Upscale Parents Fuel Expansion : A Boom in Regional Baby Magazines
In 1979, free-lance writer Jack Bierman was trying to decide whether to start a specialized magazine for truckers or for parents. He chose parents.
It was a good choice, because while few yuppies have become truckers, many are having babies. They have embraced the roles of superparents. And their disposable incomes have fueled a surge in retail sales for baby clothing stores, baby furniture shops, even baby gymnasiums--all businesses that would advertise in Bierman’s magazine.
Now, from an original $12,000 investment, Jack Bierman, the editor, and his brother, Carey, the publisher, have built L.A. Parent and sister magazines in Orange County and San Diego into Wingate Enterprises, a company with about $2 million in revenue in 1988.
Looking for a nursery nature walk? A consultant to help make your house safe for a baby? Nanny services? Kiddy clothes? Unlike national child-raising magazines, which offer general advice and information for parents, L.A. Parent (along with the Biermans’ Parenting Magazine in Orange County and San Diego Parent) focus on local events and services for children and parents.
L.A. Parent is geared toward a generation of mothers and fathers who take puppet shows and zoos very seriously. The magazine’s editor does, too. “I think that if you have children and you don’t read L.A. Parent, you’re really going to deprive them of the culture of childhood,” said Jack Bierman.
That’s overstating things a bit. But the magazine offers nearly as much to advertisers as to parents. L.A. Parent’s 100,000 circulation makes it the nation’s largest regional parenting magazine, according to Parenting Publications of America, a trade group.
Sales Boom
The Biermans claim a total circulation for their three magazines of 220,000. And though about 90% of the copies are dropped off free at hundreds of supermarkets and children’s stores, the Biermans say their own surveys show that each magazine is read, on average, by 2.5 people.
Those surveys also show that their readers are upscale, with an average household income of about $60,000 and 80% own their own homes.
What’s made that kind of readership possible is a major demographic trend. Since 1980, America’s economically influential baby boomers have begun to dominate the ranks of parents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1980 and 1987 birthrates jumped 15% among women aged 30-34 and 30% for women 35-39. Birthrates among better-educated (and often wealthier) women climbed 3% to 5%.
Just as important to people in the baby business is the fact that more babies these days are their parents’ first. According to Frances Blakey, director of public relations for the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Assn., parents spend 30% to 50% more on first children than on their later siblings.
Other Magazines Profit, Too
The results in the children’s products markets have been clear. From 1979 to 1988, U.S. sales of children’s products (excluding clothes and toys) have increased 179% to $1.95 billion from $700 million, according to Blakey. (During the same time, the consumer price index rose about 63%.) Meanwhile, U.S. sales of children’s clothes climbed 85%, to $18.5 billion from $10 billion, according to Earnshaw’s, a children’s clothing trade magazine.
That’s been good not only for the Biermans but also for other regional parenting magazines. Kathy Mittler, executive director of Parenting Publications of America, said she knows of 80 regional parenting magazines--40 of which are members of her group.
In fact, L.A. Parent faces competition from Valley Family Magazine. And the Biermans’ San Diego Parent magazine is challenged by the San Diego Family Press, which claims a circulation of 60,000. But Family Press Publisher and Editor Sharon Bay said she thinks that there’s enough room in the city for two regional child-raising magazines.
There likewise has been a boom in national child-raising magazines such as Parenting and Parents. The publishers of both, however, say they have yet to feel competition from any regional magazine.
“We just aren’t geared to do what they do,” said Parents Publisher John Hahn, referring to L.A. Parent’s calendars of local events.
And Robin Wolaner, publisher of Parenting, said that for many of her advertisers--national manufacturers of low-ticket items such as orange juice, oatmeal and baby oil--placing an ad in a regional magazine doesn’t make sense.
Still, the Biermans said L.A. Parent’s monthly fashion section has helped them make some strides toward getting lucrative national advertising accounts. The owner of a chain of local shops that sells fashionable children’s clothes buys ads touting Baby Guess clothes; another does the same for Benetton clothes.
But the bulk of the magazine’s ads are bought by purely local businesses. For example, William Caplin, owner of My Gym Children’s Fitness Centers, said he rarely advertises anywhere besides L.A. Parent. “With this magazine you know that everybody who picks it up has a child,” said Caplin.
Jack Bierman admitted making some mistakes in the magazine’s early days. One was starting up with too small a circulation to be noticed. With $7,000 from his own savings account and $5,000 borrowed from his girlfriend (now his wife), Bierman could not afford to distribute more than 10,000 copies, which he handed out at libraries and YMCAs.
“You had to be a very, very concerned parent” to see the magazine, he said.
More Businesslike Approach
Another mistake was taking too casual an approach to the business. “We took long lunch hours all the time,” Jack Bierman said. Carey Bierman added that the magazine’s commission structure didn’t encourage its advertising salespeople to get new accounts. And he said that while there should have been working capital to play with, bill collection was slow. Eventually Jack Bierman decided that to grow, the magazine had to become more businesslike.
That’s why in 1984 he drafted Carey, then an auditor for a commercial finance company in New York. Sensing that the Easterner was bringing with him a new corporate culture, three advertising salespeople quit on Carey Bierman’s first day on the job.
But from then on the magazine grew. In 1984, L.A. Parent had a circulation of 55,000 and revenue of about $330,000. The brothers launched their Orange County magazine in 1985 and their San Diego magazine in 1986. With those new markets to help, sales doubled to $696,000 for 1985, then kept posting double-digit percentage gains until reaching $2 million for 1988.
That kind of growth suggests that baby boomers must have figured out a new angle on child raising. Bierman says it’s status.
“Yuppies once had to have the biggest cars,” Bierman said. “Now they want the brightest children.”
