With sales growth of 14.5% in 2007, Paris Match launches a campaign featuring a new trademark phrase in 2008

Lagardère Active’s Paris Match – France’s leading pictorial weekly newsmagazine (in fifth place worldwide) – boosted its performance in 2007 by adding 270,000 readers (up 6.2% – AEPM 2006-2007), thus becoming a Top 10 French magazine title with nearly 4.6 million readers and paid circulation in France of 655,000 copies, up 8.8% (source: OJD).

Set to celebrate its 60th anniversary next year, Paris Match wanted to restate its philosophy in 2008, something the magazine has not done in 15 years. According to Olivier Royant, the magazine’s editorial director, “This campaign offers us a chance to explain our perspective on life. In this increasingly dehumanized world, which speaks in figures and where news is quite often an abstraction, Paris Match wants to serve as a point of reference, aiming to offer a more human perspective on the world with no fear of expressing our emotions. Our journalism is fundamentally people-centric.”

This statement of perspective is being disseminated via a comprehensive, multi-level campaign. After working with agency FFL Paris on brand fundamentals, Paris Match is launching a multimedia campaign on 23 January. In the view of Fred & Farid and Christophe Lambert, “This campaign presents an opportunity to launch a major new trademark phrase for the Paris Match brand to replace the now-legendary ‘Le poids des mots, le choc des photos’ (‘The weight of words, the impact of photos’). In this era of the Internet, 24-hour news channels and trashy celebrity magazines, Paris Match needed to redefine its raison d’être, value-added and unique perspective on its mission in order to steadily expand readership. ‘La vie est une histoire vraie’ (‘Life is a true story’) is slated to become the brand’s new creed for years to come.”

A new campaign for a new trademark phrase:
“Paris Match, la vie est une histoire vraie”
(“Paris Match: life is a true story”)

A comprehensive new campaign via TV, film, display advertising, print media and the Internet