Embodying a Brand's DNA
Charlotte Prevost-Gosselin, SEO Manager for the Prisma Media, shares her overall perspective on editorial teams, their work, and editorial direction across various distribution channels. She discusses French consumers’ favorite brands and how they engage with their audiences, such as Gala on TikTok, Harper’s Bazaar in the fashion sector, and Simone, a brand that exists exclusively on social media.
Prisma Media is France's leading magazine publisher. It represents:
€309 million in net revenue in 2021,
A total audience of 40 million French people,
146 million magazines sold per year.
Photo: France's No. 1 issue of Harper's Bazaar on a table by Georgette Has Pigtails.
Transcript
S.B.
Hello, hello, Charlotte!
C.P.G.
Hello, Syphaïwong.
S.B.
Welcome to the Assonance podcast—let’s call it that, even if it’s not really a podcast; we’ll see how it goes. But in any case, it’s an interview produced by Assonance. Today, I’ve invited you, Charlotte, so we can talk about what a brand is, why we buy a brand, and why we might be proud of it—or hate it. Why not? Can you introduce yourself?
C.P.G.
Yes, of course. So, Charlotte Prevost-Gosselin—I got my start in SEO a little over 10 years ago—actually, a little over 17 years ago now, which is quite a while—when I was the offline marketing director in the United States and was asked to revamp the brand image of a hotel chain. So I had to learn that branding was a multi-channel effort, especially online. I jumped right into that world and never looked back. I came back to France to work on digital traffic acquisition. So I really specialized in digital after my time in the U.S. Then I realized that while I felt like I was doing everything, I wasn’t excelling in any single area, and I thought to myself that SEO is constantly evolving. There’s so much to learn, so I decided to specialize in SEO through an agency called Apposition, which trained me very well—extremely well, in fact—and after Apposition, I moved into the media industry. I’ve been working for Next Interactive and Prisma Media since 2018.
S.B.
But what exactly is Prisma Media? I get the impression it's a big deal, but we consumers don't really hear that much about it.
C.P.G.
Prisma Media is a media group that embodies and is embodied. When I joined Prisma, I thought to myself, “Wow, the grass really is greener on the other side”—that’s how much this group has a real personality. It’s a group that embodies its brands because it has brands with their own distinct identities, particularly its magazine brands.
I think you’re familiar with Télé Loisirs, since it’s a magazine that reaches a huge number of French people—and now there’s an app that reaches a huge number of French people, too. I don’t know if we’ll end up watching TV. There’s Gala, Voici, Femme actuelle, Cuisine actuelle, Capital, Géo, National Geographic, Néon Magazine, and many more—I’ll skip the rest because there are about 22 brands, or 23 since we acquired Milk, though they haven’t yet been integrated into the Prisma teams, so to speak, for now. And these are all brands with a multichannel strategy—meaning there are magazines, of course, but also everything digital, which covers a very broad spectrum. There are photos by professional photographers, and there are videos—we get 500 million video views per month. There are dozens of podcasts, and we have a strong presence on social media, particularly with Gala on TikTok. So it’s a group that includes many magazine brands, but not exclusively magazine brands—for example, we have Simone, which is a brand that’s really focused solely on social media. These are brands with a distinct personality behind them.
S.B.
Ultimately, there’s a prism—and a bit of schizophrenia. Every possible personality type in France is represented in a single group.
C.P.G.
Yes, that’s right. Actually, Prisma reaches 8 out of 10 French people. So that’s huge. We’re talking about practically all of France. And besides, we’re dealing with a group whose values really align with human values—values that I think are essential today. Prisma is a partner of ADAPT, for example, which is an organization dedicated to the social integration of professionals and people with disabilities. They’re signatories to the Diversity Charter to combat employment discrimination. We’re based in Gennevilliers, so we’re also quite active within the city of Gennevilliers. We have ninth-grade students who come to do their internships at Prisma, and we help them afterward. When they’re further along in their studies and looking for a job, there are a huge number of initiatives Prisma is involved in—particularly in the healthcare sector—where we’ll create, for example, a supportive environment to ensure that our magazines, once they’ve completed their life cycle at H-Relais locations or in magazine vending machines, can be distributed to hospitals, for instance. So it’s a group that’s very committed, and that’s also why it’s quite influential—because Prisma Media is, in fact, made up of many brands and reaches a huge number of French people.
