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»Pensioners-Bravo« title page: Dr.
Sommer advises on potency problems with high blood pressure
Photo:
Wort & Bild Verlag
Many readers of the »Apotheken Umschau« already know from their youth and young adulthood by Udo Jürgens that life begins at the age of 66.
At least if the cliché about the target group of “pharmacies around the world” is correct: The customer magazine has long been nicknamed “Pensioner Bravo”.
Now the »Apotheken Umschau« itself is 66 years old - in 1956 the paper was published for the first time by Wort & Bild Verlag, which at the time already had a booklet for drugstore customers on offer.
Initial circulation of the »Apotheken Umschau« at that time: 50,000 copies - around 2011 the circulation was ten million copies.
To celebrate its 66th birthday, the health magazine is now available in pharmacies on Saturday with special pages that were created in cooperation with »Bravo«, which was also founded in 1956: Self-deprecatingly titled »Pensioner Bravo«, the title already has a »Star« Report on the Virus VIPs «promised - Karl Lauterbach, Sandra Ciesek and Christian Drosten are shown - because after all:» Super Science!
Corona makes science a star «.
Inside the special section there is a more detailed overview of the well-known “Who's Who in the fight against Corona” under the heading “New Profs on the Block”.
However, if you had hoped for a star cut by the title heroes, you will be quietly disappointed - but the anniversary year has only just begun, maybe the editors in Baierbrunn will take up the idea for a sequel to collect?
Potency problems instead of petting
A comic inspired by the “Bravo” photo love story is very charming, in which a pharmacist from the next table can help out a hypoglycemic diabetic on an unfortunate date with gummy bears - from which a romance develops. In addition to advertising revenue, the “Apotheken Umschau” business model is based on the fact that pharmacies buy the magazines from the publisher - in order to make them available free of charge for the purpose of customer loyalty.
The »Pensioners-Bravo« presents its competence in health issues in its version of the classic advice section »Dr. Summer «- only that this is not about the first petting, but about» blood pressure reducers as lust killers «or possible connections between potency problems and the risk of heart attack. Opposite is, by the way, an exchange advertisement for the »Bravo«: A »Bravo Heroes« special issue about Abba is being advertised. The first issue of this spin-off series had the motto "Back to the 90s" and the Backstreet Boys on the cover - but that was a different target group.
The anniversary part is concluded in a more classic way with an interview with the actress, presenter, doctor and bestselling author Marianne Koch - the now 90-year-old was both a columnist for the »Apotheken Umschau« and a front page star for »Bravo« in her long life.
Action with a "wink"
As successful as the self-deprecating look at the mocked image of the »Apotheken Umschau« is, the gesture is not free from contradictions.
On the one hand, the editorial team celebrated its own long story in 2019 on Instagram (of course with the hashtag #rentnerbravo) and nice retro lines like "The 4 dangerous F: after-work, felt slippers, television, bottled beer".
On the other hand, Julia Rotherbl said when she took office as a member of the editor-in-chief in March 2021: "I want to get away from the image as a pensioner Bravo."
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"Apotheken Umschau" - Editor-in-Chief Ballwieser
Photo: Anne Hufnagl / Wort & Bild Verlag
Ten months later you can even hold an explicit "Pensioner Bravo" in your hand.
How does that fit together?
Rotherbl's colleague in the editor-in-chief, Dennis Ballwieser, says: “We are free to play self-ironically with the image given by others and to make it clear where there are similarities, but where there are also differences.
We also see the current anniversary campaign with a wink. "
And so it can only be said with a wink that the anniversary campaign also serves to support circulation: The general trend away from print magazines, coupled with the closure of many pharmacies, is also noticeable in the number of copies of the »Apotheken Umschau« - albeit a circulation of 7,605,456 copies sold monthly in the third quarter of 2021 was still stately.
"More than one in four Germans aged 14 and over reads it monthly," Ballwieser explains proudly.
Numbers that not only the "Bravo" can dream of.
And yet it could be that she helps her peer to run a little in the pharmacies.
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