The competition for advertisers’ dollars is heating up as two new glossy magazines will be launched this spring.
The Tribune’s Hartford Courant and Hartford Advocate are teaming up to publish a lifestyle magazine. At nearly the same time, White Publishing is launching its own glossy. Both are jumping into the ring, brawling for advertisers as they compete against the state’s established lifestyle magazines, Connecticut Magazine and Hartford Magazine.
White Publishing, the West Hartford publisher of 13 weekly lifestyle tabloids in north central Connecticut, will begin publishing a 100-plus page glossy magazine called Connecticut Life, in May. Publication of the magazine’s tabloid predecessor under the same name was halted in February.
The Hartford Courant and Hartford Advocate will publish a 64-page glossy lifestyle magazine called CT Slant, with the first issue available March 28. The new glossy will replace Preview, a smaller arts magazine delivered as an insert in The Hartford Courant until publication was terminated last month.
CT Slant’s first print run will be 70,000 copies, 50,000 of which will be home delivered to Courant subscribers. Another 10,000 will be inserted in the Courant’s single-sale Sunday papers and another 10,000 will be bulk- dropped with Hartford Advocate papers at targeted locations, said Janet Reynolds, publisher of the Hartford Advocate, a New Mass Media imprint.
Unlike its Preview operation, sales staffs at both the Courant and the Advocate are selling advertising space for CT Slant, Reynolds said, adding, “This is truly a collaborative effort.”
The new magazine’s marketing campaign includes billboard, television and radio ads, and a personal visit from Señor Slant, a costumed individual donning a white suit to represent the magazine’s “debonair” style aimed at attracting the region’s 25- to 44-year-old demographic, she said.
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Ready To Rumble
Michael Guinan, publisher of the four-year old glossy Hartford Magazine, believes that competition is a good thing and that his company is ready for it.
“From our perspective, competition makes you better and by no means will Hartford Magazine stand still,” he said. “We have plans in the cards to also be involved in a major announcement rather soon. I think we set the tone in the marketplace by being the first out of the gate. We have received a lot of recognition for what we have done in our four years, and we don’t intend to stand still. There will be an enhancement of our efforts.”
Guinan’s company and White Publishing are cognizant of the financial advantages CT Slant will enjoy over their magazines. New delivery costs, for instance, will be low since the publication will be combined with either The Hartford Courant or Hartford Advocate.
“Certainly the Courant and Advocate entity has a large infrastructure, and there is some synergy there that will make it cost efficient,” Guinan acknowledged.
Regardless, he is confident that Hartford Magazine will successfully distinguish itself from its competition.
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Stand Alone
“The advertising community would recognize that Hartford Magazine offers a valuable distribution situation as far as being a stand-alone mail distribution publication as compared with being an insert,” Guinan maintained.
“The perception is that [CT Slant] is an insert. It doesn’t matter how it is positioned in the bag, whether it is at the top of the bag or the bottom of the bag. It is still an insert.”
But Reynolds maintains that CT Slant will not be an insert. “It will be placed on top of the paper, but we’re using that [newspaper] delivery system,” she said.
Reynolds is not concerned about the competition, stating that the first issue was “very successful financially.”
“Everyone is very happy,” she added. “It is off to a rip-roaring start and no one is worried about that old phrase that it takes three years to turn a profit.”
Reynolds said that her organization saw a business opportunity because the “25- to 44-year-old demographic was being underserved in the glossy magazine market” in the region.
“Connecticut Life and Hartford Magazine audiences are skewed older and I think what CT Slant is having is really interesting, vibrant writing by real journalists,” Reynolds added. “I think it is important to say that it is not a trade journal, and not aimed at a very narrow group of people.”
Christopher White, president of White Publishing, declined to comment about his upcoming glossy magazine, a first for the publisher of local lifestyle tabloids mailed free to residents in targeted towns, including West Hartford, Avon and Farmington.
Although he declined to describe any details about Connecticut Life, he also emphasized that his magazine will be mailed, not inserted into an existing newspaper.
