by Herman Manson (@marklives) Fairlady, Home and Ideas, all magazines in the Media24 stable, recently jettisoned their brands’ online presence and instead decided to invest in creating a new digital portal and brand, Dailyfix, to serve as a combined online home for their respective audiences. We talk to publisher Marina Smith about the strategy.
MarkLives: What is the thinking behind combining the online audiences for Fairlady, Home and Ideas? 
Marina Smith: Fairlady, Home and Ideas have joined forces to create a fresh digital portal, Dailyfix.co.za. This property offers a daily lifestyle fix to grown-up, stylish women and delivers one of South Africa`s most-desirable female digital audiences to advertisers.
Dailyfix was created to respond to the market trend of visually driven content and give advertisers the opportunity to connect to significant, targeted audiences. The aim is to deliver a larger daily audience than what is possible for the individual brands.
Dailyfix covers 12 broad content categories — Lifestyle, Recipes, Beauty & Fashion, Work & Money, Home, Garden, Wellness, Crafts, Win, Wedding, Test House and SHOP, all powered by content from Fairlady, Home and Ideas magazines.
The Dailyfix crew has access to a massive volume of archived content and are able to repackage just about any category, as well as produce web-only content for audiences and advertising clients. With the Pinterest-inspired design, the site is wonderfully visual and can offer users and sponsors galleries and videos. The site is fully responsive and equally useful and beautiful on smartphones, tablets and desktops.
MarkLives: Does it not dilute the brands of the three print titles?
Smith: Not at all, on the contrary, it further cements these brands as some of the most important vehicles giving clients insight and access to desirable South African female audiences. The brands continue to connect to their individual social media audiences and cross-market via Dailyfix.
MarkLives: What role did the cost of running three different brands online vs one combined brand online play in the creation of Dailyfix?
Smith: Cost is obviously an important factor, but it is not the no. 1 driving force behind the decision. Our no. 1 driver is to deliver depth of content to consumers and significant scale to advertisers.
MarkLives: Who takes editorial responsibility for the site — a new team or the existing magazine teams?
Smith: Existing magazine teams — collaborating in a fresh way — each taking responsibility for specific categories. The Dailyfix content editor sets the tone for the portal.
MarkLives: Is this a model you would consider for other Media24 titles serving similar audiences?
Smith: It is theoretically possible, but would depend on many factors. We are currently exploring various approaches.
MarkLives: What is the business model for Dailyfix?
Smith: Very desirable audiences are delivered to clients through driving traffic on the portal, social media platforms as well as daily newsletters covering a multitude of subjects. Dailyfix gives advertisers the opportunity to connect to significant, targeted audiences.
MarkLives: What are your audience projections looking like?
Smith: Watch this space.
MarkLives: How does the site fit into your online ecommerce strategy, which seems to be driven by Spree.co.za?
Smith: The Dailyfix portal fully supports Spree.co.za and the teams work closely together, as well as with other e-commerce partners.
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