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Since 2003
MAKING
INTERESTING
LIFE MORE
Introduction How it all started
Our vision Our mission
Our values LE COOL PUBLISHING
IntroductionLE COOL MAGAZINE
Introduction Covers & interviews
Our readersAdvertisers
LE COOL BOOKS Introduction
BarcelonaMadrid
Amsterdam Lisbon
CONTENTS
Our network & collaborators intro Presenting our writersLE COOL AGENCY IntroductionCommunication innovationServicesCatalan FilmsBrugal guide bookInside BCNPulitzerLing MagazineThe observerFlydoscopeBrugal webMahouDieselLife in Cities & CH212NokiaRicci Ricci
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Making your life more interesting.
Yes, sweet mama, that is our simple mission in life.
And we do it through useful, positive projects
that help make your life better.
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INTRODUCTION
Hello!Something is going on. Sure, we’ve always been convinced about the greatness of our mission,
nonetheless, we continue to be fascinated as we receive love letter after love letter appreciating the output of our journey. What used to be a weekly magazine has now grown into a little world
of its own, from experience guides to communication services, LE COOL is onto something big. This magazine is about that journey.
RENÉ LÖNNGRENFounder & Head of Experience
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HOW IT ALL STARTED
“To be at the right place at the right time.”
Not only does it make a lot of sense to get the most out of daily life, as we move closer to
that perfect combination of all things good we need to get the most
out of our lives, it also makes
a real difference.
Knowledge for better living.
OUR VISION
A man and his passion
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OUR MISSION OUR VALUES
We started our first magazine with a very simple idea: to
share our city with our friends. And that simple perspective
sits at the heart of our values: to be like a really good friend.
This means that we treat
our people, our clients and our readers as the good friends
they are, even though some are strangers that we have
yet to get to know.
To improve your life by guiding you to
relevant experiences when at home
or when travelling.
A man and his passion
We started back in 2003 as a straightforward editorial house
with a focus on publishing magazine and books.
Since then that core business has developed and we are becoming
a 360 communication agency spanning many different formats,
from online, magazines and books, to events and PR plans.
Never forgetting our core, we are, as ever, creating useful, positive
content that makes your life more interesting.
INTRODUCTION
Making your life more interesting
PUBLISHINGLE COOL
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INTRODUCTION
Europe’s leading alternative cultural guide
MAGAZINELE COOL
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LE COOL MAGAZINE
300.000 subscribers in 8 cities across Europe
Started back in 2003 with the simple goal of sharing our city with our friends LE COOL MAGAZINE has grown into becoming Europe’s leading alternative guide magazine with more than 300.000 subscribers. The magazine has a unique design and format using horizontal pages, just like a
paper magazine with a way smarter distribution via e-mail every week.
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COVERS & INTERVIEWS
A random selection of covers and interviews
Each week we invite a designer, photographer or illustrator to do the cover. The brief is very simple: share your city with your friends.
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OUR READERS
Our readers - a detailed view
The design, the content, the editorial voice and attitude
has attracted a reader group that is usually very hard to reach, some call them the
connectors, others say they are trendsetters. We call them
faithful readers…
Young, urban professionals
20 to 35 years
Curious and active
Time poor, money rich
Opinion leaders and trendsetters
82% are between 18-35 years
55% are women 45% are men
80% has a university education
94% reads le cool at least once per week
67% work in communication, design, music or media.
Market study done in Barcelona & Madrid .
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ADVERTISERS
These are some of the brands that have been working with us over the years.
Connecting brands with early adopters and trendsetters
INTRODUCTION
Our weird and wonderful books
As we set out back in 2004 to share our city with our friends that came to visit,
we realized that there were no books that told the story of our city as we felt it had to be told. So we created
the world’s first guide book that really tells the story of
each place recommended, not only through text but
also through the design, the photos and the illustrations.
BOOKSLE COOL
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BARCELONA GUIDE BOOK MADRID GUIDE BOOK
The first of our guide books first published in 2004, with an updated edition in 2006 and a brand new book in 2010. With this first book we set the tone of what has now become our signature
traits; insider recommendations, experience-based design and very emotional and personal story telling - the book really reads like a story on its own.
The book was edited by Andrew Losowsky and the design was done by Feriche Black, a renowned magazine design studio in Barcelona.
The book was edited by Sebas Taberna, our Madrid editor, and the design was done by Murray, a renowned design studio in Madrid.
A weird and wonderful guide to Barcelona
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AMSTERDAM GUIDE BOOK
The book was edited by Anneloes van Gaalen, our former Amsterdam editor, and the design was done by Lava, a renowned design studio in Amsterdam.
