Interior motives: Decorating Remodeling has designs on building its franchise into a one-stop shopping showcase for the shelter-magazine category

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb 1, 1993 by Lambeth Hochwald

Decorating Remodeling has designs on building its franchise into a one-stop shopping showcase for the shelter-magazine category.

Decorating Remodeling co-editors Kathryn George and Karen Saks admit they're like an old married couple. After four years of working together, says George - "no, five," corrects Saks - the pair are prone to finishing each other's sentences and gently correcting the other when discussing the magazine. Co-editors since last April, they even swap appointment calendars to keep track of each other's schedules.

Although their teamwork is a quirky fusion of two fairly different styles - ex-Texan interior designer meets long-time editor and native New Yorker - the two share one overriding goal: to position Decorating Remodeling and its related special-interest publications as the shelter authority.

For publisher George C. Fields Jr., that goal is part of an overall concept he refers, to as "matrix marketing." Since arriving at The New York Times Co. Magazine Group publication in 1989, Fields has used Decorating Remodeling's "service with style" message as a cornerstone for building niche spinoffs and luring advertisers with value-added programs. In addition to the eight-times-a-year Decorating Remodelling, there are nine special-interest publications (produced by the same staff of 15 editors): two editions of Kitchen & Bath Custom Planner, four editions of Best Home Plan Designs, and one issue each of Build It!, Build It! Ultra, and Weekend Decorator (lunched last December). A tenth, Weekend Remodeler, will launch this spring.

The idea is to give advertisers a vehicle to reach every aspect of the home market - from building to decorating to remodeling. As advertisers go deeper into the matrix, the CPM rises in recognition of the increasingly selective audience. What's more, by establishing joint sections with trade titles and co-sponsoring events with trade associations, the publications have increased their presence in the home-furnishings industry.

A good indicator of the program's success is the flagship, Decorating Remodelling, which saw 1992 ad pages climb to 456 from 414 the previous year - a 10 percent increase, according to figures reported to Leading National Advertisers, and more than double 1989's total of 225. Since its 1986 launch as two separate spin-offs from Family Circle - one on decorating, the other on remodeling - the title's circulation has grown steadily to 650,000, jumping by more than 21 percent from 1989 to 1991. In January, rate base moved to 675,000.

Although Fields is reluctant to address specifics about the magazine's financial performance, he predicts that 1993 will be a very profitable year for the franchise as a whole. Fields also takes pride in pointing out that the magazine's mission is essentially unchanged since its inception. Unlike Home and Metropolitan Home, Decorating Remodeling has weathered tough economic times with alterations no more drastic than a possible name change on the horizon. The publisher attributes that consistency to the fact that the magazine was never conceived of as a wish book. "The eighties were characterized by wretched excess," Fields declares. "Those magazines that clung to the eighties ethos have paid the price to ad attrition in the nineties."

Beyond the mid-market appeal of its editorial, Decorating Remodeling's success has been built in large part on the flexibility of its matrix ad program. The pricing schedule is designed to give advertisers an incentive to reach their exact target audience, so that buying space in one area earns them a merchandising space credit in another. For example, buying five Decorating Remodeling pages and five Kitchen & Bath Custom Planner pages would be equivalent to a 15 percent earned discount. In the end, advertisers can earn up to a 50 percent comparable space credit toward a volume or frequency discount in Decorating Remodeling.

To target the one-in-two custom-home buyers who use budding plans ordered from catalogs, advertisers buy into Best Home Plan Designs Quarterly (the largest-selling plans catalog); Planspex (a blueprint modification program that allows advertisers to specify their products and logos right on the new blueprint); and Build It! and Build It! Ultra. (The last two have controlled circulations of 30,000 home-plan buyers and contractors. Build It! also distributes 200,000 newsstand copies, and Ultra focuses on custom and luxury homes.)

Making it hard to say no

There are other incentives as well, including custom product literature inserted with each set of house plans sold, as well as a guaranteed list of at least 250 names of people who bought custom-home plans. Decorating Remodeling also runs an annual joint special ad section with Custom Builder, a Yarmouth, Maine-based trade magazine for the upper end of the custom-building market. Custom Builder publisher Deborah Napier says the section bolsters her audience while putting her magazine in a more diverse advertising arena. "It's the perfect opportunity for advertisers to reach builders of high-end homes and the consumers having their homes done."