New Beer Store Magazine

[Cass]

Beer Store to hand out free magazine

Ontario beer drinkers will soon have a cool new magazine to chill out with.

Chill will arrive in The Beer Store Aug. 18. It will publish six times a year, with a print run of 200,000 copies per issue. Publisher Chill Media Group is an affiliate of Bedrock SMG in Toronto, the promotions agency for The Beer Store.

"The (target) Chill reader is not a pretentious kind of guy," says publisher Scott Stevenson. "It will celebrate what it is...to be an average guy." Content centres on humour and the love of beer, says Stevenson.

"There are between four and six million Beer Store transactions each month," says Stevenson. "The LCBO has its Food & Drink magazine. The Beer Store needed something similar to tell consumers about the positive benefits of The Beer Store."

The free magazine is being launched as part of the ongoing revitalization of The Beer Store. It is spending close to $30 million per year to gradually renovate all its retail outlets.

The launch will be supported with in-store materials, as well as postcards to be stuffed into beer cases. Chill Media is also in negotiation with Toronto-area radio broadcasters, as well as specialty television stations.

Advertisers for the launch issue include both microbreweries and the big brewers, Molson and Labatt. Other advertisers include BMW Mini, Harvey's and VIA Rail, as well as other automakers, fastfood chains and male-lifestyle advertisers.

[Jon Walker]

If only some of the revitalization money was going toward a better beer selection OR an attempt within this new magazine to broaden some "average guy" perspectives on quality beer. It'll likely be nothing more than a sales tool to further push macro swill.

I rarely buy my beer in the beer store anyway so I'm not the target market.