Hearst UK wants all its brands to have Good Housekeeping authority in product testing
Good Housekeeping has set a standard in Hearst UK that the rest of the portfolio wants to replicate.
For nearly 100 years, homelife magazine has cultivated a following of readers who trust its product recommendations, reviews and seals of approval enough to spend their money on these proven articles. Now the Good Housekeeping Institute has expanded to the Hearst Institute, allowing the rest of UK-based titles to use the same resources, experts and testing facilities that have built GH brand trust with readers.
In the latest episode of the Digiday podcast, Laura Cohen, Hearst UK Accreditation Manager, explains what the expansion means for both the physical operations of the Hearst Institute as well as its ability to generate revenue by working with more than brands and producing more content. which can be monetized through affiliate trading.
Below are the conversation highlights that have been edited slightly for length and clarity.
Replicate the Good Housekeeping model
The Good Housekeeping Institute has been testing products since 1924, so [it’s] almost 100 years. We have taken the incredible credibility and authority of the GHI and we are using it and expanding it to all Hearst brands [including] Cosmo, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Men’s Health [and] Women’s health. We’ve taken what the GH Institute does, which is testing products and writing reviews that consumers find really helpful, and we’re applying that across Hearst.
Broaden the openness to different editorial perspectives
Many of our brands write about beauty, music, women’s health and men’s health [but] Harper’s Bazaar will look at beauty in a slightly different way from Cosmo in a slightly different way from Elle in a slightly different way from Good Housekeeping. So this is where most of our testing can be applied to many different brands, because in fact Good Housekeeping could talk about a number of brands when it comes to eye cream while Harper’s Bazaar would talk about slightly different brands. And so we tested them all [in the end].
Make money with reviews
The primary way we monetize product testing is by selling accreditation. So approved by the Good Housekeeping Institute or by Harper’s Bazaar. Normally we offer a six to 12 month license on this individual product which has passed the tests. And then the customers can come to us and we can have a conversation about renewals at the end of the license term.
We also generate income through affiliate and e-commerce. There is a huge amount of content that comes out of all the testing that we do and that content is then hosted on different Hearst branded websites. What we found was that the products that had a logo next to them were the top selling products in this article.