But it’s also a group that stands alongside the French people in sharing common values. So we maintain this mindset of having a group with a strong identity.
S.B.
In the doctor’s waiting room, I might see a stack of magazines—there are 10 of them, and 8 of them are likely published by Prisma. In my mind, I get the impression that these eight magazines are extremely different, even though they’re all, to some extent, cut from the same cloth—or at least from a similar mold—by a group that still has its own values and its own way of operating. Even though they tailor their approach specifically to each of these brands.
C.P.G.
That’s interesting what you just said, because editorial teams really aren’t the same. We really have a Capital editorial team that will develop its content in a style unique to Capital, and it will definitely not be the same as, say, the Harvard Business Review, where there’s a real expertise from engineers and others who really dig deep—and who, by the way, write very, very long articles for a business review website. I think you’ll also find, for instance, at the hair salon, magazines like *Gala* and *Voici*, which also have their own distinct identities. Some people might be surprised to learn that *Gala*, for example, doesn’t have a legal budget set aside for lawsuits because all the information published in *Gala* comes directly from the celebrities themselves.
So each brand has its own distinct identity, and when you read a headline, you can see the editors behind it and the mindset of those editors.
S.B.
Which means they aren't really colleagues from one newsroom to another, right?
C.P.G.
No, not really. So, there are a lot of working groups on how to work remotely, how to manage teams, and how to navigate this post-COVID era—a mindset that’s been shaped by the media. But when you work for a brand, you’re working with a brand’s DNA; you have a specific tone for a magazine. And indeed, there are very, very few overlaps. But that’s why recruitment has to be quite specific when you’re applying for *Capital*. It’s not at all the same people who’ll apply for *Femme Actuelle*. The candidates will be different. Recruitment is really brand-specific. At Prisma, we’re looking for editorial expertise. At *Femme Actuelle*, we don’t hire a journalist. We hire journalists who are specialized and expert in health, astrology, or weight loss—unlike at *Capital*. There, we have journalists who specialize in real estate and all things financial—so anything related to money and the financial sector. So these are truly expert journalists in their respective fields for each brand.
S.B.
It’s interesting because, you see, we wanted to talk about the “coffee table magazine” aspect—that magazine you put on your coffee table to show how cool you are—but I was thinking that when you put any random magazine on your coffee table while you have guests over, and you’ve specifically chosen that particular magazine. You’re saying something about yourself, I think… You see, if I put *L’Équipe* there or *Libé*, it doesn’t have the same effect. If I put *Femme Actuelle* there or *Géo*, it’s not the same.
C.P.G.
Absolutely. In fact, the “coffee table magazine” aspect—it’s already a magazine that interests you, one you have a lot of respect for, and one where you’re hoping they’ll say something about you. So if you put a copy of Harper’s Bazaar on your coffee table—for example, the new Prisma edition—you’re saying, “This is who I am: I’m interested in designers and creators; I’m really into fashion, but not mass-market fashion—I’m into designer fashion; I’m interested in all of that, all the finesse,” I’m also interested in the runway and all those models; I’m interested in the world of fashion—so everything surrounding it, the inspirations, and so on. On the other hand, if you have a *Harvard Business Review*—which is an excellent magazine with very comprehensive articles on leadership and management, something for, let’s say, the upper-middle class—that also says something about you.
And then when you go to the hair salon, you don’t expect to find coffee-table magazines packed with text, but rather ones packed with images. So you might find—well, all the celebrity magazines, of course—but you might also find magazines like *Geo*, which give the salon a slightly more upscale feel and let you “travel” during your hair appointment.
S.B.
When you put a magazine on the coffee table, it’s kind of a statement about that brand. You chose it, you put it there, you left it there. Whereas when you’re reading it—let’s say on the subway—maybe you’re making a statement too, because there’s also this phenomenon where people always put covers on the books they’re reading on the subway to make them look neutral, essentially. But precisely in terms of how others perceive you, and so on. But here, what’s interesting is really the deliberate aspect of it. Because you were talking about respect for the brand, but I think there’s also this exchange you have with the person who notices the magazine.
