DLD Munich 25 takes place at a time of great change. From 16 to 18 January 2025, Burda's international innovation platform DLD (Digital, Life, Design) is calling for a positive outlook on the future under the motto ‘Fut…
Happy birthday, Lisa! The popular women's magazine turns 30 and is still 'fresh, happy, young'. It all began, more or less, like a start-up, only not in the oft-mentioned garage, but in a pub.
Lisa's founding team probably felt they had been sent on an April Fool's joke when they were unable to move into their rented premises at Rheinstrasse 221 in Baden-Baden on 1 April 1994 as planned. But it was no April Fool's joke, the editorial offices were not yet ready for occupation. Instead - and there is something positively conspiratorial about this - the small development team around Lisa inventor Reinhold G. Hubert found themselves in a pub for their first creative meetings. Not the worst place to come up with good ideas 😉.
Heike Rudolph was a founding member from the very beginning, then assistant to the management of M.I.G. (Medien Innovation GmbH), i.e. Reinhold G. Hubert (former managing director of the Offenburg publishing house), and today she is Senior Brand Manager in Burda's Women & Entertainment division. Her Burda career is therefore just as long as Lisa's success story. ‘Improvisation was required for our work in the pub. I got a radio telephone from Burda in Offenburg especially for the job. It was a huge case with a dial, like a field telephone,’ Heike Rudolph remembers and laughs. However, they soon moved from the pub to Rheinstraße, where there were still a few technical hurdles to overcome. ‘I remember it was a crazy hot summer in ‘94 because we had to move our colour printer, which was loaded with wax blocks, into the cooler stairwell and could only print out all the test layouts at night because the thing went on strike during the day due to the soft wax in the heat.’
But the team didn't let the boring technology slow their creative development. The intention and brief was to create a young, affordable women's magazine for Burda. There was nothing suitable on the market at the time," says Heike Rudolph. Tina und Bella (Bauer) and Bild der Frau (then Springer) had older target groups. So we got to work. Reinhold wanted a cool female name for the magazine and thought 'Lisa' would be perfect. At the beginning of the 1990s, Lisa was one of the most popular girls' names in Germany, while Jan was the most popular boy's name. But since publisher Hubert Burda's daughter was called Elisabeth, who was called 'Lisa', it was at least advisable to ask permission for a Burda magazine to bear the same name," says Heike Rudolph. So the first hand-printed and hand-cut sample of Lisa was wrapped in cling film and presented to Hubert Burda in Munich by Reinhold G. Hubert himself. The publisher loved it and gave the official go-ahead for Lisa. Reinhold G. Hubert brought the thoroughbred journalist Rüdiger Wittner on board as the first editor-in-chief.
‘The Lisa dummies immediately went into market research in the particularly price-sensitive Ruhr region,’ says Heike Rudolph. And here, in one of the group discussions, they were given the first advertising slogan for Lisa free of charge. ‘One respondent was astonished when she said as she leafed through the dummies: ‘Oh, that's great. It's got everything in it'. Reinhold, who was watching the discussion through a pane of glass next door, got big eyes and shouted: ‘That's our slogan!’ No sooner said than done, that was the claim in our first adverts and TV commercials for Lisa.’ It looked like this in the advert: Man hands woman a wrapped bouquet of flowers, pulls off the cuff and - surprise - no flowers: nothing inside? Then Lisa magazine is shown with the claim ‘Everything inside!’. Or: Woman opens the fridge - yawning emptiness inside: Nothing inside? And the Lisa is shown again: ‘Everything inside!’
Everything inside! Lisa has kept this promise since its launch on 7 September 1994. This makes CPO Sven Dams very proud of his team. Lisa has always been more than 'just' a magazine,' says Sven Dams. Lisa is a creative statement with every issue. Founded as Medien Innovation GmbH (M.I.G.), innovation and the constant quest for the best possible product for its readers are in its genes. Congratulations on your 30th birthday, dear Lisa! For current editor-in-chief Kai Winckler, Lisa is also one of Burda Verlag's favourite brands. I was allowed to join Lisa a year and a half ago during a difficult phase and immediately fell in love with the great magazine - but almost even more with the wonderful editorial team. With a lot of positive energy and professionalism, they have made Lisa fit for the future.
Jennifer Schwengers has been leading the Lisa team as deputy editor-in-chief since 2023 and has been with the magazine from the start for 15 years. First as an intern, then as a trainee, many years as an editor and head of department, and now as deputy editor-in-chief. The best thing about my job is the variety of topics we write about and our great team of young and experienced colleagues, some of whom I've known and appreciated from the very beginning,' says Jennifer Schwengers.
In the 30 years of its existence, Lisa has sold over 574 million copies. The editorial team has calculated that you could cook a different dish every day for over 85 years with all the recipes from these issues. Today, an average of over 700,000 readers per week (MA Ii/2024) browse through Lisa, putting it well ahead of its direct competitors Laura and Lea in terms of reach. The stickers, which have been available as bound inserts for some time, are very popular with readers - there have been around 50,000 stickers so far. Lisa has had several editors-in-chief at the helm over the three decades, but only one editor-in-chief, Maria Sandoval (around 20 years from 2003 to 2023). 20 trainees have learnt their journalistic trade in the Lisa editorial team so far. And speaking of our own offspring - the editorial team has celebrated the birth of a child over 40 times in the last 30 years. The Lisa brand developed such a strong appeal that numerous line extensions were founded, such as Lisa Wohnen & Dekorieren, Lisa Kochen & Backen and Lisa Blumen & Pflanzen. The Lisa magazine concept was also quickly successful in licences outside Germany from the mid-1990s.
Happy Birthday, Lisa! Ever since, as her current slogan says: ‘Made with love!’
