February 8, 2016 | Vol. 69 No. 5 Read more at: minonline.com Steve Smith's Eye on Innovation: 3 Three Reasons to Think About Mobile News Apps Differently The Simple Success of Slate Plus 5 Meet This Week's 'New Recruits' The real 'plus' in offering added value for loyal readers. at Time Inc., Condé Nast and More After over two decades of searching for non-advertising revenue streams, almost all digital publishers consider a membership model at some point. The advantages 6 Guns & Ammo Shoots for More are clear, or at least until executed. Adding special content and services, perks Video Revenue and privileges for paying customers piggybacks a paid model onto the free model 7 Coach Scores a Big Win During without the chilling traffic and ad scale impact of a paywall. And yet, most of these Fashion's Biggest Month projects I’ve seen hit the market with some fanfare and promise, but tend to fade away and disappear without mention. 8 Woman's Day Raises Awareness Not so with Slate “Plus,” which launched just under two years ago. Any site at the Red Dress Awards visitor today can’t miss its persistent presence. Continued on page 4 WSJ. And New York Times T Fashion Ad Juggernauts Continue Spring has sprung nicely for the newspaper magazines' previews. Like Punxsutawney Phil and his fellow groundhogs, the women's fashion spring previews in WSJ. and The New York Times T are not seeing their shadows. WSJ. publisher Anthony Cenname tells min that the March issue to be inserted in the February 13 Wall Street Journal carries 100 advertising pages. They're not only up sharply from the 82 in 2015 and 69 in 2014, but are also fraction- ally above the 100 from the September 2015 Fall Preview, setting an all-time record for the eight-year-old brand. At the NYT, magazine director Karen Farina says that the 156 ad pages in the February 14 T Women's Fashion are the edi- tion's largest since the 172 carried in the pre-recessionary February 2008. Besides the sum being up from last February's 143 and 2014's 136, it was not that far from the 165 in T Women's Fashion's Fall Preview last August. Continued on page 2 David Granger Put the Emotion Back into Esquire The departing editor-in-chief was innovative, irreverent and nearly iconic. Last Monday, when Granger accepted Esquire's 17th National Magazine Award during his 19-year tenure as editor-in-chief for Matthew Teague's poignant "The Friend" essay, he quipped: “I’m so happy about this I’m just gonna quit." The self-depre- cation came three days after the Hearst hierarchy announced that Granger will be succeeded at Esquire by Town & Country editor-in-chief Jay Fielden effective March 31. Editorially, Fielden will be entering a more stable atmosphere at Esquire than what Granger faced in June 1997 when the GQ executive editor was hired to succeed Ed Kosner by former Hearst Magazines president Cathie Black. "It was a confused, muddled publication, unsteady on its feet, unsure of its role," wrote the late Ad Age columnist James Brady at the time. Continued on page 2

© 2016 Access Intelligence, LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $150,000 for violations. minonline.com WSJ. and T Ad Juggernauts (continued from page 1)