Typically with *Harper’s Bazaar*, if I have a guest who says, “Oh, you have *Harper’s Bazaar*—that’s so cool! ” I’ll feel good thinking, “Ah, this person I invited recognized the magazine—they really are part of my social circle; we have common tastes and interests we can share.”
C.P.G.
This is a really good example because *Harper’s Bazaar* in the United States is the quintessential iconic magazine. *Harper’s Bazaar* has over 150 years of history. So across the Atlantic, it’s a magazine that’s very well known in France. The publication most closely associated with it, in fact, would be *Vogue*. And Vogue today, given its focus on reaching audiences, appearances on Discover, and so on, is really expanding much more into other themes. Whereas at Harper’s Bazaar, we’re really focused on an identity of… We’re going to decode what’s beautiful, what’s elegant, what’s chic. And we’re going to stay firmly focused on the concept of quality and a high-quality experience. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to look at the last four covers of Harper’s. In fact, we had more than that because we really wanted to have different covers—even for the first issue, there were three different covers. The cover really defines the brand’s identity, and you’re immediately immersed in beauty and elegance. And it’s true that Harper’s...
It’s actually quite interesting that it’s only finally being launched in France today, since after 155 years in the United States, France—the country of fashion—still didn’t have any versions of the brand. So we’re actually quite proud that Harper’s Magazine International chose us to develop this brand.
S.B.
But how does it actually work? Because these are licenses, right?
C.P.G.
Yes, that’s a license. We have a license from Harper’s, which really trusts us to launch the brand across most of the country and for the majority of French consumers. But then we have to build brand awareness here in France. We know what they’re talking about in the U.S.; we know how they infuse their brand DNA, but in France, we don’t interpret it the same way. And our French readership won’t have the same expectations. So it’s up to us to adapt—in fact, to translate—all of Harper’s DNA to the French market to truly meet the rather nuanced requirements of this brand in France for the French audience.
And to be perfectly honest, it’s been very helpful—we’ve actually run quite a few tests, and it’s Editor-in-Chief Olivier who’s really infusing that DNA into *Repense Bazar*. We’ve done some small tests with the tone, saying to ourselves, “Here we go…”
S.B.
It has to be incredibly subtle.
C.P.G.
We don’t want to be just another women’s brand that puts out magazines and digital content. It’s true that at Prisma, we know how to do women’s fashion and digital. And with *Femme Actuelle*, we have France’s leading women’s brand. But this time, we wanted something different. We really wanted to embody chic, fashion, and elegance at the level of a true high-quality magazine.
And besides, when you look at Harper’s, it’s still a 300-page magazine. So we do have a very, very beautiful magazine.
S.B.
You need a sturdy coffee table. Yes.
C.P.G.
That’s right! And what’s really surprising about Harper’s is that you always enjoy coming back to it. And that’s also the secret of coffee-table magazines—they’re not the kind of magazines that end up in the toilet after a while because you’ve already seen them. They’re beautiful magazines that become part of your decor.
If it moves from the coffee table to another piece of furniture—actually, it’ll move from the coffee table to your bookshelf, but the one you display as a showcase.
S.B.
But it’s interesting what you said about testing your brand’s tone—how we realize that even if we have, even if we know we have certain values, a certain vision, and a certain identity, the challenge is how to translate and convey that so the public ultimately understands what we’re trying to communicate. We’re chic, okay, but how do we pull off that chic look? How do we make it look chic in a 300-page magazine? How do we make sure readers understand that it’s chic and that it’s not just another run-of-the-mill fashion magazine?
C.P.G.
