I want you to picture a scenario that I guarantee
has happened to you. You're at the grocery store.
It's Tuesday. You're tired. You've got milk,
maybe some eggs. You're waiting for the person
in front of you to figure out their coupons.
And your eyes just drift. Oh, yes. To the magazine
rack. To the rack. It's just a wall of color,
bright yellows, massive red fonts, and these
glossy photos of people who look much, much happier
and wealthier than anyone in that line. The checkout
aisle distraction. Yeah. The universal human
experience. It really is. And usually we just
absorb it as background noise. Oh, look, a royal
wedding. Oh, another divorce. Exactly. But today
I want to stop the conveyor belt for a second
because we are going to do a deep dive into the
origin story of one of those glossy magazines.
And not just anyone. No, not a generic tabloid.
We are talking about the grandmother of them
all. If you speak Spanish, you know it as hola.
You speak English, you know it's child hello.
Magazine. It's fascinating that you call it the
grandmother because that implies it's old. And
most people think celebrity culture is this very
modern, you know, Internet fueled thing. Right.
But the story we are digging into today starts
way, way back in 1944. Which is an incredible
detail. It completely threw me for a loop when
I was reading the research. 1944. I mean, think
about the context. The world is at war. Spain
is recovering from its own civil war. It seems
like the absolute worst time to launch a glossy
magazine about the good life. But that is exactly
what happened. So, OK, let's unpack this. We
aren't just talking about gossip today. We're
talking about a business empire that started
at like a kitchen table. That is the perfect
way to frame it. This isn't just about who is
dating whom. This is a business case study on
how to identify a massive gap in the market,
specifically what they call the women's industry,
and build a global brand around it. So that's
our mission for this deep dive. Exactly. To trace
that line from a small family operation in Barcelona
to the massive media conglomerate that sits on
newsstands in 15 different countries today. Okay,
so set the scene for us. 1944, Barcelona. Who
wakes up and decides, you know what this city
needs? A magazine. That man would be Antonio
Sanchez Gomez. And from everything we've read,
he wasn't your typical media tycoon. No board
of directors or anything like that? No, no venture
capital. He founded Hula on September 2, 1944,
right there in Barcelona. And the most striking
thing about the early days is just how small
the operation was. I think small might even be
an understatement. The research mentions a mom
-and -pop dynamic, but usually that's just, you
know, marketing fluff. Right, like, oh, we're
a family business, but they have 5 ,000 employees.
Yes. But in this case, it was literal. It was
literal. Antonio ran the magazine until his death
in the 1970s. But the staff, it wasn't just random
hires. It was predominantly his relatives. And
this family dynamic wasn't just about, you know,
giving your cousin a job. It was about quality
control. That's the key. And there's this incredible
detail in the sources about his wife's role in
the whole production. This was my favorite part
of the prep reading. Because you imagine these
big editorial meetings with art directors screaming
about layouts. But tell us who was actually doing
the work. It was the founder's wife. She was
known to personally step in and handle the layout
for the most important spreads. Which ones? Specifically,
the royal weddings. I just love that image. Imagine
the scene. You have this growing publication.
People are waiting for the coverage of a massive
royal event. And the founder's wife is there.
Maybe with scissors and paste. Deciding, no,
the princess looks better on the left page. It
sounds... Charming, almost quaint, doesn't it?
But if we look at it through a business lens,
it tells us something really crucial about their
strategy. What's that? They treated the product
with an intense level of personal care. They
weren't just slapping photos on a page to make
a quick buck. They were curating an aesthetic.
So that family feel translated into the product
itself. Exactly. The magazine felt intimate,
like it was being shared by a family for a family.
And eventually... kitchen table style of management
had to scale up. I mean, they couldn't stay in
Barcelona forever. No, eventually the headquarters
moved to Madrid, which makes sense. If you want
to be a national player in Spain, you go to the
capital. But even with that move and all the
growth, that family control remained incredibly
tight. Now, here is where it gets really interesting
to me. Because today, if I pick up hello or hola,
I know exactly what I'm getting. Celebrities,
royalty, red carpets. The whole deal. Yeah. But
you're telling me that wasn't the original pitch?
Not at all. And this is a classic example of
a business pivot before that word became a buzzword
in Silicon Valley. So what was the initial concept?
When Antonio first launched it in 44, the concept
was a generic family magazine, just wholesome,
broad appeal. And it had... A section that I
just cannot wrap my head around. Let me guess.
