There’s nothing quite like the buzz that comes from a breaking major news story. When details of the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie marriage split broke in the middle of the night, we knew this was going to be the biggest celebrity story of the year – we were right! Our market-leading treatment of the break-up gave us a remarkable 54% market share and an uplift on average sales of 17%.
We know the love story of Brad and Jennifer Aniston still resonates with our readers so we approached the story from Jen’s angle, highlighting her feelings over the news. This clearly hit the right spot, as after being inundated with informative news updates on this story, our audience really wanted a fresh, emotive approach.
We also balanced this story with some great Australian news exclusives. We broke the story that Jarryd Hayne was having his first baby – a great local scoop. The stars of the phenomenon that was Seven Year Switch also asked us to document the troubles they were facing with their new baby, and we tapped into our readers’ nonstop fascination with Married At First Sight with pictures of the couples with their new partners.
In all, it was a bold, confident cover with great Australian-exclusive stories and an emotive, fresh angle on the world’s biggest story. I’ll never forget the long hours working through the night on it – it was all worth it!
– Frances Sheen, editor, New Idea