It really came down to the subtlety of deciphering the boldness we wanted to convey. That’s really what it’s all about. What’s interesting about being an SEO manager is that we’re always giving recommendations focused on the digital side—saying we need to optimize the title, keep it to 60 characters, and make sure the first 60 characters include a strong keyword. And while working with Emmanuelle Paul, who’s the digital editor at Harper’s, she told me, “But actually, that’s not Harper’s.” So we don’t want to do what everyone else does. We have our own personality; we want to say things, and we’re going to say them in a Harper’s tone. And so it’s ultimately up to us as SEO specialists to adapt by saying, “Look, we want to cover certain topics, but we’re not going to approach them the same way in Harper’s as we would in another magazine. In *Femmes Actuelles*, we’ll explain how to wear high-waisted pants based on your body type. In *Harper’s Bazaar*, we won’t mention body type at all. So we’re not at all the same. We’re talking about a voice that, sometimes, can’t be bought.”
S.B.
But I can really relate to what you’re saying, because it’s true that we at Assonance are in an advisory role. I mean, we’re very editorial, and so on—partly out of personal preference, because we enjoy that editorial aspect. But in our advisory role, it’s true that we’re frequently faced with this kind of situation where we have to strike a balance between what the metrics tell us, what would be best for driving traffic, what the product and marketing teams want, and the brand identity. And ultimately, I find that’s what makes it interesting—the way everyone brings their own input, requirements, and criteria, and we have to find a way to balance it all, because the decision isn’t necessarily pro-SEO, and I think we sometimes tend to forget that.
We’re focused on our goals and also on the metrics we ultimately have to report on. And it’s only natural—when it’s your job, of course you’re going to focus on your own criteria. But that’s exactly where I think it gets really interesting. In a way, it’s when the SEO criterion is set aside—not necessarily set aside, but at least used a bit more subtly. Often, those are the projects that are also the most interesting, or the most innovative, or the ones with the most personality.
C.P.G.
It’s true that I agree with you on that. We’ve heard a lot about E-E-A-T, especially in the context of SEO. And I’ll admit that at Prisma, it’s very easy to get the teams on board with E-E-A-T. When we talk about subject matter expertise, that concept of experience—you’ve tested it, you can attest to it. It really comes down to this concept of authority—especially with brands that are well-known. And even with brands that aren’t as well-known—if I tell you I’m going to bring you a magazine called *Miaou*, you know what it’s about. That’s exactly it. But actually, what’s quite interesting—and quite easy, when you think about it—is working with brands...
S.B.
hunting dog. That's it.
C.P.G.
who are truly committed to embodying these values. So we’re really focused on this concept of trust, and that brings me to the idea of trust that we at Prisma truly want to build with our users and readers. Today, we’re living in a world where AI is being tested extensively, and there are a lot of people around us who say, “Oh, look, that’s an easy topic—let’s test it by having the AI write a paragraph on it,” and… We’re testing it at Prisma too—let’s be honest—but we’re mainly testing it to identify the AI’s shortcomings and ask ourselves, “Where does Prisma stand in relation to that?” Can we have a policy where we truly provide transparent information to our readers to let them know that our articles are produced with journalistic integrity—that we verify our sources, we go out and gather the information, and the content is genuinely written by a human? So we’re also emphasizing this distinction to ensure quality and to always maintain that human touch in our content creation.
S.B.
Yeah, it’s true that it’s not easy. You see, for us as content creators—typically, I’d say between… because ChatGPT came out in late December, or something like that. In the first quarter of 2023, I didn’t have a single meeting—or, I’d say, any interaction at all—with anyone in my professional circle who didn’t ask me, “So, aren’t you a little worried? How do you think this is going to play out?”
C.P.G.
Yeah, that's right.
S.B.
And it’s a legitimate question, because it does raise some structural issues in terms of market positioning. And it’s true that, for our part, the stance we’ve taken is that we shouldn’t do away with AI, but we need to be aware of what it can’t do as well. We’ll go ahead with anything it can help us with, but anything we feel is important to keep to ourselves—ultimately, the purely editorial decisions, like determining whether a source is reliable based on our own criteria—we know we want to keep that. And ultimately, I don’t think it’s that interesting to ask what AI can do, because technically it can do anything eventually if you teach it, and so on. But there’s also the question of what we want to keep for ourselves. So I understand that aspect too—the value… Of saying, “Yes, we want to do things a certain way, and that implies certain things”—like saying “no” to methods we don’t want to use simply because we don’t want to; that can be a perfectly legitimate justification. But you see, with brands like Harper’s Bazaar, for example—where I imagine you have a voice as a designer or creator—every article ultimately becomes a trend-setter in its own right. So, I think it would be poorly received by the audience, by the readership, if they thought, “That article was just manufactured.”
