Today’s dose of Chinese print media is a two for one: both lads magazines.
The first is a magazine that should looks like the Chinese edition of Maxim and contains a lot of content from Maxim, but the only way you would be able to guess that is from the email addresses of the editors: @maximonline.com.cn. Oh, and there’s also a tiny little ‘M’ in the Maxim logo typeface on the spine.
It’s probably pretending not to be Maxim for some reasons related to its publication license. In the meantime, its calling itself Fengdu (风度) which means something like style, manners or fashion.
Maxim is produced by Crossline Advertising Co., a Beijing entity controlled by the South China Morning Post Group, using a publication license from the Foreign Language Publishing and Distribution Bureau.
FHM China is also a little shy about its name: it does not use the FHM logo, but has ‘FOR HIM MAGAZINE’ underneath the Chinese logo 男人装 (man’s clothes).
FHM China launched in 2004. It is published under a licensing agreement by Trends Group (时尚杂志社), which also publishes Cosmopolitan and several other foreign titles.
Both are lads magazines, so their content is very similar: girls, cars, gadgets etc. One exception is that Fengdu has a military feature, which FHM doesn’t. Interestingly, Fengdu‘s cover girl is a hot model Zhou Qiao, who is not very well-known. FHM‘s is a popular movie star, Zhou Xun, but she’s not so hot. But both their surnames are Zhou.