Trouble In Teen Land

When Ann Shoket took over last month as editor of the Queen Bee of the teen titles, Hearst Magazines' 2 million-circ Seventeen, she wanted her team to immerse themselves in the mindset of a teenage girl. So at her first staff meeting, she served up cases of Red Bull and big bags of Oreos.

"The feeling I want every page of the magazine to have is this exuberant energy of being a teenager," said Shoket, who Hearst brought over from in-house rival CosmoGirl, where she had served as executive editor since 2003. "It's fun being 17."

But these have not been carefree times for the teen market. Last year, two titles, Time Inc.'s Teen People and Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle Girl, were killed off (but live on online). The remaining three, including Condé Nast's wildly successful spinoff Teen Vogue, are duking it out for a finite number of health/beauty and fashion ads, even though Teen Vogue does continue to mine gold from luxury accounts.

Ad pages through March show just what a fickle market this is. Seventeen stumbled 7.9 percent to 195 pages while 1.4 million-circ CosmoGirl plummeted 22.6 percent to 102 pages, according to the Mediaweek Monitor. One million-circ Teen Vogue, meanwhile, jumped 9.6 percent to 205 pages. For the last couple of years, Teen Vogue has been gaining on longtime ad-page champ Seventeen. The March issue was the fashion book's biggest ever, with 154 pages.

But the teen category's future is clearly on the Web. Both companies are making strides, with Hearst last month acquiring eCrush, a group of entertainment and social networking sites, in addition to launching a prom-shopping site and relaunching the online outposts of Seventeen, CosmoGirl and the quarterly Teen. And Condé Nast this month launched the site Flip.

Still, media fragmentation is, naturally, hurting these titles, no matter how much they go after girls via their Web sites and via branded products, events, contests and mobile tie-ins. It's especially challenging for Hearst's general-interest players, said Dennis Santos, vp, group media director at PGR Media. "The all-things-for-all-teens edit will not work and mass books need to understand that," he explained.

While it isn't as popular with advertisers these days, Seventeen retains the biggest reach by far, and newsstand is growing, up 5.3 percent in the second half of last year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations. Overall paid circ is flat, however.

The magazine has stayed in the spotlight thanks to a multiplatform partnership with The CW hit America's Next Top Model. It also launched a blog, Runway Insider, centered around Fashion Week this month in New York. Seventeen has spun off numerous brand extensions, including a collection of bedding and accessories at JC Penney.

Shoket, who was named Seventeen editor last month following the exit of Atoosa Rubenstein last fall (reportedly to start her own teen venture), said that she wants to lighten the edit.

"We don't want to sugarcoat the reality of life, but I don't want to scare girls," she said. "We want to shine some light into those dark corners of the magazine."

With the Web being top of mind, Shoket will institute an interactive tie-in with every feature. "Every page will have a nonprint component," she said. (April is Shoket's first issue as EIC.) Seventeen's Web site scores nearly 1 million uniques, said vp, publisher Jayne Jamison.

Last fall, Seventeen began an editorial program called Cover as Currency, using the magazine's cover lines to promote products and drive newsstand sales. Last November, for example, the cover line "Free Undies," directed readers to a coupon on the table of contents which could be redeemed at Victoria's Secret. (Some 100,000 readers took advantage, Jamison said.) No money changes hands on those deals, the magazine stresses. American Society of Magazine Editors guidelines prohibit using magazine covers for advertising. As for ad business, while Seventeen is soft, it has brought in new accounts Dillard's and Verizon.

CosmoGirl's overall paid circ shot up 5.3 percent in the second half of last year, though newsstand was off 3.6 percent. Vp, publisher Kristine Welker said subscription-discounting offers in concert with Seventeen have helped drive sales. She blames flat advertising, meanwhile, on "slow decision-making" on the part of clients, especially retailers. Welker warns that this year will continue to be down. The magazine just teamed with Wal-Mart to publish an outsert on getting ready for college for its upcoming September issue.

On the edit side, while all teen titles put celebrities on their covers in this celebrity-obsessed age, CG wants to distinguish itself as the "celebrity lifestyle" book, said editor Susan Schulz. But it's not all about fluff. In February, it introduced "Earth to CG," a series of print and online features concerning the environment. "The psychology of a teenager is much more sophisticated than people realize," said editor Susan Schulz.

The more-targeted Teen Vogue is in the unusual position of having upped its rate base while circ numbers have slid by double digits, the result of planned-for attrition of more than 1 million subs from defunct teen title YM, which Condé Nast acquired from G+J USA Publishing two years ago, said vp, publisher Gina Sanders. ABC figures for the second half of '06 have Teen Vogue's total paid circ declining 22.3 percent; newsstand soared 16.4 percent.

Even though it claims nearly double the fashion ads of its two rivals combined and has dozens of accounts exclusive to the teen field—among them, Louis Vuitton, Moschino and Coach—the magazine has set its sights on growing lesser dominant categories like technology, which accounts for only 3 percent of its business, Sanders said. Teen Vogue has a deal with Samsung and has lured new accounts including Nintendo.

Brand extensions include an association with the MTV series The Hills, whose second season premiered last month. Editor in chief Amy Astley credits the TV tie-in with boosting awareness of the magazine. "People wring their hands about print," she said. "But we're up on the newsstand last year, and so far this year we're up. This is a moment that's great to be a magazine, and great to be a teen magazine."