Onward with Olivia

On Saturday May 29, girls named Olivia across Finland will be celebrating their name day - and Finland's Olivia magazine will be celebrating along with the rest of them. Olivia, which was launched in 2007, has plenty of reason to celebrate. The magazine is already turning a profit and it not only has the fastest growing readership of any magazine in the highly competitive Finnish media market (133,000 and up 20 percent from 2009), it is also No. 3 in ad sales.

"When we started Olivia, we realized that what was missing in the Finland was a niche magazine for the 30-40-year-old woman who follows trends and social changes but also wants something upmarket," says Marjaana Toiminen, President for Bonnier Publications Oy. "Our readers want to shop - and save the world."

The magazine was the first of a series of magazines that Bonnier Publications Oy has been developing - it was followed by interior design magazine Divaani in 2008 and health and lifestyle magazine Evita in 2009. The idea behind Olivia and its sister magazines, which face fierce competition in a small country where virtually everyone reads magazines, is to find a niche not being served and build on trends.

"Our mission is to help readers make better decisions - both big and small," says Niina Leino, editor-in-chief. "When we first developed the magazine, we weeded out everything that didn't help the mission." What Leino and her team ended up with is clean cover with a white background and a somewhat classical layout.

"Everything is as clear as possible and every single text tells a story, including photo captions," says Leino. "Our readers may be interested in beauty trends, but they want substance as well. So Olivia is just the right combination of fashion and emotion. We use some of the best writes around, and most of our editors haven't even come from other women's magazines." Clearly they are doing something right as the numbers show - and the magazine has won prizes as well, garnering several Finnish Magazine Awards for both its design and journalism.

An add-on to Olivia's success is the online site Oliva.fi, which is connected to the magazine but very much has a life of its own. "The site is based very much on bloggers who write a lot," says Leino. Only about 10 percent of the site comes directly from the magazine.  There are currently some 22,000 unique readers and 500,000 monthly page views at Olivia.fi, making it a real community on the web, and it is the No. 1 site for women in Finland. There is also a loyal "fan" base of some 8,000 members who regularly participate in surveys for a range of purposes both for the magazine and for its advertisers.

As for the name day celebration, Olivia will be taking over Helsinki's central shopping mall near the bus station. "We'll be holding the first-ever high heel race here, with proceeds going in part to charity," says Elisa Yli-Saari, marketing director. "It's going to be an exciting day."