Rodale tests European waters

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 1992 by Lisa I. Fried

June trials planned for two quintessentially American titles.

Can Rodale Press successfully launch quintessentially American Runner's World and Men's Health in Europe? Rodale's advertisers hope so.

When advertisers - many of them multinational companies seeking better penetration in European markets - asked Rodale to consider publishing Runner's World in Europe, the company responded a year ago by tapping John Cabell, a consultant and former marketing director of The Runner, to research the possibilities. What he found was that running titles existed in Europe, but that advertisers wanted a better product that could reach across national boundaries. Cabell and two European publishers saw enough promise to draw up plans for testing consumer response to foreign-language editions of the magazine in June in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Cabell, director of international magazine development for Emmaus, Pennsylvania-based Rodale, also hopes to test a foreign-language edition of Men's Health in Germany this spring with another, as yet undetermined, foreign publisher. "We're dipping our toes in the water and we'll see what happens," he says.

At press time, Rodale was close to signing a deal with a German publisher, Hamburg-based Axel Springer, and a Northern European publisher, Helsinki-based United Magazines Ltd., to launch the foreign-language editions of Runner's World, which will carry local editorial as well as materials from the U.S. edition.

Several publishers have already approached Rodale about spinning off a German edition of Men's Health, and, at press time, Rodale was negotiating to license it. Cabell declined to say what the launches would cost.