Seventeen Battles For Ad Dollars In Teen Mag Market

Selling to Kids, March 17, 1999

Seventeen magazine may be more than 54 years old, but it's not showing its age, thanks in no small part to the leadership of Lori L. Burgess, its publisher since September 1996. Under her guidance, Seventeen's ad revenues have increased by 44%, despite new magazines in the teen market, drawn by an average consumer who has at least $71 to spend every week.

"We sell between 2.4 million and 2.5 million issues on average every month," says Burgess. "We deliver considerably more readers than any other teen publication and we have a huge advertising page advantage over the competition in terms of total market share. In total 1998, in the teen category, we turned 53.1 percent of the ad pages, YM turned 24.8 percent and Teen turned 22.1 percent."

Burgess came from YM to join Seventeen in 1993 as advertising director and was promoted to associate publisher the next year. In this exclusive interview, she talks about her readers, how she keeps up with them and which advertisers want them.

S2K: Who is the Seventeen reader?

Burgess: She's a female who's between the ages of 12 and 24. She's at a median age of, really, 18 years old. And she's somebody who's coming to our magazine to find out what's going to be hot next. That's our editorial positioning. She's looking for the newest, the hottest, the latest, anything and everything that will help her look good, feel better about herself, and give her the confidence to fit in with her peers.

S2K: She's 18 and the magazine is called "Seventeen." Any thoughts about changing the name?

Burgess: No, because we're really a brand. We like to think of ourselves as a brand just like Coca Cola, just like Chevrolet ...

... many of them start reading us while they're under the age of 18, and they think the fashion and beauty is very cool, which is about 45% of our editorial. But. the magazine is really edited for.17-22 year-olds. And the reason is, young women that are age 12, 13, 14 don't want to be 12, 13, 14. And this is really critical, they don't see themselves as 12, 13, 14. . . So the young ones read the magazine because they want to be almost the same way a reader would be with an older sister. And the older readers find a great deal of information that's particularly relevant to their lives today, about entertainment, celebrities and pop culture, but the more meaningful information would be about college, how to apply, how to understand what your SAT scores really mean. on the less serious side, a story about how to deal with a roommate.

S2K: How is your audience changing?

Burgess: The Seventeen reader.is a lot more sophisticated, mature and grown-up than ever before. Why? Because moms like me are working, we're not home at 3 o'clock picking them up from school.. Not only do (girls) have more responsibilities within their families, food shopping, caring for siblings, and preparing food for dinners, but a large percentage of them are handling part-time jobs to earn extra money to buy the kind of nice things they want...

S2K: How are you keeping in touch with your readers?

Burgess: We have always received over 6,000 letters a month and have done different research polls and bought a lot of research. What we also did about five years ago was go onto AOL. We had an incredibly successful site that has been moved to the Internet (www.Seventeen.com) as of last October where we're getting about seven million visits a month. Also last year, we hosted more than 117 events where we interfaced with over 100,000 consumers on beaches, in shopping malls, in department stores, in drugstores, on college campuses. So we've got an opportunity to see them, touch them, talk to them.

S2K: How have your advertisers been changing?

Burgess: The old ones that really understand the market - the Cover Girls, the Maybellines .... [ads are] greatly different because they're selling to a different market.... You'll also see a lot of advertisers now that are running in the pages of Seventeen that perhaps hadn't historically or certainly hadn't to the degree that they are.

S2K: For example?

Burgess: Estee Lauder, Aveda, Clinique, Lancome, Elizabeth Arden, Plymouth Neon. A lot of retailers do business with us because they know when they buy with us, not only do the consumers come in and buy but they buy a lot. This is a consumer group that has money to burn on no one but themselves.... I think the benefits of print. are outstanding compared to television. You and I could be watching a show right now. somebody could say you guys have the TV on, you must have been watching TV, but we're talking to each other on the phone. I couldn't be reading a magazine and having this conversation with you right now.

Well, we sometimes lose advertisers to television, which is really disappointing because in one issue of the magazine, we reach 50% of all teenage women. No other magazine does this in any category in the business. You can't reach 50% of all people who play golf in Golf magazine.

The number show reaching teens is "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," and I have the statistics for 12- to 17-year-olds. One commercial on that show (about $150,000 for a 30 second spot), which is way more expensive than an ad page in Seventeen ($88,000) reaches about 13% of the 12- to 17-year-old population. Hel-lo! The environment's more intimate here and we're a better deal. So that's a challenge we're constantly facing.