C.P.G.
That’s pretty much it. So then, with LIA, we’re testing it as a way to save time so journalists can focus on what they love to do. And that’s kind of the underlying logic. So we’ve tested paragraphs generated by AI. Honestly, even with GPT-4 chat today, human expertise is still essential. And you see, for an article—let’s say 2,000 words—it takes at least two hours of proofreading to check the sources and the data, and in fact, very often it takes longer than if the journalist had written the article themselves. So this kind of process at Prisma—it couldn’t… Anyway, it wouldn’t interest journalists. And then…
S.B.
Actually, I’m thinking… There’s a level of trust because you trust what they’re saying.
C.P.G.
Oh, absolutely. And I think the media, generally speaking, has a role to play in a world where everything can be transformed—where everything is transformable. Whether it’s videos, photos, or text content. We saw this in a somewhat amusing way when people made Trump say whatever they wanted. Well, today that’s also part of the media’s role—to say, “Actually, no.” In real life, it doesn’t happen that way. And here’s what was actually said. And you come to us for the news because we don’t feed you nonsense just to get clicks; we provide you with real, verified content.
S.B.
Yes, ultimately, there’s a sort of growing gap between all the content we... I don’t like to say “low-end” because I don’t like that term in general, but there’s a difference between quick content and content that takes time—because of fact-checking, finding a specific person to write it or contribute to it—and I’ve come to realize that there’s a time factor, a time ratio, that’s important. Whether it’s the actual creation, fact-checking, or editorial process. I think that the more resources we have, the better equipped we are to speed up production, and the wider the gap will become between things that are done quickly and things that take time. It’s a bit like a phase of industrialization for intellectual tasks, but well, that’s a whole other topic.
C.P.G.
Then there are magazines like *Harper’s Bazaar*, where, to write an article and really set the tone, you have to go see the runway shows. So you’re not just writing all the time. You’re also dealing with imagery and emotion. You really get a lot of feelings out of it, actually. As a journalist covering this brand. If we take another publication like the Harvard Business Review, those are truly expert publications, so they involve a massive amount of work, etc., and they become practically a bible on a given topic. So there, you can’t just write anything either—maybe you can use AI to summarize what you’ll find in... in *Harper’s Bazaar* or *Harvard Business Review*, but in any case, those articles are truly in-depth and written with the professional expertise of the field. There are many media brands, and we also have in-house ones where journalists write. Really, it’s their go-to work—they write, conduct phone interviews, and work in what’s called a newsroom. With other magazines, you have journalists who actually go out into the field, interview their sources, attend photo shoots, and so on. And so, naturally, the brand’s DNA is reflected in that. There are brands with much lower output but exceptionally high quality, and there are brands with higher output where topics are covered from multiple angles to ensure all aspects are addressed, documented, structured, and properly sourced. And so… In both cases, you have two different ways of presenting the information you want to share.
S.B.
Yeah. Ultimately, the same information can be processed in completely different ways, and then I think to myself, there’s a certain aspect—not uniqueness, but a bit of singularity, I’d say. I mean... Yeah.
C.P.G.
And besides, on my team—for brands that cover similar topics, like *Voici*, *Femmes actuelles*, *Gala*, or *Téléloisirs*, which all cover celebrity news—I don’t use the same people. Because, in our SEO recommendations, for example, we need to capture the brand’s DNA and say to ourselves, “Well, ‘Ah, for *Voici* I can suggest this, I can suggest that tone, I can recommend writing about this celebrity,’ but for *Gala*, it’s completely different. They won’t write about that TV show, they won’t write about that celebrity, they won’t dwell on that person—and the same goes for *Téléloisirs* or *Femmes actuelles*. There really is a brand DNA that we have to align ourselves with. And we can’t give the same recommendation to different brands, even if they’re on the same topic.
S.B.
