An era of anxious parenting has dawned. Gone are the good old days when mom did not work and gathered information from her fellow stay-at-home moms. Her daughter has now grown up to become a working mother. She falls pregnant later in life, battles to manage her time, feels guilty for spending so many hours away from home, is hungry for information on parenting products, needs the father to be more involved.
She has created a new market for niche parenting magazines.
Besides Living and Loving (ABC 27,497 Jan – March 2006) which is celebrating its 37th birthday this year, most parenting magazines currently on the market were launched in the past decade for a new generation of parents. Some, such as Healthy Pregnancy, lived a short three years while others, such as Your Child, are braving the new market.
“We live in an era of sort of anxious parenting. People want to do the best thing for their kids. People are much more aware of the different parenting choices that they make,” says Your Child editor Kate Sidley.
Alchemy Publishing, which dominates the parenting market with Your Pregnancy (ABC 32,329 Jul – Dec 2005), Your Baby (ABC 21,546 Jan – March 2006) and Baba & Kleuter (24,670) and is owned by Media24, ventured into the 4-12 age group in the English parenting magazine sector when it launched Your Child about a year ago.
“The magazine was launched as a quarterly and we’ve now taken it to an alternate monthly,” says Sidley, who believes focusing on only one aspect of parenting offers many advantages.
“It’s much easier from an advertising point of view. Niched magazines are giving advertisers incredibly targeted access to a targeted market.
“As children get older, their parents are more engaged in the world of education, development and social issues – it’s a new world and it’s a very complex world for parents in South Africa and there are many different parenting choices to make,” adds Sidley, who estimates their first ABC figure to be around 15,000.
But Living and Loving editor Kerese Thom, whose magazine targets the full spectrum of parenting, disagrees.
“I have a lot of people asking: ‘Why don’t you specialise?’. The reason I would disagree is that you cannot separate the sectors of parenting.
“You need to start learning about the issues to come. Pregnant moms buy most of the magazines because they have the time and the interest in observing as much information as possible. And once she’s chosen a magazine, she’s sticking with it,” says Thom, who acknowledges that Living and Loving’s long-standing position in the market contributes to its success.
“But you have to remain current— you have to know your audience. Our market has aged between seven and 10 years. Your average mom is aged between 32 and 35 years. In the last few years that age group has moved up significantly and you’re looking at the majority of moms being working mothers.”
She also says parents are more informed than the previous generation, adding: “Our outside back cover had an alcohol advertisement 30 years ago!”
Thom says Living and Loving, which is part of the Caxton stable, keeps in mind that readers probably do not have the time to read several magazines. That is why the title also writes about new books, music, fashion and cars – and even carries motoring ads.
“Women are changing cars because they are becoming mothers, for instance safety becomes a big concern as opposed to speed and power,” says Thom.
Another supporter of full-spectrum magazines is Carlien Wessels, editor of Afrikaans title Baba & Kleuter, which started out as Ons Baba – a translation of Your Baby – but became Baba & Kleuter in 2000 when it started including content on children up to the age of six.
“We have entered an era of cocooning – people are very focused on their families, maybe because they are working so hard. They want the best for their children and are focused on their children, perhaps because we are living in such a competitive society,” says Wessels.
“Parents are more focused on being informed,” she adds.
Baba & Kleuter covers every age group every month, including pregnancy and grade one. About a third of its readers are pregnant women.
“There is a huge need for information about grade one and which school your child should go to. We are the only magazine looking at that.”
Your Baby editor Clare Huisamen says a niche magazine does not struggle to attract advertisers, adding that it is interesting to see how the new generation of parents has attracted new types of advertising.
“We get more and more ads focusing on the moms who are seeking time for themselves,” she says. “We also get a lot of cross-advertising where advertisers want their products in both our pregnancy and baby magazines.”
Wessels says 80 percent of the Baba & Kleuter audience reads every single ad in the magazine – “because they are intensely interested in the products available”.
The quarterly Fit Pregnancy (ABC 15,024 July – Dec 2005) distinguishes itself from other magazines by focusing on fitness issues during and after pregnancy.
“One of our big pulls is our work-outs. We will target different ways of exercising for pre-birth and post-birth – we do not just leave the woman on the labour table. We do try to keep our audience with the post-birth workout in the first few months after giving birth,” says editor Robyn Von Geusau.
One of their competitors, Healthy Pregnancy, which was published by Highbury Safika Media and had a circulation hovering around 14,000, decided to close the book in March this year.
“We were writing about a more holistic approach to pregnancy but I think there were too few people who looked at it in that way,” says Ettienne Jansen, who was involved in sales at Healthy Pregnancy.
“There is enormous competition in the market and simply too many baby titles,” he adds.
But judging by the many parenting titles that do make it, the baby business is booming.