Media Industry Newsletter A reason for the advertising success—which counters the ongoing slide prints slide—is what Editor-in-Chief: Cenname calls the "strength of our product and quality of our audience. Wall Street Journal Steven Cohn ([email protected]) readers like having a glossy on a week- 203/899-8437 end, and in her three years, editor-in-chief Digital Media Editor: Kristina O'Neill has made WSJ. a core Steve Smith ([email protected]) fashion title. It's going full-run to our [1.4 302/691-5331 million] circulation is to our advantage." min It's all echoed at T, where editor Debo- Group Editor: Caysey Welton ([email protected]) rah Needleman, formerly of WSJ., led to 203/899-8431 O'Neill's recruitment from Harper's Bazaar. Editorial Intern: Jameson Doris Per GfK MRI, the NYT's $110,000 and the ([email protected]) WSJ's $127,000 median household incomes VP Publisher: Amy Jefferies ([email protected]) in Spring 2015 topped all the women's fashion magazines, with W being closest at $93,000. Director of Market Development: The most notable campaign in the upcoming WSJ. is the eight-page insert from Barneys Laurie M. Hofmann ([email protected]) New York to mark the retailer's return to the same Chelsea address on Seventh Avenue be- Senior Marketing Manger: tween West 16th and 17th streets that it occupied from 1923-1997. There are also four-page Danielle Sikes units from Hermés, Ralph Lauren, and Stuart Weitzman, and jewelry business (normally ([email protected]) not that big in February) came from David Yurman, Tiffany and Bulgari. Marketing Manager: Rachel Feldman ([email protected]) Farina says that "T Women's Fashion is strong in international fashion, beauty, jewelry Senior Account Executive: home, travel and luxury furnishings." First-time advertisers include The Kooples, eyewear Tania Babiuk specialist Oliver Peoples, Escada and jeweler Nirav Modi. ([email protected]) Production Manager: Farina is second-in-command to NYT magazine publisher Andy Wright and to the new T Sophie Chan-Wood publisher, who is expected to be announced shortly after NYT senior VP, advertising Lisa Ryan ([email protected]) Howard starts on February 22. The job has been vacant since Brendan Monaghan's December Graphic Designer: Yelena Shamis ([email protected]) move to Condé Nast Traveler publisher and chief revenue officer. Data and Analytics Manager: Stacy Hill ([email protected]) David Granger's 19 Years at Esquire (continued from page 1) Access Intelligence, LLC President & The Granger formula that followed combined the wit made famous by Esquire in the 1960s Chief Executive Officer: Don Pazour SVP, Media Group: Diane Schwartz with topicality and technology. Consider the digitally enhanced 75th-anniversary issue in Oc- Chief Operating Officer: tober 2008 that contained the ancient Chinese symbol for beauty because, Granger said at the Heather Farley time, of China being in the forefront of the Subscriptions/Client Services: early 21st century. 888-707-5814 Among our recent Esquire favorites were List Sales: Statlistics, 203-778-8700 the March 2013 revelation that "The Man Advertising: 203-899-8498 Who Killed Osama bin Laden...Is Screwed," Reprints: Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295 ([email protected]) "Sexiest Woman Alive" Penélope Cruz with Editorial Offices: 10 Norden Place, a "God Bless Magazines" button in Novem- Norwalk, CT 06855; 40 Wall Street, 50th floor, New York, NY 10005; ber 2014 and the February 2016 designa- tion of Donald Trump as "Hater-in-Chief." Faxes: 203-854-6735, 212-621-4879; www.minonline.com Editorially, Granger's Esquire is on top of its Access Intelligence LLC, 9211 game, and brand extensions include spinoffs (Big Black Book, etc.), digital, events ("Esquire Corporate Blvd, 4th Floor, Rockville, MD 20850; Ph: 301-354-2000 Published Apartment," etc.) and cable's Esquire Network. 2016 © by Access Intelligence LLC. Distributed via email and online. For Whatever the conjecture over Granger's leaving–notably that the Fielden-led Esquire will have email and postal address changes, allow 2 weeks notice. Send to: Client more fashion that'll enable publisher and chief revenue officer Jack Essig to grow the category–it's Services or call 888-707-5814. For classy by Hearst that he'll be able to take a bow and receive accolades for nearly two months. advertising info contact 301/ 354- 1629. Contents may not be reproduced Compare that with Condé Nast's pre-Thanksgiving ouster of Allure founding editor-in- in any form without written permission. Subscription Rate: $1,199.97 chief Linda Wells that prevented her from getting the 25th-anniversary accolades in March. Successor Michelle Lee's masthead debut was February.

2 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 2/8/2016 minonline.com Steve Smith's App Review Three News App Concepts Leverage Mobile's Strength NewsGif, BriefMe and Rivet offer readers and publishers new concepts for mobile news. There is an irreverent interactivity baked into the novel NewsGIF app. It presents news headlines and bullet points as a cascade of animated GIFs that are determined in some part by other users. The main feed lets you choose among trend- ing tags like #Election2016 or #WeedWatcher and #WTFChina?. When you tap an animated GIF, usually a lighthearted visual pun on the headline, you get real news but in the form of three bullet-pointed sentences. You can click to the original story source, or post the GIF to Fa- cebook, Instagram or Twitter. The cool interactivity comes in when you tap a button that lets you add a different GIF option, or even your own image or upvote the content. You can also set alerts from the app when someone else edits the GIF. While some of the interactivity could be more clearly explained, I like the winsome nature of the app’s approach to news.

In the new world of news driven by audiences rather than editors, it is not surprising to see an app like BriefMe use social signals to rank a feed of the ten most popular stories from around the Web. It scores each item with an equation that includes virality, Facebook and Twitter activity, which it breaks down for you at the tap of a button. There's also real-time stream of stories as they come in, and a tab for access most socially active items by nine major news categories. The app defines what you need to know by what other people are interested in and discussing. The interface uses an accessible clean scroll of headline and too-small sourcing. Otherwise, the app is respectful of its aggregation feeds, preserving the mobile advertising in the embedded window. The app also offers a "BriefMe View” that is available on every story. It extracts the text from the source for a speedier, cleaner read and without advertising. The app is worth imitating if only in its clean, transparent presentation of socially-driven news and equally sleek integra- tion of aggregated brands. Though, it could use more personalization and story save function.

