Saga magazine gets a new look

Saga recently celebrated its 60th anniversary and to mark this achievement the company that focuses on serving the needs of those aged 50 and over has undergone a redesign to give it a fresh new look. It has been 35 years since the company last rebranded and the new image will be rolled out across all the sub-brands including Saga’s magazine, travel, insurance,  financial, and care services from September.

Saga enlisted the help of Springetts, a brand design consultancy, to create the identity of the new masterbrand which includes a new logo. Springetts has reportedly said that the new identity is ‘more personal, emotive and hand scripted’ and that it feels it will better engage Saga’s over-50s target market. 

Saga magazine, the UKs biggest-selling monthly subscription title, with around 627,000 subscribers, was the first of the Saga brands to publicly display the group's new logo when it featured on the masthead of the July issue. However, this wasn't the only change for the mag, which also had a brighter, more contemporary new design and feel.

Whilst the new design has given the magazine a much-needed overhaul, Saga has gone one step further in an attempt to keep up with the demands of its readers, who have a surprising propensity for new technologies. Following a Saga-Populus Poll of 11,289 Saga customers, it was revealed that 21% owned a smart phone and 5% a tablet device. 

Of those with a smart phone, 67% use it to access the internet and 39% have downloaded apps, whilst 76% of tablet owners use it for surfing the web and 60% have downloaded apps. Of those Saga customers who do not own a mobile device, 10% expect to buy one or receive one as a present this year.

In order to service this technologically adventurous portion of its readership, Saga magazine has brought out its own app which allows the magazine to be read on smart devices and tablets. Editor Katy Bravery, commented: “People over 50 have taken up iPad usage avidly and I hope they are going to find both the brighter magazine and the app a lot of fun.

"Judging from both formal research and my post bag the kind of readers we have are all well ahead of the game and have evolved with the times: we have to keep up with them and their demands," says Bravery.