A self -help section. It did. Can you imagine?
You open a tabloid today and next to photos of
a movie star's vacation, there's an article on
how to be more productive or how to find inner
peace. It feels like two completely different
worlds. It does now. But back then, they were
throwing things at the wall to see what stuck.
And this is where Antonio Sanchez Gomez showed
his genius. He was looking at the numbers, looking
at reader response, and he realized the self
-help stuff. It just wasn't the hook. He wasn't
sticky enough. Exactly. He had this realization
about the women's industry. He saw that there
was a massive underserved market for pure escapism.
Oh. Women didn't necessarily want to be told
how to fix their lives in that format. They wanted
to see a life that was bigger, brighter, more
glamorous than their own. So he pivots from how
to fix your life to look at this amazing life.
That is the core shift. He moved away from general
family advice and just zeroed in on the doings
of royalty. Which makes so much sense, right?
Especially in Europe. Royalty is the original
celebrity. It is. But think about the timing
again. Post -war Europe. Times are tough. The
economy isn't great. The appeal of royalty in
that context is huge. It's a fairy tale. It offers
a window into a world where everything is beautiful,
organized, and wealthy. It was the ultimate counter
-programming to the grim reality of the 1940s
and 50s. That's such a good way to put it. It's
not just gossip. It's a relief valve. It's fantasy.
But here's the thing that makes Ola... really
distinct. They didn't just stay in Spain talking
about Spanish counts and countesses. They went
global. But they didn't just copy paste the magazine,
did they? No. And this is the second stroke of
business genius. Localization. As they look to
expand into the English speaking world in Latin
America, they realize that the royalty angle
had its limits. Right. Because if you're trying
to sell magazines in, say, Ohio or Buenos Aires,
the intricate details of a Spanish duke's wedding
might not land the same way. Precisely. The Spanish
version of Ola, even today, stays very true to
those roots. It relies heavily on European royalty.
That's their bread and butter. But when they
looked at the Americas, they realized they needed
a different kind of royalty. We needed Hollywood.
They needed the American royalty. Movie stars.
Singers. The glitterati. The English and Latin
American versions of the magazine shifted their
focus. But they kept the style. They kept the
glossy style, the respectful tone, the high quality
photos, but they swapped the subjects. It's so
smart because it keeps the brand identity, that
glossy, respectful look, but just changes the
ingredients for the local market. And that localization
strategy is likely the main reason they survived
and grew. If they had tried to force Spanish
aristocracy down the throats of American readers,
they would have failed. Instead, they just asked,
who are your kings and queens? And in the U .S.,
that's the people holding the Oscars. I want
to pause on the hello connection for a second
because I feel like this is the aha moment for
a lot of English speakers listening. I would
think so, too. I remember seeing Hello Magazine
my whole life and never realizing it was just
a translation. It's literal. Hola means hello.
It's the same DNA. Hello, the U .K. Hello, Canada.
Hola. USA. These aren't knockoffs. They're the
official children. They are the children of that
original Barcelona parent company. You are holding
a piece of Spanish business history every time
you pick one up at the airport. And the reach
is honestly staggering. When I looked at the
list of countries where this magazine is published,
it just blew my mind. We aren't just talking
about a couple of neighbors. No, the footprint
is massive. Published in Madrid, yes, but also
in 15 other countries. I made a list because
I wanted to visualize the map. We've got the
Americas covered. Argentina, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, the
U .S., Venezuela. But then you jump oceans. Right.
You've got the U .K., obviously, but then Greece,
Indonesia, Pakistan. Pakistan. The Philippines,
Thailand. Think about the cultural differences
in that list. Yeah. Pakistan and Brazil. Thailand
and Canada. Those are vastly different cultures,
different religions, different social structures.
And yet this format works. This glossy, aspirational
window into the lives of the famous nun. It works
in all of them. And the languages reflect that,
too. It's not just English and Spanish. Right.