It’s funny because, you see, we—for example—since we’re an agency, we often wonder about the level of competition between the brands we work for. And sometimes, they’re in the same industry, or even in the same customer segment, I’d say. Usually, we ask them directly because we might run into problems, but it’s true that every now and then, we get the impression that these brands are similar when they’re actually not at all—because typically, you’re dealing with two travel brands: the customers of a so-called “budget” all-inclusive family package are completely different from those who buy tour packages. And yet both have all-inclusive packages; both sell all-inclusive travel—and that’s when you realize that, in fact, they’re not targeting the same people at all, and they don’t embody the same values or level of service. Because you can see, behind the scenes, the value of *Harper’s Bazaar*—which is to provide in-depth coverage—there’s also a bit of a service aspect to it. That means I expect someone writing for *Harper’s Bazaar* to have actually been to the runways. Ultimately, that’s what I expect from them—that they can convey that experience to me—whereas with another magazine that I might flip through at the hair salon, let’s say, it tells me what size or cut of pants to wear based on my body type. It’s not that I expect anything from it, but I figure, even if it’s a misunderstanding, I’ll learn something. My approach is already completely different.
C.P.G.
Yes, exactly. Besides, the magazine serves multiple purposes. When you flip through *Voici*, you know you’re doing it because it’s lighthearted, because it’ll make you laugh, because it’s light, and because in this ultra-violent world, at some point you need to disconnect and have a bit of entertainment. And that’s why you flipped through the magazine, even though there are some pretty serious exclusives in there as well.
S.B.
that we're waiting for.
C.P.G.
(12:26.899)
The tone is exactly the kind that will make you feel like you’re on vacation just by flipping through the magazine. When you flip through *Femme Actuelle*—and we’ve really ramped up our health coverage in recent years—all our articles are reviewed by a healthcare professional. You also have sources cited for the references used, so you know the information is completely reliable. It’s very accessible to the general public, but behind the scenes, you have real, factual information—and that’s where you completely shift away from an entertainment-focused tone. So, you really know what to expect from a magazine, and you can tell just by looking at the cover.
S.B.
But it’s a job in and of itself—I mean, you know, I think it’s important to remind people who are going to listen to or watch what we’re doing here that, in fact, there’s no leveling—there’s no “less” or “worse.” The fact that it’s lighthearted is also a form of work. And it’s a form of work that’s a job in and of itself, and these are experts who have the know-how to make it lighthearted while still teaching people things, yet still entertaining—even if it can no longer tell stories about life, a star’s life, or whatever—and even serious topics can be handled in a slightly lighter way. But all of that requires expertise behind the scenes, and ultimately there’s no value judgment about whether something is light or serious, because I think this aspect of quality content…
The word “quality” can mean very different things depending on a person’s objective. What you see, for example, at Harper’s Bazaar—you were typically talking about possible SEO recommendations if we went digital. But at Harper’s Bazaar, perhaps if we’re in the digital space, there might be an SEO expert who’ll one day say, “No, this isn’t high-quality content; I don’t have enough of this keyword,” whereas we believe the work we’ve done is high-quality.
C.P.G.
It’s interesting to work in a group where all areas of expertise collaborate across brands. As a result, no single area of expertise—whether editorial, social media, or SEO—can impose its choices on the others. In other words, if I go to Emmanuelle Paul and tell her, “Here’s a topic—it’s really important, and there’s real potential to tap into the Harper’s Bazaar audience,” she might not use a classic “schizophrenia” headline, but she’ll cover the topic, she’ll cover it with Harper’s editorial team. And what’s also quite interesting is that the editorial line isn’t identical across different reading channels—meaning you won’t have exactly the same tone, or at least, you won’t be using exactly the same messaging or the same approach if you’re proposing an editorial strategy for a magazine versus one for digital, and if, within digital, you’re publishing it on your website or on social media.
S.B.
Okay!
C.P.G.
You don’t use the same tone in *Gala* magazine as you do on TikTok, for example. You don’t use the same tone in *Femme Actuelle*, on digital platforms, or with the Simone brand on social media. So we also have the ability to tailor this service to the brands’ various communication channels. And that means you have a wide range of communication options that must reflect your brand’s voice, but which can be expressed differently depending on the channel you’re using.