The book was edited by Joana Pinto Correia, our former Lisbon editor, and the design was done by Silva, a renowned design studio in Lisbon.
The book was edited by Mat Osman, our London editor, and the design was done by Jeremy Lesli, a renowned designer that used to be the creative director at John Brown.
LONDON & LISBON GUIDE BOOKS
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OUR NETWORK & COLLABORATORS
Top level collaborators worldwide
We have hundreds of writers, designers, illustrators and
photographers from all over the planet engaged in one of our magazines,
the books or custom projects each week. Through this unique network
we have been able to grow from having covered just one city a few
years back to now covering more than 50 cities around the world.
We currently work with people who on an ongoing basis contribute to Time Out, Wallpaper, Monocle,
Esquire, Details, The Economist, Good, Wall Street Journal and many
other extraordinary publications.
EVA MUNZ - Writer
Eva grew up in Germany, France and Italy and after film school spent most of her adult life living in more or less exotic places in Asia and reporting from them for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Monopol, Vice, Bidoun. She is currently teaming up with 032c and will launch a daily English language newspaper for the Berlin Artforum. Eva is now based in Berlin.
ADRIAN MOORE - Writer
Paris Palace concierge and freelance writer Adrian Moore has been mentioned by Le Figaro, WWD and The Huffington Post as an “influential” blogger. He has contributed photos to Condé Nast Traveler, and contributes regularly from Paris for Monocle, Black Book, Nylon and various other publications.
SAUL TAYLOR - Writer
Saul Taylor originally worked as a creative in the advertising industry in London before landing a job as writer at Wallpaper* magazine. He went on to head the publication’s advertorial and promotions department before joining Wall- paper’s sister agency, Winkreative, as head of publishing. Since Tyler Brûlé founded his second commercial publication, Monocle, Saul has run the Lifestyle section of the magazine.
JÖRG KOOPMAN - Photographer
Koopmann studied photography at the State Academy of Photographic Design in Munich and graduated in 1993. Since 1997 he is working predominantly in the field of photojournalism and portrait photography. His work has been published in Stern, Monocle, Wallpaper, Zeit Magazin and Human Globaler Zufall amongst others.
PIETARI POSTI - Illustrator
Born in Helsinki, Finland, he now lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. Since 2005 his work has been published internationally in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Wired Magazine and Paste Magazine.
TOM WILSON - Writer
Tom spends most of his time writing and DJing, but while most people would try that at home, he’s been carefully crafting his skills and has become a pivotal figure in Bucarest, Romania. His work has been published in Dazed and Confused, The Observer, The Face, Omagiu and various other publications.
PRESENTING OUR WRITERS
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INTRODUCTION
Pretty much from the first day we started we had some readers who also happened to be working in marketing
and communication, and wanted us to help them out
with bespoke content or even full communication services for their brands. Our Agency arm was born out of that very natural need and today, some seven years later, we spend a
great deal of our time creating unique communication projects
for brands. As always we stay true to our core: making your
life more interesting.
AGENCYLE COOL
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COMMUNICATION INNOVATION
We all know that the world of communication and marketing is
changing, and it is happening fast and it is pretty brutal. It’s simply
not enough to create a product and broadcast (read: scream) massively
to the world that you exist. Rather, we know that the only way
you can really reach your future audience, your consumers, is
to go way beyond a product and a lump of cash to do ads - you need to
be relevant. Yes, you need to qualify, to be accepted and given permission to enter. As hard as this may be today, and way more
so tomorrow, there is a way.
By creating communication that on its own has a purpose,
a significance, which is relevant and useful, your customers are given a chance to embrace your message,
to not only use it, but also become a broadcaster, a fan and an
ambassador. The real meaning of viral is simply: be useful.
Our agency services are all about that.
Creating pieces of communication that are also useful, that actually help
people to improve their life. And that’s the way we help
your brand to bond beyond the products you sell and take the
relationship to a new dimension.
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SERVICES
Some of the ways we have done this up until today has been through: Custom content feeds from one or many cities around the world
Online activities, from advertising campaigns, to blogs and beyond
to entire websites Printed matter, from books to
magazines to fanzines Events and press launches, from
the design of the press kit to the seduction of journalists,
from paper to live action.
More than focusing on the specific format we are much more driven
by creating something useful, something positive, something
relevant that will by its own rights seduce the consumer. We apply a light structure where the correct team for each project is created
on a case by case basis. That means that we are tapping into the world’s
best designers, programmers, writers and creatives for each and
every one of our projects.
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CATALAN FILMS
The Origin of Film - a custom project for Catalan Films
Catalan Films is a semi-public organization with the objective of promoting Catalan film outside Catalonia. We created this book for them in 2009 with the idea of asking each one of the participating producers to share with us ”How has Catalonia inspired you in your work?”
