Tim Noakes

0:24Can you hear me all right great hello my name is tim knox I'm the editor-in-chief of dazed and confused magazine and daysdigital.com thanks to snystat for inviting me tonight it's it's good to see such a great turnout I just thought I'd give you a bit of a background on what days is because some people I meet have no idea what it is and some people you know go crazy and know wow my god you work for days so I thought I'd give you a bit of a background to what it is so days is in short well what I tell advertisers at least is the most influential independent fashion and youth culture movement in the world you know.

1:11That's not hyperbole I promise it was set up nearly 24 years ago by jefferson hack and rankin the photographer while they were still students at lcp which is an amazing achievement they actually were at the forefront of the desktop publishing revolution in the early 90s and you know in conjunction with a successive team or visionary writers editors stylists photographers days has established itself as one of the world's leading independent style titles in the world it's it's always been at the forefront of breaking new talent that's what we pride ourselves on is it's identifying and emerge the emerging talent that's really going to change pop culture fashion and you know it's going to be the people that you're listening to next year over over the years we've kind of been instrumental in launching careers of people like alexander mcqueen the chapman brothers lana del rey the xx odd future asap the ant ward so on. And so on you know it's a long list and I'm very proud to be part of that lineage because we don't actually know what we're doing half the time it's days to survive and even thrive by doing the things that creative britain is good at so the observer said to me.

2:36But I think for me it's quite an interesting journey that I've been on personally because like caroline said in the intro I I started as a an intern there when I was select college down the road on brick lane I had no idea what I wanted to do I thought I was going to be a rat producer I thought I was going to be the next next up to dre obviously I've got to look for it.

3:00But then you know I I I sent off like three this is actually kind of pre-internet and kind of that's how old I am but I sent off loads of kind of application letters to everyone I thought of because I had to do kind of a print product placement and I just got refusal letters you know you're not experienced enough you don't know what you're talking about you know we need people from cambridge we need you know whatever and days were the only one of the only people who said yeah come in and have a chat chat to us.

3:32So I got in there and kind of I stayed there I basically didn't I just didn't leave and I just found out that. There was this place that you could kind of get sent free music and get paid for it and also go and interview some of the biggest stars in the world.

3:47So I was like that's a job. That's amazing so I kind of stuck with it and kind of really learned on a job and and really kind of found like a place that really I don't know just just had this kind of really independent anarchic spirit that really tied into me as a as an outsider I was a skater I hated school. And it just seemed to be something that just really resonated with me. So yeah.

4:14So I kind of I've worked my way up and you know it's taken a while but it's it's been an amazing journey and kind of the the the last few years of days has been the most transformative in its history last thursday we actually launched our spring issue which is our extreme issue which I've put a few out there so you can go and ho home and have a read of it with yolandi vissa from the ant ward again a huge internet star a burgeoning fashion icon and for every issue launch we kind of tend to do a big moment so the last one we had kendall jenner on the cover and we did this kind of big film about her burn book and she was addressing all the haters and it went out there and you know it had like three million views within a couple of days and just drove people back to our website created buzz and it's just a you need something like that in this day and age of print publishing to really get people excited about your product for this one it came out last thursday because it's all about extreme characters I thought instead of doing a film I'm just going to put up an exclusive print feature from the magazine so I decided to upload my interview with marilyn manson the antichrist superstar and you know the interview itself is quite you know interesting we talked about kind of love heartbreak porn he also told me to off he called me a cnc and threatened to put a gun in my mouth and you know but most importantly he put it on his facebook channel and you know that went out to 6.9 million people. And in the space of three days that one piece of content on our website was seen by 200 000 people you know uniques had over 30 000 facebook likes went on all this you know pinterest instagram so and so forth so you know I guess that's the the first rule of publishing is kind of put your life on the line for the likes but not really I mean it's just kind of you really got to work with the people you profile to help believe in what you're doing you know I've never really we at days we never really see us as just kind of hey let's talk about your album let's put it out there you know I don't really care about that I'd rather talk about the person who makes it or kind of the life behind it and and and all the people that we profile in the magazine on the website have that kind of ethos as well. And so a lot of them even if they want to put a gun in your mouth they're kind of like happy to kind of support what you do so if any of you out. There are trying to publish your own magazines please just kind of just make sure when you're profiling people you know don't don't compromise your journalistic sensibilities but make sure that they believe in what you're doing so you can also you know because if they get more publicity they're going to sell x amount of whatever.

7:21So it all works out for everyone so I definitely think that's been a big kind of evolution for us a year ago that kind of reach would have been unthinkable not two years ago even because when I took over as editor-in-chief at dazed it kind of you know stagnated a little bit there'd been you know it it was tough times for the print industry as you know as steve was saying it's kind of like people bemoaning the death of prince is print dead it's not dead at all but whether people are going to buy a magazine every month is a different matter so what we did with the publishers we really looked at kind of what does it mean to be a magazine in this day and age what do people want you know do you. Actually go out there and buy as many magazines as you did you you probably don't you probably look at it mostly on your on your phones on your website you know through facebook. So on. And so forth so I kind of got in there and spent like six months really stripping it back to the bone starting from scratch you know it's kind of it was a great opportunity for me to actually look at the team and kind of really pick people who are the best in their field diverse talents from very different backgrounds very opinionated never agree with me or anyone else but that's what makes it it's a creative boiling point it's like you you need that kind of creative conflict to to make the best product so I put together a team I unified the print and the digital teams because for three four years up until that point they've been treated as very distinct entities which is a massive fail in my book. So unified it believes you know it's one editorial team one message with a digital first publisher with an amazing magazine so we adapted to the changing reader's habits as you can see we taking we took the print frequency down from monthly to six issues a year made it seasonal to hit the fashion weeks and obviously appeals to advertisers we managed to reinvest that money into making a better product as you can see some of the magazines that you've got tonight it's a very premium product it's thick it's consistently the same size whereas beforehand it would kind of fluctuate and it gives you know it gives pages to the best photographers in the world to show what they're the best and stylists you know.

