Lion looks for 'real blokes' with hot online magazine

By DITA DE BONI

Lion Red has returned to its blokish marketing tactics of yore, signing up to part-sponsor a new online men's magazine.

Fire-engine.co.nz - created and operated by IT Media - is a marketing platform for Lion, Sony Playstation, Sony Music, and Columbia Tri-Star Pictures.

It offers men a good ol' fashioned diet of chicks, sports and bodily functions, and, it says, "everything from the All Blacks' test selection through to the best way to cook mince, from the hottest bars in Hamilton to funny jokes and great pick-up lines."

Being launched today, the site takes its cue from hugely successful overseas men's magazines such as FHM, Loaded and Men's Health.

Advice from "Party Guy" ("For those of you who feel the need to dress up, go for it. Hallowe'en's your only legit excuse for putting on makeup and not getting beaten up for it") is interspersed with visual treats, including "hot, hot, hot" babes.

Banner ads featuring flashing, subliminal corporate logos "brand" each page of the site.

Lion Nathan's logo features most prominently next to "Fire Girl of the Week."

IT Media founder Tim Connell says that the site brings together companies with similar target markets.

"The concept is based on the idea that the public is wary of single-entity corporate or brand sites.

"However, if companies can develop portals which catch the interest of their consumer groups without being regarded as corporate sites, they can be more effective in reaching their target audience than if they develop and operate a stand-alone website."

Lion Nathan marketing manager Lee Hill says the "awesome" site will appeal to both men and women.

"It is not sexist, inasmuch as it is up to the individual to choose whether to access the site or not. It's the same as other men's magazines on sale everywhere; there is no content that is too extreme."

Lion hopes to garner around 50,000 registered users of the site in the first 12 months, and will initially judge how successful its sponsorship is by how much users interact with the various activities and forums on the site.

"We fit well [with it] because it represents everything that appeals to the Kiwi male - sports, girls, music - it's got everything. It's fairly straightforward."

Lion has also recently started a new broadcast campaign featuring three "chinheads" sitting in a bar, ogling girls and being blokey.

"The mood of chinheads is also getting back to what Lion Red has always been about - Kiwi guys having a great time - doing things guys like to do."

The ads were created by long-time Lion advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand.

After a brief foray into politically correct advertising in the late 1990s with the largely ineffective "Red Men" campaign, and experiments with "It's red ... like a fire engine" and the "mates" themes, Lion has returned to what one industry figure called a "tried and true, unapologetically blokey formula which seems to work best."

But Lion is not the only company to have tethered itself to the new website. Sony Music and Sony Playstation companies supply and advertise on the site.

Sony Music director of marketing Noel Barkley says Sony is not concerned about a backlash to the content on Fire-engine. He says it is a great site and will extend the reach of the company's other publicity.

"We would hope traffic to [Fire-engine] will surpass traffic to our own site, which features home-grown talent such as Bic Runga and Stellar*."

Herald website critic Pete Sinclair describes the new site as "satirically aggressive laddishness."

"We're not talking fuzzy-wuzzy supporter group guys or beer-swilling jock heads, although if you're that way inclined you're still welcome. We're talking millennium guys who aren't afraid to watch sport all day, perve at beautiful chicks, hang out with the boys. This is macho male networking at a level to freeze a feminist's blood: blond jokes and a Fire Girl of the Week (sponsored by Lion Red) who looks barely 16, and I use the phrase advisedly.

"Can this be an Aussie website in drag? A sort of elaborate in-joke, Radio Hauraki without the music."

Fire-engine.co.nz