Booming Business

American Demographics, Dec, 1998 by Lambeth Hochwald

Boomer women have always done things just a little bit differently than their predecessors. Frances Lear recognized this in 1988 when she launched Lear's for women over 40 "who weren't born yesterday," as the magazine's tagline read. Grace Mirabella also aimed older when she launched the fashion and style magazine Mirabella in 1989, although it has since changed its target to a considerably younger, thirtysomething demographic.

Now Meredith Corp. has stepped up to the plate with More, a lifestyle magazine tested twice on newsstands last year and officially launched this fall as a subscription-based, bimonthly spinoff of Ladies' Home Journal. The Des Moines, Iowa-based publishing company believes the timing is right to celebrate the life of the 40-plus woman, and that advertisers are ready to embrace an older audience.

Statistics support such thinking: Every eight seconds a baby boomer turns 50, and women ages 40 to 64 are predicted to be the largest age demographic group by the year 2010. The notion that these readers are redefining middle age puts the editors of this 400,000-ratebase magazine at the forefront of an intriguing demographic and psychographic moment in time.

"When we sell More to advertisers, we're not called upon to explain the demographics of the audience," says publisher Michael Brownstein. "45-to-55-year-old women are traveling, investing, and refurbishing their homes. They're a very active, affluent bunch."

Martha Farnsworth Riche, a demographic consultant based in Washington, D.C., who worked with Meredith on the launch, calls this phenomenon "the 20 new years at the middle of life." And, while the largest demographic group up until now has been women in their twenties and thirties, the coming dominance of women ages 40 to 59 is something Riche calls "a fundamental and historic shift."

What's more, attitudes and lifestyles of the post-childbearing, pre-retirement woman are changing. More readers have an average household income in excess of $65,000, 68 percent are married, 77 percent are employed, and 80 percent have children. In addition, 86 percent are college-educated. "People used to move into smaller homes once their kids started college," says Myrna Blyth, senior vice president, publishing director and editor in chief of More. She's also been editor of Ladies' Home Journal for the past 17 years. "These consumers are building a larger or more luxurious house or they're renovating. This is a consumer with high expectations, and they're pioneering this life stage."

As a new title published by Meredith, which has a stable of 21 subscription magazines, More's initial launch phase tapped heavily into the company's 60-million-name database. "After we did two issues, our sell-through on the newsstand was good enough to launch," says Brownstein. "We included blow-in cards and ran those [returned] cards against our database. The interested subscribers turned out to be Meredith's best customers."

And, ironically, the biggest overlap wasn't with Ladies' Home Journal readers. Most of the women interested in receiving More were also Traditional Home, Country Home, and Golf for Women subscribers, a more affluent group of readers. "These are terrific-looking, highly educated women looking for something different in a magazine, something that talks directly to them," adds Brownstein.

On the competitive front, Meredith executives believe More is up against Bon Appetit, Martha Stewart Living, and Travel & Leisure, not such women's service magazines as Good Housekeeping or Family Circle. "More is a magazine for women who don't have a magazine," says Blyth. "The feedback we're getting is that most of them read beauty and fashion magazines and no longer identify with them." True, says Paul Hale, managing director at Veronis, Suhler & Associates, a New York City investment bank specializing in media and communications. Women in this group, he says, are not being served by magazines targeting younger women. But, he cautions, "Women in their forties may not want to be reminded that they're not in their twenties and thirties. While their needs are different in terms of fashion, beauty, and relationships, the delivery of information to women in the older age bracket is a delicate thing."

More's editorial game plan has been closely managed by its three top editors, all of whom happen to be over 40. The goal, says executive editor Susan Crandell, is to stay focused on what their readers really want to know. "A lot of our writers are women in this age group who have a shared way of looking at getting older," she says. "I call it 'rosy realism.' We're optimistic about it, we feel stronger and better, and we also know we're more wrinkled. For example, I did a 100-mile bike ride last weekend, and I'm 47. I can still go that distance, but I don't look the same in Lycra. It's a tradeoff, but if I had to choose, I'd still rather be able to ride."

And then there's the idea that these women have the confluence of money and time, a theme running through many of More's features, including a section called "The Good Life." Articles in the debut issue ran the gamut, from "The Hormone Chronicles," about one woman's experiences with hormone-replacement therapy, to an interview with Tipper Gore. The bottom line: More promises features about fashion, beauty, and health, as well as pieces on married life after three decades. And all the models in More's editorial pages are 40-plus. "One of the things More wants to do is reflect what 40 and 50 looks like," adds Crandell.