The People

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 1, 2003

Byline: KAREN HOLT

Reader's Digest's new publisher, Christopher Lambiase, logs roughly 120 miles on his bicycle every weekend. And he's not just riding - he's racing.

"I'm extremely competitive, and that's going to be an important element in the culture that will add to the future success of the Digest."

Does he think that has been the missing element? Lambiase, former president and publishing director of SmartMoney, demurs. But it is pretty clear that if competitiveness hadn't been missing at Reader's Digest, he wouldn't have a new job.

Lambiase, hired by another competitive newcomer, former YM publisher Laura McEwen, signals a more aggressive stage in the long comeback campaign for RDA's flagship monthly.

In 2001, Reader's Digest CEO Thomas O. Ryder promised to revitalize the company's flagship magazine with a "quiet revolution." The revolution was too quiet - so quiet it whispered right over the heads of ad buyers. Despite significant editorial changes and, more recently, efforts to scrape off the undesirable edges of the magazine's subscriber base, advertising pages have continued to slide - by 11 percent in 2001, 7 percent in 2002, and 8 percent through August of this year.

Hoping to turn that around, the company has spent the past few months assembling a new ad sales and marketing team, filling the roster with outsiders, in some cases slotting them into positions formerly held by longtime Reader's Digest employees. Lambiase, who took over as publisher on October 6, is the final big hire. He replaces Eric Gruseke, who made a discreet exit last summer after 12 years at the company, the past two as publisher.

"It's difficult for a team that's in place during changes to get their arms around a new message," Lambiase says. "That's why there's a new team in place now. It can kind of embrace that message and take it out to the market."

That message: The magazine is sharper and more relevant than it has ever been, and it reaches 43 million readers - who happen to be a lot younger and richer than everyone thinks. According to the company, the magazine reaches 17 percent of adults aged 18 to 49, and 19 percent of households with incomes over $100,000.

On the content side, Jacqueline Leo has hired a number of high profile contributors, including Reader's Digest's first columnists. The magazine has increased its original content and updated its look with a redesign that unclutters the cover.

Still, to many in the advertising community, Reader's Digest hasn't shaken its image as the stodgy staple of waiting rooms and grandma's coffee table.

Lambiase, 46, had spent his entire career at Dow Jones, 11 years with the Wall Street Journal and 11 with SmartMoney, a Dow Jones-Hearst joint venture. He joins a team that McEwen began assembling over the summer, when she took the newly created position of vice president and publishing director for RD magazines. That team includes Lauren Bogad Jay as associate publisher/group marketing, the same position Jay held under McEwen at YM.

She also hired Jill Fischer, another YM alum, as marketing manager, as well as Nancy Alpert to work under Fischer.

Lambiase is her most senior - and perhaps most critical - hire. McEwen says she chose Lambiase not for his deep connections with advertisers in the automobile and personal-finance categories - though those are two areas the company will troll for more dollars - but because his aggressive vision for the magazine meshed with her own.

"Quiet revolution? Or are we going to take this to the heights? We really are of one mind," says McEwen. She says that the bolder approach to marketing is starting to pay off; pages were up 16.9 percent in October.

So, what is this aggressive new approach? A cornerstone of the plan is to create custom editions, slicing and dicing those 43 million readers into smaller groups. Advertisers will be able to buy space in versions specifically targeted to the consumers they want.

The magazine already has a "Family Plus" edition that goes out to 5 million subscribers age 25 to 54 and have children in the house. While the company isn't yet ready to discuss other editions, it's easy to imagine versions based on the age, sex, or income of subscribers. The company can also zero in on special interests; for example, by tailoring editions to frequent travelers or do-it-yourselfers.

To get the word out about the editorial improvements the magazine has already made, the company has hired a new ad agency, which is expected to break a new trade campaign.

Lambiase and McEwen are also working with Leo to create more enticing content for advertisers, such as the launch of the Reader's Digest Family Index, which tracks the status of Americans on issues like parenting, obesity, and finances - a natural tie-in for companies with products to peddle to younger readers.

Lambiase sees room for growth in several key ad categories, including automotive, business, and technology, which already make up a substantial portion of the magazine's ad revenues. Combined they account- ed for 18 percent of sales in 2001 - but Lambiase expects to bring in more.