It's published in Portuguese, Turkish, Thai,
traditional Chinese, Greek, Serbian. Wow. It
just proves that curiosity about high -status
individuals is a universal human trait. It doesn't
matter what language you speak, you want to see
the wedding photos. And they kept expanding even
recently. The source mentioned they launched
the Argentina edition in 2010. Well into the
digital age. Right. While other print magazines
were dying off, they were still planting new
flags. Which brings us to the numbers. Because
you can launch in 50 countries, but if nobody
buys the thing, you don't have a business. Okay,
so let's look at the trajectory. 1944, first
week of production in Barcelona. How many copies
did Antonio sell? That first week, they moved
4 ,000 copies. Which, honestly, for a guy in
1944 starting from scratch, isn't terrible. But
it's a long way from an empire. A very humble
start. But fast forward to the modern era. If
you combine the readership of Hola and all its
sister magazines, the Hillel... brands and so
on. What are we looking at? You are looking at
more than a million readers a week. From 4 ,000
to over a million. That is serious scale. And
if you look at the historical context in Spain
specifically, you see just how dominant they
became. In 1993, the circulation was around 654
,000. And that's just in Spain? Just in Spain.
Even in 2005, when the Internet was really starting
to eat into print media, they were sitting at
over half a million copies. So where does that
put them in the food chain over there? In Spain,
they are the second most popular magazine, right
behind a magazine called Pronto. They aren't
just a niche publication. They are a mainstream
juggernaut. OK, so we have the history. We have
the strategy, the numbers. But there is one final
piece of this puzzle that I think is the most
surprising. It's about influence, because usually
when we talk about gossip mags. We dismiss them.
We say, oh, that's trashy. That's not real news.
You put them in a separate box. Yeah. Serious
news is for the broadsheet newspapers and entertainment
is for the glossy magazines. Exactly. If you
are a politician, you go to the serious newspaper.
You don't go to the place with the soap opera
stars. But Huller broke that rule. In a major
way. This is the story that really cements their
status. We have to talk about Felipe González.
The former prime minister of Spain. A serious
political figure. Yeah. The leader of the country.
Now imagine you are the prime minister. You want
to give your first interview while in office.
Okay. You want to set the tone for your administration.
Who do you call? In the U .S., you'd call the
New York Times or the Washington Post. In the
U .K., maybe the BBC or the Times. Right. You
want gravitas. You want seriousness. Of course.
But Felipe González. Didn't do that. He gave
his first interview while in office to Hurla.
I still can't get over this. A sitting prime
minister sitting down with a magazine that covers
royal weddings and celebrity breakups. It feels
like such a risky move. It feels risky to us,
maybe. But think about it from his perspective.
Why would he do that? Well, if he goes to the
New York Times equivalent, he's talking to the
elites. He's talking to the intellectuals, the
political junkies. Exactly. But if he goes to
whole lot. By talking to the people. He is talking
to the millions of people standing in that grocery
store line. He's talking to the voters. It was
a brilliant populist move. It kind of legitimized
the magazine, didn't it? As a place for a real
conversation. It did that, but it also humanized
him. It put him right next to the movie stars
and the princesses. It blurs that line. It says
the prime minister is just another high status
figure, like a movie star. And that brings us
back to the cultural clout of this brand. You
don't get a prime minister to agree to that unless
you are an institution. It shows that Hola. had
evolved from that little family project into
something that held genuine power over the public
imagination. It's incredible. We started this
deep dive thinking about a distraction in the
checkout aisle, and we've ended up talking about
political strategy and global empires. So when
we zoom out, what's the big takeaway? I think
the lesson is about the power of niche and adaptation.
Antonio Sanchez Gomez saw a specific human need,
the need for glamour, for family connection,
for a window into the lives of the elite. And
he built a product just for that. And he kept
it in the family. He kept the quality high. He
kept the control tight. I mean, having his wife
do the layouts. And then he was smart enough
to adapt it. When the world wanted Hollywood
instead of royalty, he gave them Hollywood. Exactly.
When the digital age came, they kept expanding.
It's a survival story. It's about knowing your
audience better than they know themselves. It
is. And it challenges us to take these light
entertainments a bit more seriously. When a magazine
can shape a prime minister's image and reach
millions of people in 15 countries, it's not
just fluff. It's a force. So the next time you
are standing in that line buying your milk and
eggs and you see that glossy cover of hello or
hola, don't just look at the pictures. Look behind
them. Remember the history. Remember that family
in Barcelona in 1944. And remember that you are
looking at one of the most successful pivots
in media history. And here's a final thought
to leave you with. We like to think we know the
difference between news and entertainment. But
when a prime minister gives his debut interview
to a magazine founded on self -help and royalty,
are those lines actually as clear as we think?
Does the magazine become news or does politics
become entertainment? Something to mull over
on your next grocery run. Thanks for deep diving
with us today. We'll catch you on the next one.