Car Guide magazine is teaming up with the Sing Tao chain of daily newspapers to publish a Chinese-language version, hoping to extend the consumer car mag’s already considerable reach deep into Canada’s fastest-growing ethnic community.
The Oakville, Ont. publication already whips formidable u.s. competitors like Car & Driver and Road & Track on Canadian newsstands, but the large, affluent and fairly untapped Chinese market is proving to be an irresistible growth opportunity.
The new version will spike Car Guide’s 84,735 English-language circulation by almost 60% when the Toronto edition of Sing Tao begins distributing it as a Saturday insert on Oct. 18. That’s an additional controlled circulation of 49,700.
‘We started kicking this idea around about a year ago,’ says Lionel Cole, special projects manager for Car Guide. ‘We looked for partners that were capable of delivering the right kind of audience and Sing Tao’s legitimacy in the Chinese marketplace made it the obvious choice.’
The English and Chinese versions will be nearly identical, says Cole, though the Chinese version seems to have piqued the interest of more upscale manufacturers like bmw and Lexus.
In terms of editorial, autos on the other end of the style continuum (pickup trucks, for example) are pretty much non-existent in Canada’s Chinese communities, so those types of product reviews probably won’t be present. Other than that, it will be the same bi-monthly magazine, with the Chinese version appearing about 10 days after the English.
To help overcome cultural differences and effectively promote the magazine, Car Guide executives worked with TM Promotions, a Toronto-based specialist in marketing to the Chinese community.
‘There really haven’t been any problems bringing the new version together,’ Cole says, ‘It’s just been a matter of arriving at dates and timing.’
He says a number of ethnic advertising agencies that specialize in adapting English-language creative for the Chinese market have already volunteered to adapt existing creative or inspect translated work to ensure it is culturally acceptable.
‘We’ve had a lot of cooperation within the community because there’s demand for this type of publication,’ says Cole.
If the Toronto launch is successful, Cole says Calgary and Vancouver are next. Car Guide’s existing salesforce will handle national ads, while retail ad sales will be handled by salespeople at Sing Tao’s Toronto offices.
Formula Publications, which publishes Car Guide, already publishes a successful French-language version for the Quebec market. Its circulation is 39,000.
It is understood a rival publication, The Chinese Guide to Luxury Vehicles, is slated to start publication in November. It’s a joint venture between The Toronto Star and its subsidiary, the Metroland group of community newspapers.