S.B.
But I do like this kind of thinking—the idea that, ultimately, what matters most is conveying the brand’s DNA, so that consumers—let’s say consumers in the broadest sense—understand who the brand is, what it aims to embody, and what it actually embodies. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t adapt the way we do things to better reach our audience in the end.
C.P.G.
Yeah, exactly.
S.B.
Harpers, I think someone who has the courage to pick up a 300-page magazine isn’t necessarily in the same mindset as someone scrolling through TikTok. I’m just guessing, because I don’t know anything about TikTok, so I can’t really say.
C.P.G.
Exactly. And we’re not targeting the same audience. There’s another Prisma magazine called Flow that really embodies that mindset—let’s take the time to savor this reading experience, let’s look at the images, let’s read the short descriptions, let’s laugh when it’s entertaining, and let’s be serious when we need to be. And we really have this way of consuming the magazine that happens in stages—we’ll come back to it at different points in our lives. Compared to digital, where we’re really in the moment, we don’t necessarily take the time there. We’re really in “nibbling” mode. We know we’ll click on a news story because it’s on a site we like, or we won’t click because we know we’ll be bombarded with ads afterward, or because they’ll ask us to pay to read the article. It’s a really unpleasant experience. But there you have it—we’re truly living in the moment and snacking on information, a bit as if we needed to feed ourselves right then and there. So we’re really not operating within the same life dynamics.
S.B.
But what makes the brand you ultimately choose to put on your coffee table, out of all these options, stand out is that you truly choose it. You see, there’s a study by a French researcher named Arnaud Pêtre, published in 2007—a research study—that states that, on average, a person is exposed to 15,000 commercial stimuli every day. And back in 2007, we didn’t have TikTok, we didn’t have Instagram Reels, we probably had fewer ads, and we didn’t have Discover either. So today, that number is certainly at least ten times higher. But ultimately, amid all of that—all that exposure, whether it’s a commercial message, a brand, an ad, or a logo hanging around in a store—all of that.
In fact, you’ve still chosen a magazine to put on your coffee table. In fact, by doing that, you’re making a statement; you’re taking a stance on it. I see it the same way. I went to a home decor—or rather, furniture—store, and they handed me a catalog and said, “Here, you can put this on your coffee table; it doubles as decor.” I was encouraged to showcase the brand that was literally being handed to me to put on my table, to say, “Ah, this is a brand I like; I’m one of the people who buy this brand, and I really like that aspect of it.” It’s kind of like the syndrome where you’re 50 and don’t have a Rolex, you know? It’s the very social aspect of it all.
C.P.G.
So there was some negative buzz a while back involving a reality TV personality who was raving about the benefits of buying blank books to hide her magazines or other things inside them. And that made me laugh because I thought to myself: there really are people who are so ashamed of what they read that they buy blank books to hide them inside. And what’s pretty interesting is that we—well, in the Prisma universe—are pretty confident that with the topics we cover, we’ll never actually need to hide anything inside a blank book.
S.B.
You’re never ashamed of anything, are you? It’s true that hiding something you’re reading is… It’s kind of weird, though. But yeah, and then I think that… I think it’s interesting because there’s that part of you where you want to… Okay, you buy a brand, you buy a magazine because you know that, in principle, what that magazine is going to offer you is interesting to you. You follow the way you want to consume information—whether that means taking your time or just skimming—but in any case, you know where you’re going. And on top of that, you feel so connected to that brand that you make it part of your identity. You want people to know that you read Harper’s Bazaar—that you know what it is, that you read it, that you show it off, that you leave it on your car’s seat as if by accident. But… - No, don’t do that—it’ll turn yellow. - Exactly. And I think there’s also this aspect where it’s even more powerful because it’s an object you can display, and it can be consumed in different ways. You know, you were talking about *Discover*—I looked at the cover—and sometimes I’ve actually already “consumed” my *Discover*. Sometimes I click through, and it’s great, whereas with this magazine that you set down, you transform it afterward. At first it’s just content, but then you turn it into an object, and it becomes a bit multifaceted—I find that really, really funny.
