Prevention Challenges Media Buying Credo by Targeting Age Groups

Sometimes breakthrough ideas in advertising come from the least likely places.

But who could have predicted that a brand-new concept for selling advertising space in magazines would come from Prevention, a health magazine little known for marketing innovations?

The idea is very simple. Prevention, which is a Rodale Press magazine published in Emmaus, Pa., has begun to tell advertisers that they can place ads in issues that are received only by subscribers who are 55 years old and under--or 55 and over.

That might not sound so earthshaking. After all, many magazines have attracted advertisers for years by running their ads only in editions sent to “professionals” or mailed to particularly desirable ZIP codes.

But several top media buyers and advertising researchers say age as a demographic category--and other new forms of reader segmentation--could eventually turn the print media-buying industry on its head. In fact, some say, this may mark just the beginning of a new round of magazines trying to segment their readership to advertisers as never before.

“This will probably start a trend,” said Marian Confer, vice president of research at the New York-based Magazine Publishers Assn. “I think it’s very smart. Advertisers will like it because they’re not paying for readers they don’t care to reach.”

Others agree that advertisers could go for this. “We’re looking at the ‘90s as the age of re-segmenting for everyone,” said Pat Keating, senior vice president and director of planning at Los Angeles-based Western International Media, one of the nation’s largest media-buying services. “Any time a publication can find a niche like this, they make themselves a more viable product.”

Prevention is about the size of Readers Digest. Its articles are mostly about natural ways to prevent illness, like how to reduce your cholesterol level or how to lose weight.

Prevention has a circulation of about 3 million, primarily women in their 40s to 60s. The problem is, not very many women in their 20s and early 30s read the magazine. As a result, the magazine has continued to have trouble attracting certain big-name advertisers. Sure, it has some major advertisers like Kellogg Co. and Nabisco Brands, but there’s next to nothing from some of the world’s biggest advertisers like Procter & Gamble and General Mills.

This has frustrated the magazine’s publisher, Sanford T. Beldon, to no end. So he got an idea about a year ago, and the results will begin to be seen in Prevention’s March issue.

“I was sitting at my desk, for the umpteenth time, reading a report about how yet another product didn’t want Prevention because our readers were too old,” said Beldon. That’s when he got this idea: Sell advertisers separate editions for subscribers over and under age 55.

That way, if advertisers just want to reach the 2.2 million subscribers who are under 55, they can do so without paying for the 800,000 who are over 55.

That information, he says, can be easily gleaned from sources like voter registration rolls and the Department of Motor Vehicles (except in California, which restricts access to such data). The magazine also hires firms with expertise in finding out this kind of information.

There are, of course, those with doubts about segmenting subscribers according to age.

“Remember, people of any chronological age can fall into just about any mind-set age,” said Bob Warrens, senior vice president and media research director at the Chicago office of the J. Walter Thompson agency. “Age is not usually a good way to segment people.”

Because the latest issue of Prevention isn’t on the stands yet, Beldon won’t discuss which advertisers bought ads directed at the two age segments. But he said several did. And he projects that his magazine will sell an extra 40 advertising pages this year because of this demographic segmentation.

What’s more, he predicts, 20% of the magazine’s ads in 1991 will come from this new system. Prevention may even offer some advertisers the option of buying ads in issues sent specifically to readers who have told the magazine that they are most concerned with things like diet, allergies or arthritis.

Even the competition is impressed. “This is a very viable idea,” said Ann Okerstrom-Lang, associate national sales manager at American Health magazine. “I think everyone in this business is entering a whole new world of creative marketing.”

Mid-Sized L.A. Ad Firm to Shut Down After 17 Years

Another Los Angeles advertising agency is calling it quits. Abert Newhoff & Burr, a 7--year-old firm that lost several major clients in recent months, confirmed late Monday that it will close within the next month.

“It’s difficult being a mid-sized agency,” said Tom Burr, the agency’s chairman. “It may be easier to be very small or very large. When you’re in the middle, you’re competing with both ends.”

The agency, which employs 32 people and posted annual billings of about $20 million, was at one time regarded as one of the “hot” Los Angeles ad shops. But over the past two years, the agency lost several major clients, including Daihatsu American Inc., a Japanese auto account that it counted upon heavily. And several other clients, including Irvine Co. and Yamaha Consumer Products, recently cut way back on their ad budgets.

All three of the firm’s founding partners are undecided about what they will do next, Burr said.

“It was an agency that showed great potential,” said James K. Agnew, executive vice president at the Los Angeles office of J. Walter Thompson. “But just as they seemed to reach critical mass, they fell back.”

Century 21 at the Plate With New Ad Campaign

Very few people move as often as professional baseball players. And few baseball players have played for as many teams as has the California Angels’ veteran pitcher, Bert Blyleven.

That combination gave Century 21’s ad agency the brainstorm for its newest campaign.

In the spot, created by McCann-Erickson/Los Angeles, Blyleven discusses how often he has been traded--and forced to suddenly sell his home. After all, he has played for the Minnesota Twins (twice), Texas Rangers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians and the Angels.

With as many moves as he has made, Blyleven says in the spot, he can’t be worrying about selling his home. As he walks back into the team clubhouse, Angels manager Doug Rader taps him on the shoulder and tells Blyleven that he has to speak with him. The implication is that Blyleven, who still has one more season on his contract with the Angels, is about to be traded again.

Then Blyleven, always known as a joker, reaches into his locker and pulls out a familiar Century 21 “For Sale” sign.

In an interview, Blyleven said he has used Century 21 to sell “several” of his homes in the past. But he has no plans to sell his current residence in the Villa Park area of Orange County--even if the upcoming baseball season is canceled as a result of squabbles between owners and players. Explained Blyleven: “The home’s paid for.”

Little Agency Takes On a Great Big Assignment

At first, it might sound unlikely: a tiny Los Angeles agency creating ads aimed at making villages throughout Africa self-sufficient.

But last week, 2-year-old Marketing/And was handed the estimated $10-million account of the Akron, Ohio-based Global Energy Society. Funded by public and private donations, the group is overseeing a project called “Africa 1000,” hoping to provide water and power to 1,000 African villages within five years.

“We’re not out to make Africa self-sufficient,” said Ralph Lee, who co-founded the agency with partner Paul Brooks. “We are trying to make the world aware of this project,” said Lee.

Global Energy believes that it can make many African villages self-sufficient by installing windmills that can pump water from the ground and irrigate crops. They also install solar panels to meet energy needs. This can be done at a cost of $40,000 per village.

The print ads, which will be placed mostly in newspapers, will probably appear in June. But with plenty of problems right here in Southern California, why should local residents think globally? Said Lee: “We have to always extend our resources internationally, regardless of the problems here.”