10:07This is the place to go if you want to be taken seriously in the fashion industry so the magazine took on a lot more of a fashion focus. And then.

10:17I also managed to get that money and invest in more staff for days digital and then for that you know I kind of with the team managed to grow the site to where whereas before once it was seen as a you maybe go there once a week probably once a month to kind of see what kind of stuff we're talking about.

10:43But that was no good you you can't adapt you you gotta adapt or die and basically.

10:50So we we changed it we integrated we we got a news team two very talented news writers and we upload currently at least 15 pieces of new content a day today.

11:07I think we hit 22 because it's london fashion week but that's the point you need to be in that discussion if you're not in a daily discussion you're nowhere so you need to be in it.

11:19So that's been one of the biggest turning points in the kind of focus of days publishing over the last two years kind of changing it from a kind of a monthly kind of print focus to being digital first making news a priority but not neglecting the fact of what you can do as a publisher on different mediums here's some lovely stats I get quoted every day by my team as you can see you know we've got huge social reach that's our readership up there it's 18-34 a lot of people are surprised that our readership is 65 female and 35 male which is great because kind of that's the that is the kind of demographic that we really aim for is the the perfect kind of mix as far as I'm concerned and then you know and and then what is very important to me like I said with the marilyn manson example is that our content is optimized for sharing because you know it's about personal recommendations that's what days is about it's about curation it's about personal recommendations it goes to the ethos of what we're all about.

12:35So I'd rather get you know one of you recommending the article rather than kind of google pushing it at you and just saying okay this is just something you need to read so our news kind of proposition I call it a daily dose of cultural anarchy and you know it's it covers so many different things but what I really like about what we do is that we actively engage with our readers and their interests and champion causes that are really key to them.

13:05And some of the foundations of what we've seen is very key to today's youth culture is lgbt rights it is women's rights it's multiculturalism and fears about surveillance society and ultimately the freedom of expression.

13:24So these things we get behind actively and support them you know when putin was kicking up about lgbt rights at the winter olympics we went for him you know you got to kind of you've got to stand for something if you don't stand for anything you know it's just what are you doing as a publisher.

13:41And then obviously we on the days that we're not kind of trying to topple you know russian oligarchs we're kind of trying to kind of just comment and get in the discussion with an original point of view because at the end of the day you know you need an original point of view with whatever you're doing you know however you kind of publish however you kind of write whatever you if you're bloggers if a photographer just get an original point of view because you know that is the foundation of any successful project it is fashion week at the moment and we've really kind of made massive inroads than that our show reports are live within four hours we've got some of the best experimental and strong backstage imagery in on the internet and we've I held a review of the site at the beginning of the year because like I said you need to keep switching up you can't just like rest on your laurels and I wanted to look at what was really working with the website and how how we could make it better and one of the things was we needed more opinion when it came to fashion it's one thing kind of going to you know marquis almeida or you know gareth pew or we know it's fine saying what the clothes look like but what are they saying what are they saying to the people who actually you know invest in fashion and you know the the fans you know what does it mean and so you know we we've decided to conscientiously make a more opinion-led pieces about the state of fashion. And we did this piece I'm not sure if any of you are fashion followers in here but rick owens obviously sent a lot of guys down a runway a couple of weeks ago with their willies hanging out and you know we put up a comment piece about you know why is that a taboo when you have you know it's seen as kind of okay for women to kind of get their boobs out but as soon as a man gets his schlong out you know it's kind of like oh my god what the the world's coming to an end no that's rubbish just like no you've got to take him to task so and that you know by even having that opinion and just writing it in a way that engage with our audience had 2.1 million impressions on that we live stream every major fashion show as well a big thing that we've got also is a video we've expanded massively into video over the last year. And we give a platform to some of the leading authors in the world to use days as a platform to show their kind of creativity so people like james franco vivian westwood bjork is upcoming fk twigs has done one so on. And so forth so it goes back to what I was saying it's not just about you know reporting on new trends and and just showing you what kind of new bands coming up it's giving the artists who are creating that inspire our readers a platform to to showcase original work.

16:45And we want to budget and pay for that because you know we want to be in the discussion with you obviously you've got to pay for this somehow and we found that you know advertising is still strong it's very strong in the print sector with fashion high luxury fashion advertising is still very strong it's growing in a digital but there's no real real real cash when it comes to banner advertising and so on. And so forth so we created a white label offshoot of dazed and this is to kind of create branded projects without an editorial insight to partner with brands to create new work that they couldn't get anywhere else and so you know we've worked with brands like nike beats versace all saints diesel and samsung to create this. And so you know to sum up you know it's been an amazing amazing kind of a couple of years it's like I said it's been the most transformative couple of years I've ever seen at days and so you know if you if any of you out there wanting to get into publishing or you are publishing I think it's kind of for me you need to focus on getting the right team around you whether. That's just you and your mate just believe in each other believe in what you're doing just focus on getting that team right if you don't have the right team you've got nothing always evolve and adapt to changing landscape of publishing don't rest on your laurels switch up constantly just keep switching up get into the daily news cycle make sure people have a reason to come back and see you every day just come back check check check offer the artists a profile that they won't get anywhere else a platform to showcase new work use your connections to get branded work and most importantly do everything you can to piss off marilyn manson thank you very much