Prevention passes physical; no longer a mere cult book for soybean lovers, Rodale title hits the big time after a decade-long repositioning - but more work remains

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb 1, 1991 by John Masterton

No longer a mere cult book for soybean lovers, Rodale title hits the big time after a decade-long repositioning - but more work remains

EMMAUS,PA. - Fifteen years ago, Prevention was a little-known monthly with esoteric health articles crammed full of fractional ads for mail-order food supplements. Not anymore.

Today, Rodale Press has nurtured the title from cult health journal to publishing's mainstream. Along the way, Prevention has reached far beyond the "health nut" reader, discarding unsightly fractionals in favor of full-page national advertising and spawning a host of satellite marketing opportunities revolving around health consciousness.

Prevention has also fine-tuned its circulation strategy, in part by paying the high costs of strong check-out counter presence. its over three million circulation is more than its three closest rivals'- American Health, Health and In Health-combined.

"We outgrew the cult book reputation a long time ago," says Sandy Beldon, who succeeded Marshall Ackerman as publisher in 1986. "We're not promoting fads; we're delivering practical health information people can use every day. That's why people read us."

After 40 years, editorial still stresses taking personal responsibility for one's health. But much is different since J.I. Rodale launched Prevention in 1950. Printed entirely on uncoated paper stock, early issues were full of gray blocks of type with few or no graphics. Today's Prevention has shorter stories with a punchier look that includes some coated paper. Fractional ads for sunflower kernels have been replaced by full-page four-color ads for the products of such mainstream advertisers as Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, Procter & Gamble and General Motors. After a trial run last year, color has been added to the editorial well as of this month's issue.

These alterations have come slowly. "Change at Prevention has been evolutionary," Beldon explains. "In sum, the magazine is very different, but it happens in small, piecemeal steps that never jar the reader. That's how we do things."

Impetus for the changes dates to 1979, when then-publisher Ackerman drew up a plan to guide the book's growth in the new decade. "We had to recognize certain facts," recalls Ackerman, who retired last June. Most important, distribution of mail-order food supplements-the magazine's bread and butter at the time-was changing. Until 1980, Prevention had a nearly exclusive franchise on covering and advertising these products. But as food supplements began going "mass market," they started showing up on shelves in pharmacies and health food stores.

"People no longer had to come to Prevention to obtain these products," says Ackerman. "I knew we wouldn't be getting 100 pages per issue of supplement ads anymore."

To reorient the title, Rodale displaced much of its mail-order business and began going after national accounts, especially food products. But there was one problem: Media buyers have long memories when clients' products are raked over the coals. For years, Prevention had been castigating many of the same products it now began soliciting.

Recounts Ackerman: "We weren't the most popular title with these advertisers. Large food companies remembered that J. I. Rodale had told readers anything they bought in supermarkets was unhealthy. General Foods, for instance, recalled that we said drinking Tang was no worse than drinking carbolic acid mixed with water because neither would kill you. so we were a tough sell."

Other fences needed mending, too. Prevention had dropped out of ABC in the early sixties and didn't resume ABC audits until 1979. The title didn't join Publishers information Bureau until 1984.

Persistence has apparently paid off, though. Ten years ago, virtually all advertising came from mail-order food supplements. Today, what remains of this category takes up a few pages in the back of each issue. (ironically, all this tinkering has produced far fewer ad pages by unit. According to "Media industry Newsletter," 1990's 532 pages are off 50 percent from 1980's 1,062 mark. indeed, the title lost mail-order food pages every year in the last decade, although revenues climbed each year since 1985. Beldon claims revenue-per-page is much greater now.)

There have been other changes. Two years ago, Prevention downsized to 5 1/4" x 7 3/8" (digest size) from its longtime 6" x 9" format. The slightly smaller size let the title fit into some of the check-out register racks otherwise occupied by Reader's Digest and TV Guide. Coupled with aggressive retail display allowances (RDAs), the move has helped lift single-copy sales from virtually nothing in 1980 to 330,000.

The single-copy push also tied into another Prevention goal: lowering the median age of its circulation. Since people grow MOre concerned with their health as they age, Prevention has long drawn an older-skewing audience. But attracting more younger readers enabled the book to segment its audience in new ways. Ad packages segmented by age

in a plan first conceived in the eighties, Prevention began breaking out its over- and under-55 circulation into separate advertising packages last March. Hotel chains like Howard johnson are now pitching senior citizen room discounts to Prevention's over-55 demographic group. Meanwhile, the under-55 package has attracted food and skin care products that might not have run had advertisers had to buy the entire circulation.