Publisher's aphorism: all parenting is local - Parents' Plus, Inc

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct 15, 1994 by Lorrine Calvacca

Call it a case of necessity being the mother of invention--literally. When Massachusetts native Betsy Weaver became a first-time mother in 1982, she felt as though she had just entered alien territory. "I needed something to get me locked into the community," recalls the former teacher and federal policy maker, who was then head of her own socialscience policy consulting firm. Of course, there were "thick books" on parenting issues, she says, "but as a working parent, who had time to read them?" And while national magazines in the category provided quick-read info and advice, they didn't hit home. "I wanted immediate, specific information, local resources--information I'd get over the fence in a close-knit community."

Unable to find what she was looking for, Weaver decided to create it herself. Thus was born Parents' Plus, Inc., which launched The Boston Parents' Paper.

Parents' Plus was an idea whose time had come. Today, it has grown into a $1.5 million enterprise consisting of three free publications: The Boston Parents' Paper and The Rhode Island Parents' Paper (both monthlies), and Our Times: A Family and Travel Leisure Guide, reaching more than 130,000 readers. Parents' Plus is affiliated with an organization of similar publications throughout the country that, combined, reach four million people. Weaver and company have helped establish a new and growing niche in the highly competitive market for parenting and family magazines, and their success is so evident that both the national parenting magazines and national advertisers are taking notice. Steve Reddicliffe, editor in chief of Time Inc. Ventures' Parenting, acknowledges that local parenting papers have basically invented their own category. "The regional parenting newspapers provide a lot of information about local events and are great ad vehicles for community services parents want for their children," he says.

The first issue of the tabloid-size Boston Parents' Paper made its debut in July 1984. Weaver had raised $70,000 from a combination of investor funds and her own money, and as president and publisher headed a start-up staff of four--three in editorial and one in sales. Ad sales totaled $73,000 that first year, and after 18 months, the publication was breaking even. Circulation has grown from 20,000 then to over 100,000 today, while ad pages have doubled in five years, to 456.

The Rhode Island Parents' Paper, founded in 1989 with a circulation of 12,000, today boasts 30,000 readers. In five years, its ad pages have gone from four per issue to nine. The newest addition to the family, Our Times, published quarterly, was launched a year ago and is inserted in four regional parenting publications throughout the country.

Weaver attributes the Boston-based company's success to the labor-force boom of working mothers, a population in great need of quick, usable community-based resources and information. "I was one of them," she says. Indeed, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of working mothers more than doubled between 1970 and 1993, to 23.1 million.

Wooing national advertisers

Local advertisers are unquestionably the foundation of the regional titles' success. But national advertisers are increasingly being courted--and they are beginning to respond. Within the last year, the publications have added children's books, family movies and nanny agencies as advertisers, and family vacation spots have begun to recognize the value of the highly targeted titles. But, notes Weaver, "we are not leaving our regional roots. We are creating a national presence versus a national book."

As part of the strategy to attract national ads, Weaver helped found the Parenting Publication Association (PPA), a trade group of 85 regional parenting publications from across the country that offers national advertisers attractive group buys once a year. And the collaborative effort proves the strength-in-numbers adage: The Parenting publications have a combined circulation of about four million, more than the combined circulation of Parents, Parenting and Child, which is about 3.2 million, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures.

A media buy that can't be ignored

Both General Mills and Crest bought space in the PPA network. Says Barry Davis, marketing manager in the General Mills' Cheerios business unit, "I thought that [regionals] were too small to deal with. But you can reach four million parents with kids up to five years old in a single buy. That was news to me." One problem Davis sees, however, is that the network is inconsistent in editorial quality and production requirements. The question of quality is also raised by Parenting's Reddicliffe, who says the local papers "are not reliable resources for real in-depth information--like girls and self-esteem, the childcare crisis, and children and immunizations. Editorially, there's no comparison between Parenting and the local newspapers," he says.

Still, General Mills' Davis calls the regionals "an emerging market that wasn't on our map before," and predicts that if the 85 titles standardize their quality and format, "national advertisers will be forced to consider these publications. A buy that big can't be ignored."