In the world of lifestyle magazines, men are totally overshadowed by women. However, men's magazines have huge potential as more businesses try to reach men who want their lifestyle to match their rising economic status.

Men may dominate politics and business, but in the world of lifestyle magazines, are totally overshadowed by women. The best-selling women's fashion magazine in China rakes in about the same amount of advertising revenue as all the men's titles combined, says one knowledgeable with the market. However, men's magazines have huge potential as the nation gathers wealth and more businesses try to reach men who want their lifestyle to match their rising economic status, examines Ma Xuefen, an analyst with China Book Business Review who has tracked the magazine market for years.

On the surface, the market for men's lifestyle magazines is already cluttered with about a dozen titles, but the dynamics is such that even the winners are not cornering the market.

Despite their self-claims of a broad reach, circulation is relatively low even for the best of the bunch, usually around 20,000-30,000 copies for each issue, notes Ma.

China's publication market is unique in the sense that male readers are predominantly  drawn to newspapers whereas women are the driving force behind magazines.

As conventional wisdom goes, men prefer adventure and participation and are attracted to sports, politics, finance and travel. There are established magazine titles that serve each of these specific needs, leaving lifestyle a muddy area often without a clear catch.

The demographic all titles covet is the so-called "successful people", wealthy types who can afford the products adorning those lavish full-page glossy ads. Even the price of a magazine, usually 20 yuan ($2.6) but reaching a high of 50 ($6.4), is way beyond the comparable price of a Western counterpart, which in purchasing parity terms, is no more than 5 yuan ($0.6) at newsstand and even lower for subscription.

This has created a dilemma for magazine publishers. While target readers are mostly over the age 30 it takes time to accumulate wealth and achieve social status, most of these titles have gained more than their desired share of 20-somethings.

"They would love to be men's magazines, but some are just stuck at the youth market," Ma scrutinizes.

The Chinese edition of Esquire, which celebrated its 10th anniversary late last year, has mostly avoided this pitfall. By steering clear of "little men" and catering to "mature men", it has won "two-thirds" of the upscale advertisers that lifestyle titles crave, according to Ma.

Ma uses the age of 28 as the demarcation line, and by that yardstick, even Esquire is skewed towards the young. Its former chief editor Feng Wei once revealed their reader profile as a white-collar office worker or student, aged between 25-35, college educated and with monthly income above 3,000 yuan ($385).

"Esquire is a very established brand. Many second-tier titles jostle for the position of the next Esquire, but so far they have failed," observes Ma Xuefen.

Everybody knows that the main ingredients for this kind of magazine are sports, travel, luxury and design, but nobody seems to have mastered the recipe for success.

"Getting the nuances right is elusive but crucial," noted Ma. For example, readers are often turned off by profiles of wealthy entrepreneurs or executives. They don't want another rags-to-riches story, but want to know how these men live their lives outside the office.

In 2004, a flurry of new titles burst on the scene, shaking up the market. It was spearheaded by For Him Magazine (FHM), a British "lad mag". It quickly rose to be market leader in circulation.

"We sell fun to the post-hippie crowd," as supervising editor Zhang Hanyu describes its positioning.

Breaking free of the stolid image of Esquire and drawing inspiration from its bawdy British edition, FHM charged into the frat-boy area of scantily clad women and sexual titillation. Unfortunately, this is also a landmine-infested area where one misstep may lead to self-destruction.

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