C.P.G.
Yeah, and you actually have specific times when you read them. There are magazines you only buy when you’re taking the train, when you’re going to the beach, when you’re having cozy nights in, or when you’re planning your vacation. There really are magazines with specific times when people read them. I know that when it comes to your leisure activities during the Christmas season, there are specific times people look forward to as well. People tell themselves that it’s almost always the same Christmas movies, and so on. So they wonder, “When will I get to watch *Les Bronzés* again?” or “When will they rebroadcast *Asterix and Cleopatra*?” But you also have these somewhat seasonal events where you buy your magazine at that specific time. And what’s interesting is that, as you said, yes, there’s a difference in consumption patterns. Ultimately, when you look at people choosing their magazines, it’s really a deliberate choice—meaning they’ll already look at what’s inside, they’ll have already flipped through it, and it’s only once they’ve determined whether the magazine interests them that they’ll actually buy it to read it. So there really is this concept of “try before you buy” that’s been developed at Relay, for example.
S.B.
Sampling. I try a sample before I buy it. That wouldn’t be possible everywhere. You can’t… In every store, you… There are lots of things you can’t try before you buy. Theoretically, you can’t eat 3 or 4 grapes before buying the bunch. Well, yeah. That’s theft, ma’am. But reading a little bit—that’s not theft.
C.P.G.
That's right.
S.B.
Actually, what’s amazing is that there’s really so much to say about this in general, because what’s fun about brands—what I like about the concept of a brand—is that you take it, and it has its own DNA that it wants to establish, but then everyone does whatever they want with it afterward.
C.P.G.
Access to culture in French.
S.B.
You can also single out a brand just to hate it—to say, “I talk about this brand a lot, but only because I hate it and I hate its values.” And you can also... It can be associated with both positive things and very negative things, where... And that’s... And that’s where it gets interesting, because you... Even so, you can do whatever you want, but in the end, you can’t really control it, you know.
C.P.G.
There’s always an emotional element and a sense of attachment to a brand—whether positive or negative—though we certainly hope it’s mostly positive, because that’s what drives purchases. But that emotional connection is always there. And what’s really interesting is that we still have the impression that journalism is just journalism, and that the profession hasn’t changed all that much. But in fact, when you really look at the core of things, you see that it’s a profession that’s changing completely. We don’t use the same writing techniques anymore; ultimately, we don’t… even if we keep that core essence, the profession has evolved so much, and we’re constantly adapting through tests like… “Oh, you need to write a little more using keywords,” or “You have to write about these topics—that’s what the users want to read; that’s what they’re asking about.” Well, say you’ve written a hot article, but for Charles III’s coronation, you have to do a live update because there are people who aren’t in front of the TV, who don’t particularly want to watch TV, but who want that chronological breakdown and want to check the latest updates from wherever they are. So there really is this… this evolution in the profession across different channels. Similarly, a journalist who’s branching out into video isn’t doing the same job as before, when they just made a video to include an illustration in an article. Today, that video is shared on social media, where consumption patterns have changed. And how people consume content isn’t the same—whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or TikTok.
It’s really, really broad, and I think this is a profession with enormous potential for further evolution. It’s also very rewarding to work with journalists on different topics—since I’m lucky enough to work on virtually every topic in the world—but we do see real growth in story scriptwriting, because let’s not kid ourselves, Prisma is a media group that tells stories.
S.B.
That’s great. I think we’ll wrap it up there. Because this is starting to get a little long for the people watching or listening to us—who might not have all that much time, after all. Maybe I’ll have to edit some clips for them, to post on TikTok, specifically for them. Maybe—we don’t know. Maybe, thanks to you, I’ll become a media giant.
C.P.G.
That's all I wish for you.
S.B.
I'm not sure if I have the energy. In any case, thank you, Charlotte—thank you so much for your time. See you soon. You can find Charlotte on LinkedIn, but you might also run into her from time to time at trade shows and professional conferences—she's very nice, so be sure to treat her to some coffee and chocolates.
C.P.G.
Oh, don't have too much chocolate. Thanks.
S.B.
Not too much, not too much, not too much. Thank you!
