Still, I've noticed that there is a younger generation of women who, like post-boomers, don't have the word "kids" in their vocabularly until age 35. Plus, North America is becoming increasingly multicultural where people now celebrate the commonalities (like living in a particular city, shopping habits, and education) rather than the simple fact that we are different.

I'm sure somewhere in Corporate America and Canada (which is still Corporate America) a team of Harvard, Priceton, Schulich or Queens University 4.0 GPA business graduates were wondering how to tap in to this "market". Suede was the answer, and who better to have the answer than percieved "insider", Essence Magazine?

Granted, Suede is a brand that could prove to be profitable in our age of product placement and lifestyle branding. However, as acknowledged by Ed Lewis, president of Essence Communications Partners and co-founder of Essence Magazine"Suede's unique approach to fashion defined a new category," This means, that even with a stellar line-up of marketing, fashion, and branding all-stars success is not guaranteed. So again, I think about moving from a quarterly to a monthly in less than six months and ask, what was the rush?

As the cyncial conspiracy theorist that I am, I think that somewhere in the higher ranking positions someone knew this was going to happen, and could even anticipate when ("when" meaning pre-sale or post-sale of Essence). I also think that the move from quarterly to monthly was profit maximization strategy initiated by Time Inc after the acquisition of Essence's shares.

Like I said... I'm still a non-believer.