New Magazines Hit It Big With Teen-Age Girls : Publications Cash In on Youths’ Spending Power

At a recent Los Angeles Dodgers game, Ellen Ross noticed that a teen-age girl sitting in front of her was ogling a magazine--and it wasn’t the Dodgers program.

On closer inspection, she saw that the young girl was reading a copy of Sassy, an 8-month-old magazine that has quickly gained notoriety as the Cosmopolitan of the 13- to 19-year-old set. Near the end of the game, the girl’s brother accidentally spilled a Coke on the magazine. “She was very upset,” said Ross, who is manager of the Waldenbooks store at the Westside Pavilion in Westwood. “In fact, the girl was nearly in tears.”

Sassy has not brought competing magazines to tears. But it has certainly caught their attention--and opened the floodgates for plenty of clones. Ross says Sassy already outsells Seventeen magazine at her store by a 2-to-1 margin. In less than one year, Sassy has sparked sudden growth in this once-dormant segment of the magazine market. In fact, industry experts say that glitzy magazines appealing to teen-age girls will likely be the magazine industry’s big story in 1988.

“The new teen magazines reflect the images kids are seeing on MTV,” said Samir Husni, a professor at the University of Mississippi, whose “1988 Guide to New Magazines” was recently published by Meredith Corp. “And 1988 will be the year that growth in this teen segment really takes off.”

For decades, three monthly magazines dominated this market: Seventeen (circulation 1.9 million), Teen (1.2 million) and Young Miss (863,000). But in just eight months Sassy’s circulation has climbed to to nearly 400,000. The magazine, with flashy cover photos and plenty of bright graphics tackles racy topics: lesbian couples, teens on death row, sexual “turn ons” and even an article about high school girls romancing their teachers. Some parents have raised objections. But those protests, analysts say, only result in increased reader interest.

Influenced by Sassy’s early success, other magazines aimed at teen-age girls are quickly entering the fray. Last month, Model magazine was introduced by Family Media in a limited partnership with a division of Times Mirror (which publishes the Los Angeles Times). Media baron Rupert Murdoch recently purchased 2-year-old IN Fashion and is pumping millions of dollars into it to attract more young readers. Meanwhile, Whittle Communications, a large publisher in Knoxville, last year launched Girls Only (GO!). Several other publishers have also recently tried to cash in on the trend.

Big Names

“Everyone wants to reach teen-age women because their purchasing power is so incredibly high,” said Ira Zandal, a New York consultant who specializes in teen-age marketing. “These magazines are coming into existence for one reason--they attract advertisers.”

In fact, Sassy points to new studies by the Census Bureau and RAND Corp. showing that teens spend far more money than many would even dream possible. The purchasing power of teen-agers topped $234 billion in 1987, one study shows. Another study reveals, the typical 16- to 19-year-old girl spends $68 a week for personal items ranging from records to makeup.

“That’s more discretionary income than they’ll ever have in their lives,” said Helen Barr, publisher of Sassy.

Hoping to tap into that spending are big names in cosmetics--which make up 60% of these magazines’ advertising--such as Noxell, Maybelline and Revlon, and big apparel-makers including Levi Strauss and Benetton.

Not all competitors are so enamored of Sassy. “They have a great distance to travel before they get to where we are,” said Frank Wolf, group publisher of Triangle Communications, which publishes Seventeen. “Since our launch 44 years ago, we have been--and continue to be--the dominant factor in this market. I’m sure there’s room for more, but no one else is going to grow to our size.”

But Sassy says it expects to sell nearly 1 million issues--almost half the number that Seventeen sells each month--by 1990. Others are eager to pick up market share, too.

Although Model magazine looks a lot like Sassy, its readership is slightly older and more interested in high fashion than in issues such as drugs or AIDS, said Publisher Linda Cohen. “Even the teen market is now becoming segmented,” Cohen said. “Our readers grew up in households where designer labels on their clothes were very important.”

Whittle Communications’ magazine, Girls Only!, tries to distinguish itself through free distribution to 1.1 million junior high school girls.

“This is not the same girl who reads Seventeen or Sassy,” said Hope Dlugozima, editor of Girls Only!. “Most of our readers have never even gone on a date--and some have never been kissed.” Unlike the competition, the magazine has a single advertiser, Johnson & Johnson, which places ads for its feminine hygiene products.

New competitors are coming from the most unlikely places. Pilot Communications of New York publishes 25 different magazines, including Metallix and Star Hits, that focus on hard rock music.

But several months ago, without any marketing or promotion, Pilot put out a single issue of a high-fashion magazine, Attitude. “The thing that was most astounding about it,” said Publisher Felix Dennis, “is we didn’t lose any money.”

After all, premiere issues of most publications almost always lose money--and many lose money for several years after they begin to publish. As a result of the surprising success of the first issue, Dennis said, he plans another for later this year.

And this time he expects to make a tidy profit. “The amount of money that parents give their teen-age daughters to spend makes the hair on the back of my head stand up,” Dennis said. “This is a real growth market--and it is a market ready and ripe for the taking.”

He Peddles Business on Bicycle Built for Two

Some Los Angeles advertising executives will do just about anything to pick up new business.

Just ask Gerald McGee, managing director of Ogilvy & Mather’s Los Angeles office, who recently pedaled a tandem bicycle through a prospective client’s office. Why a tandem? Well, the prospect happened to be Tandem Computer of Cupertino. Sure enough, last week the computer maker awarded its $6-million account to Ogilvy.

With that win, the office has added $32 million in new billings this year to its $92-million base. Other new accounts include a $15-million campaign for Microsoft software, a $6-million assignment for Carnation’s nutritional products division and a $5-million assignment from Mattel. Said McGee, “We’ve hit our stride.”

A Costly Exposure of L.A. Business Climate

The most talked-about issue of Forbes magazine--the one about America’s richest people--may also get some people talking about Los Angeles.

When the Forbes 400 hits newsstands in late October, it will include a 24-page advertising section on the business climate in Los Angeles. A full-page, four-color advertisement in that issue will cost advertisers $46,880--about 16% more than the magazine’s regular rate, said Bruce Rogers, Forbes’ marketing director. “It’s the most widely read issue,” Rogers said. “It’s worth it.”

Beatles Lend a Word to Music Fund-Raiser

When the Beatles’ song “Revolution” was used to peddle Nike athletic shoes in a commercial last year, a $15-million lawsuit ensued and Beatles fans were infuriated. Nike finally dropped the campaign.

Once again the Beatles are singing in a television commercial, but this time no one seems to mind.

The song is from one of the Fab Four’s movies. The commercial--which has been broadcast in the Cleveland area for nearly a year--is part of a fund-raising campaign for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, to be built in that city next year.

How did the commercial manage to keep everyone happy? Well, for one thing, the advertising agency that created it first checked with the board of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, which includes a representative for the Beatles. “We were told we could use one word,” said W. Shackford Brown, vice president at the Cleveland ad agency, Meldrum & Fewsmith, “and that’s all we wanted.”

In the 10-second commercial, which recently won an Addy award from the American Advertising Federation, an unseen announcer reads these words as they appear on the TV screen: “The Beatles would like a word with you about building the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.”

And that’s when one word from the Beatles’ song is heard: Help!