IPC to launch stand-alone home interest web portal

by Robin Parker, Media Week 17-Apr-07, 09:00

LONDON - IPC is to launch its first stand-alone website next month targeting the home interest market and has hired Julie Stuckes, Future's head of new-media operations, to develop further digital projects for its homes and women's lifestyle division, Southbank.

The homes portal will not carry a magazine brand and will contain original content, but will link to sites for Ideal Home, Living Etc and Homes & Gardens, which generate two million page impressions per month between them.

IPC also publishes allthingshome.co.uk, an online directory linking to more than 120,000 interior decoration retailers, which carries branding for its six home interest magazines.

Home interest is a mature magazine market with little growth and recent launches 4Homes and Inside Out folded in less than a year.

But Jackie Newcombe, managing director of IPC Southbank, sees a wider audience online. She said the site would exploit IPC's heritage in a sector where it has a 40% share by retail sales value.

"Because of the sheer scale of the content we have, we'll be able to extend our footprint a long way," she said. "Despite our dominance of this magazine sector, there are a lot of home owners who don't read any homes magazine."

In the newly created role of IPC Southbank digital development director, Stuckes will drive new projects and look at ways of extending magazine brands online.

At Future, she launched more than 50 sites, most recently technology news portals techtested.co.uk and techdaily.co.uk.

As well as homes titles, IPC Southbank also publishes websites for Woman & Home, Practical Parenting, Wallpaper and Marie Claire.

Next month, it is set to launch the UK website for fashion magazine InStyle, www.instylemagazine.co.uk, five years after bringing the US title to the UK.

Southbank titles Essentials, Wedding, Hair, Country Homes & Interiors, 25 Beautiful Homes and 25 Beautiful Kitchens currently have no individual websites.

Last week, the division announced plans to host galleries and audio content from exhibitions and events on Wallpaper's website, following the appointment of Kay McMahon as the site's digital director.