Rivet lets you personalize and even localize the radio experience by aggregating news sources into a stream. Sources like local radio, BBC, Mashable, The Mayo Clinic, and Rolling Stone are news sources that Rivet newsreaders cull down into a personal stream. The app appears to be slicing together its own newsreaders, pulling content from multiple news sources but also podcast content and radio content. The production values are superb. Great reading voice and loads of multimedia sample make this a convincing news radio. The best part of the NewsGiff app is the personalization. BriefMe Rivet You choose your preferred User Experience B User Experience A- User Experience A topics at start and can tick Overall Design B+ Overall Design A- Overall Design A them on or off from the main menu. Social Integration A- Social Integration A- Social Integration A The technology here is so- Mobile Utility B+ Mobile Utility B Mobile Utility B phisticated and glimpses a future of highly personalized Monetization - Monetization - Monetization A multimedia streaming news B+ A done right. Final Grade Final Grade A- Final Grade

2/8/2016 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 3 minonline.com EYE ON INNOVATION The Simple Success of Slate Plus (continued from page 1)

A familiar “S+” logo is visible on The sum total of the site-wide, feature-dense effort that targets Steve Smith items on every section page. It also diverse passions has been encouraging. “In August we celebrated has its own dedicated page for pre- our 10,000th member,” Roth says. “At this point, five months later, mium content. There's even a personal dashboard of controls we are now at about 12,500.” At $50/year or $5/month, that's for members to access a special feed of ad-free podcasts, a not chump change, even if it won’t keep the lights on at Slate by discounted event calendar and a dedicated RSS feed with S+ itself. But costs are kept modest. Roth and four others dedicate content. most of their time to developing Plus content and promotions. At Slate Plus’s visibility to all users is not only evidence of launch, some Slate fans worried loudly that Slate Plus was a slip- the publisher’s persistent dedication to the model, but also pery slope for free access and that more content would find its indicative of how Slate appears to have learned from the past way behind the member wall. To the contrary, Roth says. “I some- mistakes of others. You don’t hide the privileges of member- times wish we could take the really popular Slate features and put ship, and you never them behind the paywall, rely on just one thing. but there are people here It takes a lot of differ- who won’t let me do that. ent features and value The bread and butter is propositions, evolving [ad driven] free content.” over time, to make the Indeed, some of the model work, says Ga- best success has come briel Roth, editor, Slate from special projects de- Plus. “When it started, veloped specifically with then editor David Plots the paying Slate loyal- used the analogy to ists in mind. Last year, Amazon Prime—you a “Slate Academy” pre- pay them and you get miered with a nine-part one set of things like audio series with article shipping and then they accompaniment on the add new things. So, you get what you signed up for and then history of slavery. It not only garnered a national magazine award it turns out you get more.” nomination but also had some of the best conversion rates of any From advance peeks at the next Dear Prudence advice col- S+ feature. They're following it up with a great books reading umn to DVD-like podcast extras, a special audio book club club this year. It was a big gamble on a serious theme, but a spe- and member-only discounts, each new promotion and feature cialized project like this also seemed to attract a higher share of captures another incremental slice of users loyal to certain month-to-month subscriptions. And so Slate is considering also Slate brand qualities. The presumption is that Slate has mul- spinning these Academy projects into one-off packages outside tiple constituencies, drawn to the brand for a host of different of the subscription model. reasons. This lets each subset audience find its own sense of Ultimately, Slate Plus appears to have been on a success- value in the assorted package. ful track because its initial branding was spot on: Identify the Slate’s premium readers have similar demographics as key passions driving loyal users and then super-serve those non-paying users, but they tend to cluster into several ma- passions. But at the same time, never let the visible value of jor groups. There are the brand loyalists, “Slate lifers,” who membership become invisible, either to paid members or non- want to support the effort. Podcasts are a very big draw, as paying potential subscribers. That ever-present “S+” logo goes their aficionados have a special, personal relationship with a long way to make membership a part of the site’s identity. the shows and hosts. The Dear Prudence advice column also Steve Smith covers digital trends and innovations as min's digital media editor. has a huge fan base that is willing to pay for advance col- Send him tips or feedback: [email protected] umns and extra content.

