Imagine All the People, Reading Magazines

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April, 2001 by Jennifer F. Steil

To target the generation that refuses to grow old, the AARP is segmenting the mature market with My Generation.

It's not about your grandfather's aging process. That's the message the AARP hopes to send with this month's launch of My Generation, its new magazine targeting baby boomers.

Until now, the AARP had the unenviable task of making one magazine, Modem Maturity, relevant to people ages 50 to 100. "Before the boomers arrived, the feeling was that everyone over 50 was more homogeneous," says Jim Fishman, publisher of My Generation, Modern Maturity and the AARP Bulletin, a monthly newspaper. "They were slowing down, thinking about retirement, moving to Florida."

Now come the boomers, 37 to 55 years old, who have always define themselves in opposition to previous generations. "This is a major challenge for marketers because the boomers aren't like anyone who was over 50 before," Fishman says. "They refuse to get old. People turning 50 today expect to live a long and very active and very pleasant life."

Traditional AARP stories about retirement homes and golf were not going to cut it with this group. Thus, the new magazine, which will be sent to AARP members who are between 45 and 55 this year, will include editorial on developing new careers, giving back to society, "or just opening a coffee bar," says Fishman.

Hey, you! Get out of my magazine!

My Generation will age with its readers, targeting people ages 50 to 56 next year and 50 to 57 the following year. Eventually, it will push out Modern Maturity, and there's a good chance a new magazine will be launched--for Generation X, Fishman speculates.

Betsy Carter, editor in chief of My Generation, conducted months of research to come up with the magazine's title. "What came out of that was a lot of people saying 'Well, my generation does this, or my generation does that,'" Fishman says.

He declined to estimate the costs of the launch, but says it is difficult to nail down because, with an association magazine, there is no circulation start-up cost. And although Carter hired a new editorial staff, the magazine shares its publishing and manufacturing staff with Modern Maturity.

The dual-audience lifestyle magazine will be published bimonthly with a ratebase of 3.1 million. Modern Maturity, which has been redesigned and split into two age-related versions, goes to 17.9 million members--seven million to those 56 to 65 and 10.9 million to those 66 and older.

By the end of the year, My Generation will be sent to four million homes, and in 10 years it will reach a circulation of 10 million, Fishman projects.

It costs $10 to join the AARP, which has adopted that acronym as its official title, discarding the "American Association of Retired Persons" as out of date. (After all, who retires anymore?) People join to get discounts, but the main reason people renew is to get the publications, Fishman says.

Fifty thousand copies of My Generation will be sold on newsstands in 10 major cities for $2.95 each, and an additional 75,000 copies will be placed in public places like doctors' and vets' offices.

Boomer ads boom

The March/April launch issue of My Generation includes 61 pages of advertising. "The good thing is that I can go to advertisers and say, 'Instead of giving me one ad, you can give me three ads, each directed at a different age group,'" says Fishman. Travel companies, for example, can feature different attractions for the same destination, depending on how active they expect their audience to be.

Top advertising categories include travel, automotive, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. My Generation's advertisers include Chevrolet, L'Oreal and IBM.

"I'm thrilled that AARP has decided to pursue a younger mature market," says Sherrie Weitzman, brand advertising manager for Chevrolet in Detroit. "It's long overdue." Weitzman decided to advertise the Chevrolet Impala in My Generation because she doesn't want people to perceive the brand as something only grandma or grandpa would drive. "Advertising in this magazine will help us communicate that this is a car for someone with an active lifestyle, a car that says you've arrived," she says.

The biggest challenge My Generation faces is to truly differentiate itself from Modern Maturity, Weitzman says.

Hugh Delehanty, editorial director of both My Generation and Modern Maturity, says the biggest challenge is the size of the launch. "It involved a lot of research, a lot of work internally at AARP," he says. "This is a major strategic move."

He was surprised, however, at how cohesive such a large audience turned out to be in terms of its attitudes. "Baby boomers are going through a time of self-questioning," he says. They're worried about taking care of their parents and Social Security and adjusting to aging. Boomers also tend to be more open to creative solutions, more media-savvy and personally invested in their work, Delehanty says.

For these reasons, My Generation has a less classic structure than Modern Maturity. It's divided into several sections by topic, with short news pieces leading into features.