Terry Mansfield is celebrating 40 years in the media industry. A
fortnight ago, he announced his successor as managing director of the
National Magazine Company. You could be forgiven for thinking that this
meant he was nearing the end of an illustrious career. But you’d be
wrong.
’For me this is only the beginning,’ he says smoothly. ’I haven’t
started the rest of my career in the media business.’ Mansfield’s pipe
and slippers will have to wait.
Approaching his 60th birthday, Mansfield is an accomplished
ringmaster.
His slight, immaculately dressed frame fits effortlessly into the
austere surroundings of the boardroom, where a simple working lunch has
been transformed into salmon on watercress, a heaped plate of exotic
fruits and a good bottle of French dry white wine.
The boy from Walthamstow has done good. His smooth, crisp accent
indicates he has moved up in the world and learned how to package
himself. According to Mandy Pooler, chief executive of MindShare UK:
’Terry is like a walnut whip - he’s got a very tough exterior but he’s a
very honest man with quite old-fashioned values underneath that.’
Mansfield started off at 16 in the postroom of the London advertising
agency, D. H. Brocklesby. ’I’ve been in this business as long as Peter
Mead, except that he looks younger than me,’ he quips.
In his 29 years at NatMags, he has launched ten magazines, kicked off
successful events such as the Cosmopolitan and Country Living shows,
been the first to tackle masthead TV with the launch of the Good
Housekeeping Institute programme and the Zest Beauty Show and developed
numerous brand extensions from House Beautiful carpets to a line of
Cosmo lingerie.
Simon Kippin, publishing director of Good Housekeeping who has worked
with Mansfield for 14 years, says: ’He’s always the one with five ideas
a minute. He’s a great ideas man.’
The only area where he has not taken a lead is launching an online
service, as Pooler points out. ’Nicholas (Coleridge) beat him to it with
the Conde Nast website. That’s the only time he has been beaten.’
Mansfield’s first step into the magazine industry was in 1961 when he
joined Conde Nast as assistant advertisement manager for Photography
magazine.
Although the pay was poor, he had struck gold in terms of the people he
worked with. ’I spent my 21st birthday on Christmas Island (doing
national service) with over 4,000 men and just two women, and it made up
my mind that I didn’t want to work with men again. When I came back, I
had the option of joining Conde Nast from (the ad agency) S. H. Benson,
and I was mesmerised because there were so many girls there.’
In 1966, Mansfield became a senior sales rep on Queen magazine, edited
by the irrepressible Jocelyn Stevens. Mansfield recalls one occasion
when Stevens was on the phone to Princess Margaret while Mansfield was
trying to tell him about a problem with the advertising pages. Stevens
said to the Princess: ’Tell him he’s doing very well,’ before handing
over the phone to Mansfield, who then heard the Princess saying: ’I hear
you’re doing very well.’ It was a typical gesture and the kind of
encouragement which meant a lot to Mansfield. ’When you’re in your
twenties, that makes anything possible in your head.’
’Anything’s possible’ is a maxim that is still at the forefront of
Mansfield’s thoughts, as are two other magic words: ’intellectual
rights’. These are key to the strategy being forged by NatMags and its
parent company, the Hearst Corporation.
’I don’t see NatMags as just being NatMags, but a communications
company, and the magazines are the catalyst for all the possibilities,’
Mansfield explains. ’National Geographic started out as a magazine and
now it has a TV channel in 47 countries. Intellectual rights have a
great future.’
In Mansfield’s mind, the brand that is most likely to become a TV
channel is the company’s leading glossy, Cosmopolitan. ’It has the
potential because a lot of existing films and dramas would suit the
brand. But the content would have to be right.’
Mansfield has other plans for Cosmo, which already has brand extensions
in areas such as food, drink, clothing and bedding. He declares: ’I am
mad about a Cosmo Cafe, which I believe has tremendous
possibilities.
We are talking to a number of companies in the restaurant and leisure
business, but we haven’t found a partner yet who has that vision we’re
looking for. I want the Cosmo Cafe to be special. It would be in London,
Leeds and Manchester.’
He is also toying with the idea for a Cosmo yoghurt. ’It would be a
natural yoghurt and you’d feel it would be doing you good.’ Mansfield is
so fond of the Cosmo brand that he has named his Rottweiler after it
because ’she’s so slight and thin, she’s like a Cosmo girl’.
Mansfield likes to tune into the likes and dislikes of readers by
loitering in newsagents, quizzing women who are browsing the shelves.
This can lead to embarrassing situations. ’I was standing in the
magazine section at W. H. Smith in Victoria station questioning people
the other night,’ he tells me. ’A woman said to me: ’If you want to
invite me for a drink, why don’t you just invite me for a drink!’’ But
even accusations of soliciting don’t put Mansfield off. ’It’s no more or
less than being a politician. They have to go and find out what is going
on, just as I have to.’
Mansfield is a consummate salesman, as Pooler remembers from her first
days in media. ’In 1982, when I first joined the business, he was one of
the few senior people who would come around and flog space. He never
stops selling his medium. He is monomaniacal, but you can’t help but
admire him.’
After all, how many people can boast that they have sold space to an
infamous dictator? Mansfield can. He persuaded the ex-Ugandan leader,
Idi Amin, to buy a page of advertising in a Harpers & Queen special
report on Africa.
If there have been any frustrations at NatMags, Mansfield says that they
have been self-inflicted. ’I’ve come up with ideas, and then I have
hesitated.
Good ideas are based on sniffing the air and acting accordingly, so when
people would ask ’why do you feel that?’ I couldn’t explain why.’
He insists that his job is to manage talent, or as he puts it: ’I am the
grit, not the pearl.’ The 90s are a great time to explore new horizons,
he says. ’There is a creative and cultural explosion that is as
important to the company as North Sea Oil is to the UK. One of the
problems of this country is it is still small, but the possibilities for
us in the globalisation of media are so great.’
Mansfield believes that Duncan Edwards, his chosen heir, has that
crucial wider understanding of media and is therefore the perfect person
to take up the reins of NatMags when he steps down in three years. ’I
was looking for someone eclectic enough to take on all these businesses
we have. That gave Duncan the edge, but there are several people here
whom I admire and were in the frame.’
Mansfield declines to specify exactly what he will busy himself with
after handing over to Edwards, but he is likely to assume wider
responsibilities within Hearst (he was the first non-American to be
appointed to the board).
Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Conde Nast, will miss him more
than most if and when he does retire. ’He’s been my boss (on Harpers &
Queen), mentor, number one rival and partner (through the magazine
distributor, Comag). I never underestimate him, he’s always there.
Goodness knows who we will talk about when he retires!’
Mansfield, who launched the parenting title, M, earlier this year, and
last week brought out the men’s health title, ZM, has plans to launch
one more title in the next year. It is hard to imagine what the magazine
industry will be like without him buzzing around, but it’s likely to be
some time before we find out.
