KEY POINTS:
ACP New Zealand is making changes on three of its big glossy monthly titles: Metro, Next and Australian Women's Weekly.
Metro's Lauren Quaintance is the latest resignation.
She is heading back to Sydney, apparently because her lawyer husband had been unable to find the right job.
Quaintance can point to growth during her 15-month reign.
Total net circulation for the monthly magazine for Auckland was up 2.7 per cent to 15,934 at December 31 last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation figures.
But two other editors are leaving ACP with circulation having fallen.
Susannah Walker, who was appointed editor of the glossy women's title Next in 2004 and resigned on March 7, will also be returning to Australia.
In the last ABC survey net circulation for Next to December 31 was 60,277, down by 9.5 per cent on December 31, 1995.
Another former ACP editor is Deborah Telford of the New Zealand version of Australian Women's Weekly, the biggest selling monthly women's title.
She left two months ago and ACP appointed Megan McChesney to oversee the magazine.
McChesney is a respected woman's magazine editor who is also editor-in-chief of Woman's Day.
The day-to-day control of the mag is to be handled by Jenny Forsyth, who started yesterday in the new role of associate editor.
It is not clear whether this restructuring and new title preceded or followed Telford's departure. Telford is also heading back to Australia and leaves with the magazine's total circulation on December 31 at 79,121, down 11.41 per cent on December 31 2005, according to ABC figures.
Ups and downs
Both Walker and Telford have a reputation of being good editors, raising the question of what caused those - and other - circulation falls.
The latest ABC survey showed APN's weekly New Zealand Listener on 68,724 (down 5.91 per cent) and Fairfax Magazine's Cuisine down 6.76 per cent to 64,432.
Beyond the vagaries of audience measurement, ups and downs are partly because it is cheap and easy to start new magazines in New Zealand - as was proved by The Healthy Food Guide and Taste.
And because this is a small market chasing a small advertising revenue, one or two can have a big impact. The biggest change to the magazine market has been the ACP food title Taste.
It has been phenomenally successful with a circulation up 26 per cent in the year to 28,851.
The question must be how much its growth has been from readers who no longer buy Next and Australian Women's Weekly for the recipes.
Sale of the Century
I was tickled by a snippet in the Herald On Sunday featuring husband and wife broadcasters Alison Mau and Simon Dallow. The pair told reporter Miles Erwin they had been forced to give up their gorgeous home in Auckland's leafy suburb of Epsom because the cost of restoration was mounting up.
Dallow kindly spoke to the journo and lamented "there will be a lot of sadness" around the sale. The journalist noted that it had been a difficult year for the broadcaster couple "who try to avoid the limelight". That raised an eyebrow.
Mau is a staple of Sunday social pages and has spoken up in defence of her husband after he criticised a TVNZ ad campaign during his radio announcing spot. Open and pleasant individuals they may be, but limelight avoidance is surely not their forte.
Challenge for advertising
New Zealand advertisers don't need to be told their industry is under pressure from bans or restrictions.
But the managing director of the international body the World Federation of Advertisers, Stefan Loerke, says anti-advertiser feelings are international.
Loerke was keynote speaker at a seminar marking the 75th anniversary of the Association of New Zealand Advertisers which is an affiliate of the federation.
Loerke said the ad industry's greatest challenge is "an anti-brand, anti-corporate, anti-advertising sentiment that is pervading society".
"Both the cause and the symptom, this feeling has been perpetuated in bestsellers, documentaries and even films.
"Advertising and marketing have increasingly become dirty words.
"Marketers are portrayed as manipulative and dishonest and advertising as a ubiquitous irritant."
Loerke warned that anti-ad feeling was becoming entrenched.
"It is time for us to face the truth that on many levels, and in increasingly influential circles, attacking advertising has become fashionable not just among consumer and pressure groups but in society as a whole.
"Accordingly, some regulators see restricting advertising as a populist, vote-winning policy measure with no heed taken for the unintended consequences of such restrictions.
"We must confront these misunderstandings and adverse perceptions head on. There is simply too much at stake for us as marketers and consumers," he told advertisers.
Quiet Saturday at Spooky Park
One happy consumer reported back from a Saturday shopping excursion to Auckland's Sylvia Park - but for all the wrong reasons from a retailer's perspective.
The shopper went to supermarket Pak 'n Save and sailed his super-sized trolley happily through empty aisles to complete his weekly shop in record time.
Not only that, once he came to pay he could choose between the cashiers, one of whom cried plaintively to her nearby colleague "I am so bored".
Some Sylvia Park retailers have expressed concern that the weekday foot traffic has been lower than expected and the ghostly quiet periods have earned the nickname "Spooky Park".
The park's owner, Kiwi Income Property Trust, says that the foot traffic will increase after the opening of Stage 3 on March 28, but insists that 38 per cent to 40 per cent of sales are in the weekend.
Chief executive Angus McNaughton said numbers weren't so high on Saturday morning because people were taking their kids to Saturday sports, which makes some sort of sense. Our shopper visited at 1pm on Saturday.
Comparative advertising
Woolworths Australia must rue some of the words used in its application for Commerce Commission advance approval to buy The Warehouse Group: it has handed rival Foodstuffs NZ a tagline for advertising Pak 'n Save.
Woollies tried to undermine Foodstuffs' claim to be an underdog compared to the Australians.
It told the Commerce Commission that Foodstuffs was a bigger player in grocery distribution through its wholesale arm, and was able to pass on savings to consumers.
The ad at Pak 'n Save quotes Woollies saying that Pak 'n Save is the cheapest supermarket.
