Face-Off: Gimme Shelter

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

Shelter is easily one of the most crowded categories in the magazine world, and one of the few that has enjoyed rapid ad growth, thanks to historically low interest rates and a strong "nesting" trend that began after 9/11. Among the sheltering giants are stalwarts like Architectural Digest, the ad page leader, Country Living, Traditional Home, and Country Home. But the category has segmented, and now a healthy crop of modern design titles is building momentum. The leader, Metropolitan Home, is followed by relative newcomer Dwell, and the quirky-yet-sophisticated Nest. Here's where they stack up. - Mark J. Miller

Metropolitan Home (Hachette Filipacchi)

Ad pages: In 2002, 616.3 (-10.5%); through June 2003, 261.81 ( 17.62%) Total circ: 613,613 Newsstand: 499,046 Subscription: 114,567 New advertiser: DKNY

Met Home is the oldest of this bunch, having launched in 1981. "What we really have going for us," says Anne Triece, vice president and group publisher of Metropolitan Home, "are years of covering modern design." With Met Home's larger circ comes a broader advertising base. Most of its readers are young and affluent. "Met Home's stability and longevity are definite pluses for potential advertisers," says George Sansoucy, senior vice president and director of Initiative Print & Convergence, which has purchased ads in all three books. Last year, the bimonthly found Estee Lauder in its pages for the first time. "Our non-endemic advertising base is pretty big," says Triece, "and that comes from being a dependable title that readers know will still be here next year." On the competition: "We've never even considered Nest a competitor and Dwell is nice, but doesn't have the tradition of Met Home." - Anne Triece

Dwell (Dwell, LLC)

Ad pages: In 2002, 256 (55%); * through July 2003, 302.7 (112%) Total circ: 142,778 Newsstand: 108,503 Subscription: 34,275 New advertiser: Cadillac

Established in 1999, Dwell publishes eight times a year. Its readership is 55 percent men and 45 percent women, significantly different from the category norm of 75 percent women and 25 percent men. "That duality is something we really take pride in," says the title's president and publisher, Michela O'Connor Abrams. The duality also extends to the title serving both the end-consumer market and contractors. Dwell jumped from six to eight issues a year in 2003 and now has a rate base of 200,000. The latter O'Connor Abrams considers a real milestone toward reaching necessary critical mass for larger advertisers. Dwell has been making major inroads into the automotive category in the last few issues. "Dwell is starting to make its mark," says Sancoucy. He notes that the strong combination of men and women is an interesting point to advertisers. "The real indicator for us to keep growing is if we can keep that duality intact as we expand," says O'Connor Abrams. On the competition: "Among shelter magazines that range from traditional to zealously modern, Dwell is in a category of its own." - Michela O'Connor Abrams

Nest

Ad pages: In 2002, N/A; through June 2003, N/A Total circ: N/A Newsstand: N/A Subscription: 65,000 ** New advertiser: N/A

Considered the anti-shelter shelter magazine, Nest is an esoteric collection of art and design that is in its sixth year of existence. The brainchild of Joseph Holtzman, Nest has collected a small but diehard following in its short lifespan. "What intrigues advertisers about Nest is that every subscriber is considered to be someone who influences 10 more people. It's not an easy magazine to find, but those who do are leaders," Sansoucy says. Advertisements only take up a third of the book and Holtzman rejects some that come into the office for not being interesting enough, a policy he has stood by since the title's launch. "While there aren't a slew of ads in there," says Sansoucy, "the ones there are excellent - and varied. All different categories of advertisers have an interest in order to reach those leaders." On the competition: The quarterly's representatives declined to an interview for this article.

Sources: Ad page counts from Publishers Information Bureau; circulation data from Audit Bureau of Circulations for the second half of 2002. *Provided by publisher **Published report