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  Banality Fair: A Disappointing Launch for Condé Nast in Germany

Banality Fair A Disappointing Launch for Condé Nast in Germany

By Markus Brauck

Part 5: Lots of Ideas, not All of them New

In any case, Poschardt generously provided plenty of space for Grönemeyer's campaign "Your Voice Against Poverty" and had pretty pictures taken of the singer and other do-goodish celebrities practicing their "I'm concerned about the world" pose. The line "The Stars' Appeal: Act Now!" was slapped onto the cover.

In the end, though, Vanity Fair gave much and received little in return. Guest editor-in-chief Grönemeyer didn't even show up at the editorial offices when the issue was produced. But he had been contacted, Poschardt assures: "He was traveling, on tour. We met him repeatedly. We spoke on the telephone daily, exchanged faxes and e-mails." And, anyway, the pictures were great, he adds.

And so the magazine sucks up to celebrities without being able to report anything interesting about them. Soap opera starlet Alexandra Neldel made it onto the cover of Vanity Fair just because her lawyer was able to ensure that a picture of her could be printed only if she also appeared on the front page.

Eight weeks after his resignation as head of Siemens's board of directors following a corruption scandal, Vanity Fair interviewed Heinrich von Pierer. "How are you?" the journalists asked him. "Are you playing more tennis again?" And then they segued pluckily: "So, the headlines from the last few weeks and months hasn't affected your serve?"

Half a year ago, German editors and journalists were still very jittery over Vanity Fair's launch here -- worried about whether or not the new magazine would succeed in doing what no one has been able to do for a long time: create a major stir on the German magazine market. Staffs at glossies like Bunte and Gala, which devote themselves to reporting on the lives of celebrities, were nervous. The staff at Stern was also tinkering with defensive measures and expecting the worst. But the earthquake everyone was expecting never came.

Germany's magazine business had been expecting a major, full-frontal attack led by Condé Nast -- large and powerful internationally and publisher of not only the US edition of Vanity Fair, virtually worshipped by many journalists, but also of the New Yorker and Vogue. But so far at least, there hasn't even been a faint tremor.

Instead, Condé Nast's German publisher, Bernd Runge, is now having a hard time convincing people that Vanity Fair actually has the circulation of 120,000, "on average, from issue to issue," that he claims. The number of subscribers is above 20,000 he says, but he provides no other figures.

He has, however, announced that the magazine will publish its circulation figures during the third quarter. But circulation will be difficult to verify. The calculations provided by the wholesalers who distribute the magazine via newsstands are known. Wholesalers have calculated that most of the recent issues of Vanity Fair sold less than 50,000 copies there. In addition, there are the subscribers. The remaining issues would have to be sold mainly at train stations or airports. The figures that have been circulated are all wrong, Runge claims, before adding that he doesn't obsess about circulation. "We're in the process of building a major brand. That's more important than the question of whether the print run is 10,000 more or less."

Still, it doesn't say much for Vanity Fair that neither the editor-in-chief nor the publisher are very interested in circulation. Or the fact that the magazine's editors are noted mainly for their pompous white offices on Berlin's elegant boulevard Unter den Linden, dubbed "white hell" by some who work in the giant space. Poschardt also once reflected on the "search for meaning in a white desert." But that wasn't in Vanity Fair; it was in his book "Cool." He was refering there to the phenomenon known as "whiteout," which afflicts scientists exploring arctic regions. During their wanderings through ancient landscapes of ice, they lose their sense of orientation as the snow and the whiteness of the sky flicker in front of their eyes.

"During the whiteout of what never changes, arctic ice evokes closeness to nirvana," wrote Poschardt, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy and doesn't mind it when people notice that fact.

Somehow the magazine is threatening to disappear in the nirvana of what never changes -- more rather than less, so far. And the road to becoming a must-have accessory is still a long one.

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