4 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 2/8/2016 minonline.com THE NEW RECRUITS

Elizabeth Graves has been named editor-in-chief for Mar- The Hollywood Reporter named Anna Lisa Raya its new tha Stewart Living. Before joining, Graves was the Beauty senior awards editor, helping run the magazine's Emmy and and Health director of Real Simple. Oscar awards coverage. She joins THR from Deadline Hol- lywood's awards season magazine, AwardsLine, where she Condé Nast has named John Dioso executive director, edi- served as an editor. torial operations of Glamour. Previously, Dioso served as ex- ecutive managing editor of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen. Richard Baker has been named creative director of SAVEUR. Baker is an award-winning designer who has overseen the Shax Riegler has been named executive editor of Architec- visual content for numerous brands including Parade, Life, tural Digest. Riegler joins the brand from Consumer Reports, Vibe, and The Washington Post Sunday Magazine. where he was the content lead for the Home and Appliances group, with oversight of the brand’s print, digital, and video House Beautiful announced that Lulu Powers, renowned platforms. celebrity chef and best-selling author of Food to Flowers, will join the brand as food and entertaining columnist starting Time Inc. has appointed John Marcom to the role of senior with the upcoming February issue. VP, strategy and business development for Time Inc. Interna- tional. Marcom rejoins Time Inc., having most recently served Time’s Inc.’s HelloGiggles has named Leonora Epstein ex- as co-founder of Media BBQ, a consulting boutique support- ecutive editor. Epstein has nearly a decade of experience as ing underserved creative professionals. a writer and editor. For the past three years, she worked at BuzzFeed, most recently as deputy editorial director. Variety has hired Carolyn Horwitz as managing editor in a move aimed at bolstering and expanding the global en- Robert Kolker is joining Bloomberg’s Projects & Investiga- tertainment news source across its print, digital, and video tions team and will write for Bloomberg Businessweek, as platforms. Horwitz joins Variety from Entrepreneur magazine, well. Kolker was at New York magazine for 17 years and is a where she had served as executive editor since 2011. New York Times bestselling author.

Grace Coddington, longtime creative director at American George W. Stone has been appointed editor-in-chief of Na- Vogue, will be shifting to a new role at the magazine — cre- tional Geographic Travel, where he will lead all of the travel ative director at-large — as she pursues outside projects. The content. Stone has spent the last three years in Singapore 74-year-old stylist began her career as a model and was hired creating editorial content and covering global travel trends by Vogue editor Anna Wintour in 1988 as fashion director. and emerging markets.

Time Inc. appointed Steve Marcopoto to the newly created Since stepping into the publisher’s role in January 2014, John position of president, Time Inc. International. Marcopoto was Donnelly has been promoted to CRO of Inc. Before joining previously president and managing director of Turner Broad- the brand, he'd been an associate publisher at Fortune. casting Asia-Pacific.

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2/8/2016 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 5 minonline.com 26919 min Social Media Guidebook STRIP AD .indd 1 10/22/15 5:28 PM Guns & Ammo On Target With New Video Tactics As readers of the December 2015 Magazine Media 360º Brand Audience Report may have noticed, Outdoor Sports Group’s Guns & Ammo was among the fastest growing digital video properties among magazines in De- cember. The brand was up a whopping 2000% in uniques year-over-year. Berry Blanton, director, digital development at OSG credits the rise to a new platform approach to video the company deployed with their shooting titles. The company now plans to migrate across the rest of the enthusiast portfo- lio. Their YouTube channel is being developed as well, as more native video is placed on Facebook, but both are designed to drive views to the home sites. “The bump is coming from our branded sites,” he tells min. They also built new dedicated pages for the branded TV shows “Guns & Ammo TV,” et. al.) where viewers can find a trove of old "clips and tips"-related archives. As with many media sites, Facebook’s shifting algorithms resulted in a 30% to 60% decrease in referrals, “so we try to make it up with best- of-the-best content and cleaning up video players at our sites.” Blanton’s team is also taking evergreen "tips" videos from the TV archives to build new, more searchable content. “We cut them down, repurpose them and build them into larger stories. It targets Google and organic search better.” The most successful content is often a helpful clip that seems, on the surface, old and mundane, like how to handle a police stop when you have a licensed gun in the car. Reggie Hudson, director of digital advertising operations, says that 95% of the pre-roll ad sales driving the revenue side are direct. OSG was acquired in late 2014 by Outdoor Channel owner Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which added TV networks Hudson could package in with print and digital. Overall, they have 750,000 monthly video impressions from the original publishing sites and 1 mil- lion from the TV network sites.

