Teen girl magazines do not aspire to journalism’s cutting edge. They focus on celebrity fluff, feel-good features and fashion, beauty and boyfriend advice, an editorial strategy that locks up one of the most profitable niches in international publishing.
But last week’s launch of the South African version of Seventeen, the 59-year-old market leader published in 15 countries across the globe, reawakens old concerns about the formula’s local potential.
Harry Herber, group MD of The MediaShop, a media placement house with annual control of more than R1-billion in advertising spend, argues that Seventeen’s prospects are limited by a lack of opposition. “For anything to succeed you need competition. You need a category you can advertise in,” says Herber.
Wicked and Saltwater Girl, the two incumbents in the local teen girl market, selling about 14 500 and 15 000 copies a month respectively (Audit Bureau of Circulation, January to June 2003), do not satisfy Herber’s definition of a “category”.
Herber further contends that print is a notoriously difficult media sector to crack locally, and that the youth end of the market is fickle and doesn’t read. “I don’t see it at all,” he says of Seventeen‘s perceived gap. “Not for that market, not in this market.”
Backing up Herber’s scepticism is the reluctance of the established international women’s magazine brands to launch teen versions in South Africa. While the United States edition of Seventeen dominates the segment with a circulation of 2,5-million, Cosmopolitan’s spin-off CosmoGIRL! boosts general market resilience with a 1,6-million circulation. The same can be said of ELLEgirl and Teen Vogue.
Vanessa Raphaely, editor of South Africa’s Cosmopolitan, arguably the country’s most successful women’s magazine brand with circulation of about 120 000 and annual advertising revenue of R40,7-million (AdEx Sep 2002 to Aug 2003), explains her lack of enthusiasm for a teen title.
“I want to keep our head above water commercially and I don’t want to cannibalise what we’ve got. The women’s magazine market is like a jellyfish being eaten by snails. All the new titles grab at the same advertising pool.”
As an example Raphaely points to the L’Oreal and Estee Lauder adverts carried in the inaugural edition of Seventeen. “These are the big hitters in the cosmetics industry and they are not new brands.”
Of course the buy-in of these advertisers is good news for Seventeen‘s publisher Samantha Sneddon, and an apparent long-term commitment could eventually silence the critics. Sneddon claims that upfront positioning in the new magazine is booked solid, with key advertisers making substantial commitments from January next year.
Interestingly, as former publisher of Women’s 24, Media 24’s women’s magazine stable with titles Fair Lady, True Love and Sarie, Sneddon concedes that initially she had her own doubts about the viability of the teen girls market.
“The teen girls question was raised over and over at Media 24. I was sceptical, but we put together a ‘dummy book’, which we distributed with Fair Lady to test whether advertisers would participate. We found the market to be surprisingly buoyant.”
So buoyant that Sneddon is an equity partner (she contributed personal collateral) with Media 24 in Seventeen‘s publishing house 8 Ink Media.
As for the competition, Sneddon sees the lifestyle-oriented Wicked as more of a direct challenge than Atoll Media’s Saltwater Girl, which focuses on beach and surfing culture. The view is shared by Saltwater Girl‘s publisher Craig Sims, who claims that 75% of his advertisers would not place in Seventeen or Wicked.
Sims also maintains that Saltwater Girl was profitable from the third issue, and pegs his average monthly advertising revenue over the last year at between R250 000 and R275 000 (AdEx does not measure the title).
To achieve a similar turnaround, Sneddon is budgeting for R470 000 a month in advertising revenue.
If the marketers are impressed by the following statistic on Seventeen‘s website, she just might achieve it: “There are 556 000 16- to 19-year-olds in LSM [living standards measurement] eight to 10. According to Amps [All Media Product Survey, 2002B], their average monthly personal income is R2 342, representing spend of R1,3 billion.”
Kevin Bloom is editor of The Media magazine. His Media Weekly column provides regular analysis of the media industry.