More tales of the road - Cooking Light magazine's marketing technique - Column

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 15, 1993 by Keith J. Kelly

Who says Manhattanites always dine out? Recently, Cooking Light parked a 50-foot van in front of the Time & Life Building, where the magazine's staffers were handing out coupons and recipes for healthy home cooking. The event was part of the magazine's massive, nationwide effort to capture ad and promotional dollars in couponing and product samples that often elude conventional ad sales strategies.

But publisher Jeff Ward, just in from Birmingham, Alabama, was worried that nobody would show up. He already knew that the van was a big hit as it rolled to shopping centers across the country. But in midtown Manhattan?

Ward was pleasantly surprised to find people lining up on the sidewalk. "This isn't value added," he told us. "Each advertiser is paying $25,000 to be involved with this." To us, it is smart marketing. More and more magazine publishers are going to have to adapt similar strategies as they follow the flow of ad and promotional dollars in their own marketplaces.

Of course, any such effort needs a strong underlying editorial product. It's no surprise to find that Cooking Light, owned by Time Inc. subsidiary Southern Progress, is up 11.2 percent in ad pages through July, and that the recently released Audit Bureau of Circulations figures show a gain of 6.8 percent for the title, to 1.01 million, for the first half of 1993.

Regarding another tale of the road, we regret to inform you that Truckers News never did locate the stuffed dog named Freddy. As you may recall from this column, the title reported that Freddy had become a traveling mascot to truckers who would send a postcard to a public school from the various towns that Freddie passed through. While changing hands from trucker to trucker, Freddy disappeared. Now, though, there is a Freddy Freightliner II to carry on the tradition. Truckers News managing editor Deborah Whistler tells us the new Freddy comes complete with a high-tech tracking device.