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6 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 2/8/2016 minonline.com GfK MRI's EYE ON AD RECALL Top Noted Ads: Fashion and Beauty Magazines Fashion's biggest month yeilded big wins for luxury brands. Condé Nast's Allure, Vanity Fair and Vogue carried the top three spots in the September 2015 fashion and beauty maga- zine category (VF is a hybrid with general interest) based on reader surveys by GfK MRI's Starch Advertising Research. Coach juxtaposed a four-color image with a black-and-white one to notch the #1 Noted score in the September Vogue's "Fall Fashion Preview." Tied for second place was cosmetics stalwart Estée Lauder with the visage of actress Eva Mendes promoting EL's New Dimension Shape+Fill Expert Serum in the September Allure. Joining EL was Ralph Lauren's outdoors/indoors montage in the September VF. Perceptive min readers will recall that the same Ralph Lauren ads were top consumer recall performers in August 2015 general interest magazines. Along with data on the three top ads that consumers Noted, or recalled having read, GfK MRI also listed the audience for these magazines from its Issue Specific study.

Rank #2 (tie): Estée Lauder Magazine: Allure Category: Skin care products Noted: 89% Issue Specific Audience: 6,943,000

Rank #1 Coach Apparel Magazine: Vogue Category: Apparel Noted: 90% Issue Specific Audience: 13,728,000

Rank #2 (tie): Ralph Lauren Apparel Magazine: Vanity Fair Category: Apparel Noted: 89% Issue Specific Audience: 6,338,000

2/8/2016 Magazine Media’s Most Trusted Source Since 1947 7 minonline.com THE WRAP The New Yorker Toppled Trump Before Iowa... On January 25, The New Yorker published Barry Blitt's illustration, "Bad Reception," on itsFebruary 1 cover showing the consternation by Lincoln, Washington, TR, FDR and JFK over Donald Trump's bid to join what Time assistant managing editor Michael Duffy coined "The Presidents' Club." In the July 27, 2015TNY, Blitt satirized Trump with the realtor's "Belly Flop" to drive his GOP competitors out of the water, but "Bad Recep- tion" may have stuck after the realtor's disappointing showing at the Iowa caucuses. The Ted Cruz victory in Iowa was a triumph for National Review, which opposes Trump for not being a "true conservative." As for Cruz's controversies, NR "Morning Jolt" commentator Jim Geraghty gave this soundbite: "To hell with ethanol." ...Where the Caucus Was a 'Great Civics Class' Des Moines-based Better Homes and Gardens editor-in-chief Stephen Orr is a trans- planted New Yorker (he joined last summer from Condé Nast Traveler), and Monday's Iowa caucus was his first. "I caucused with the Democrats in a high-school gym, and an energized town-hall atmosphere was made extra special by having observers from around the world," he says. Only registered voters could choose a presidential candidate (Orr did not disclose his choice), but that didn't stop a 10-year-old from making a "passionate, issue-oriented speech" on behalf of former Maryland governor Mar- tin O'Malley, who withdrew from the race after his poor Iowa performance. "This was democracy in action, and I was proud to be a part of it," Orr says. Woman's Day's Continued Dedication to Heart-Disease Awareness WD's Red Dress Awards mark their 13th year on February 9. It was in 2000 that Woman's Day first reported that heart disease kills more women than all forms of cancer combined. This was an underreported fact (the false perception was that estrogen offered "protection" until menopause), but former WD editor-in-chief Jane Chesnutt made it a personal mission by serving on the American Heart Association board of directors and starting the "Red Dress Awards" in 2004. Chesnutt's legacy continues under current WD editor-in-chief Susan Spencer and publisher and CRO Kassie Means. They and Today 10 a.m. co-anchor Hoda Kotb will co-host the 13th Red Dress Awards on November 9 at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center that will honor U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and four other health-care and nutrition professionals. Complementing the event is the March WD's "Live Longer and Stronger Heart Health Challenge," with the five participants ranging in age from 31 to 55. "It's our third campaign, and we will be following their progress," says Spencer. "Weight loss is key, but so, too, are such other factors as diabetes and congenital heart disease." Event chief sponsor CocoaVia (a dark-chocolate flavanol known to lower cholesterol) is returning, as are Rosa Regale red sparkling wine, Lands' End and Lenox Tableware. New is the Mayo Clinic, which Means says sponsored the "Red Dress Masthead" in the February issue.

Saluting Woman's Day's Red Dress Awards, The Editors NEXT WEEK Steven Cohn, Editor-in-Chief A 20th-Anniversary Valentine Steve Smith, Digital Media Editor fromThe Knot Caysey Welton, Group Editor

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