The information on this page was last updated 6 January 2009
Forty-five years ago, VNU started the Donald Duck Weekblad in Holland. This magazine was offered along with a famous women's magazine and a contest to win 1000 free watches. The story goes on from there.
Today, "Donald Duck - Een vrolijk weekblad" ("Donald Duck - A happy weekly") remains the strongest children's magazine in the Benelux with a printrun of more than 360,000 copies every week. It enjoys an average readship of more than 1.5 million and the readers are very loyal, thanks to the 'clubpass'.
The magazine has been read and loved by parents and children for 45 years. The comic is mainly aimed at younger children, but is also read by thousands of adults. Most comic shops have hundreds, if not thousands of back-issues, and when a new weekly comic comes out, every bookstore, newstand and grocery store has piles of them.
Donald Duck features lots of stories that were made in Holland, by artists like Mau Heymans and his brother Bas Heymans. A large number of the Dutch stories were written by writer Frank Jonker.
Donald Duck weekly features several pages of editorials each week. It has had a two-page opening letters column since it's very first issue in 1952.
De Geillustreerde Pers built up the number of subscribers to Donald Duck magazine by 19,300 people over a 10 week period in 1994. To get this fantastic response, 1.2 million leaflets were places in several Dutch family magazines. Two hundred thousand flyers were also included with direct mail shipments. As an exclusive premium, Donald Duck offered a radio/alarm clock to new subscribers which helped to draw such large numbers. In another new offer, De Geillustreerde Pers has developed gift certificates good for 3-month subscriptions. Advertising has been placed in several Dutch publications with a telephone number that gift-givers can call to sign up a new subscriber. In return, the called receives a gift card for the lucky recipient and also receives the invoice. Followingthe 3 months, the marketing departement at De Geillustreerde Pers will contact the family receiving the magazine and encourage them to order a new subscription.
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