Design by Lo Siento
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BRUGAL GUIDE BOOK
Brugal’s guide to the Dominican Republic
Brugal Rum is a premium rum brand from the Dominican Republic. We helped them in 2009 to create a unique book that allows the brand to show consumers and partners where the brand
comes from. The book follows the very unique LE COOL trademark style of being a visual love story to the island.
Design by Lo Siento
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INSIDE BCN
Notes from Barcelona - a neighborhood guide done with a lot of love
Inside BCN is a small agency that rents apartments by the day or week and has a lot of creative industry clients. We created this unique, low-fi guide to the neighborhood Borne in central
Barcelona for the client to give away to their best customers.
Design by Lo Siento
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PULITZER
The quirkiest and most unique guide book we’ve ever seen
Created for Grupo Regina as a way for them to stand out as a ”not just yet another boutique hotel” as well as cross promoting the fact that they have hotels in
several cities around the world, we created this guide/note book.
Design by Lo Siento
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LING
An award winning inflight magazine for Vueling
Back in 2007 we won a pitch against all the major Spanish players to do a monthly magazine for leading Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling. The 100 page magazine was published for
a little over two years, until the airline changed their positioning and the magazine had to become a lot more mainstream (between 2007 and 2009). In 2008 we won a
gold at the Oscar’s of magazine design, Society of Publishing Design. Published together with La Fabrica Editorial
Design by Feriche Black
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THE OBSERVER
Travel content from around Europe
Escape is a weekly travel supplement for one of Great Britain’s most important newspapers. They approached us to help them with content for the weekly ”Instant Weekend” features,
where we coordinated writers and photographers from several European cities.
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FLYDOSCOPE
Travel content from around Europe
Flydoscope is the inflight magazine for Luxembourg based airline Lux Air. We provide them with several city guides for each of their issues from cities all over Europe.
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BRUGAL WEB
Brugal Rum online - a guide to the Domincan Republic done by the consumers
Brugal Rum is a brand that does not like to do conventional marketing. Actually the brand has largely been growing through passionate consumers bringing the brand with them around the
world. We created an online world where the most unique experiences one can live in the Dominican Republic are shared through the eyes of 10 locals. Together with
them we produced 200 posts and 20 videos over six months.
Design by VasavaVideos by Imelda Films
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MAHOU
Madrid Mola helps beer brand Mahou to seduce the young audience
We were approached by Mahou, the leading beer brand in Madrid for more than a hundred years, to help them reposition themselves as the brand of choice for the younger audience. We helped them by creating a new brand, Madrid Mola, which is an online city guide to Madrid,
with an iPhone application to be launched. The project stretches from online to offline, through an unconventional guerrilla communication campaign, all developed by us, where
each one of the ads are also part of the guide itself.
Design by Pollen London
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DIESEL
Urban guide content from three cities for the Diesel Cult
Diesel invited LE COOL to become a ”preacher” for their online community, The Cult. We provided the community with guide recommendations from Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon.
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LIFE IN CITIES & CH212
Custom blog content for luxury brands
We worked with Barcelona based Hotusa Hotel Group to create Life in Cities, a destination blog for 10 of their urban luxury boutique hotels. We posted hundreds of posts monthly from
Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, London, Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris, Prague and Rome.
The fragrance brand CH212 commissioned us to do a blog about trends, innovation, gourmet and nightlife in New York. We worked with a senior editor from
Not For Tourists guidebook series to edit the blog.
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NOKIA
Custom content from 11 cities worldwide for Nokia mobiles
We were approached by Momentum in London, which handles the Nokia sponsorship account world wide. They needed a premium content partner for the launch of a new application called
Found. The applications allows Nokia handset users to get a customised urban city guide in their phone, all powered by LE COOL. We also helped them by offering free tickets
and placement on VIP lists for users. The application was launched in November 2009. Current cities include: Dubai, Sydney, Moscow, Lisbon, Rotterdam, Istanbul, Vienna, Paris, Cape Town,
Durban and Johannesburg.
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PRESS LAUNCH & RICCI RICCI
A press kit for Nina Ricci to seduce fashion journalists worldwide
PUIG, one of the top fragrance makers in the world, asked us to help them seduce the difficult fashion press for the launch of key brand Ricci Ricci, a part of the French fashion house Nina
Ricci. Based upon the concept of a secret heroine we worked together with the client to create a box filled with stories, evidence and trails of how the heroine had
inspired the creation of the perfume. Our work related hundreds of press angles to facilitate a greater press coverage beyond the typical launches.
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