Hachette Filipacchi Media US’ Home magazine and the Woman’s Day Special Interest Publications (WDSIP) recently promoted Cathy Christino to associate publisher/marketing. Jack Grant, VP/publisher, Home magazine, talked to DMNews about creating the new position and the importance of integrated marketing strategies.
Q: Associate publisher/marketing is a new position at Home and WDSIP. Why was it created?
A: So much of what we do is extremely integrated between events, print and online. Rarely is there a part of the magazine that doesn’t extend across two if not three of those activities, so, in my opinion, it’s important to have someone of Cathy’s experience to be named to such a position; we rely on Cathy and her group to put together packages that really drive our business.
Q: What will her responsibilities be?
A: Cathy was the marketing director for Home magazine, and with that she managed all our events, rewards programs and trade show exposures. She is also in charge of a new business called Home Magazine Live, which is a series of weekly video programs. Another new responsibility is that she is now marketing director over Women’s Day special interest publications, which is a business we’ve been in for a long time but never really had a dedicated marketing director for. She also is involved with PointClickHome, our Web site, so the digital assets also fall under her marketing aegis.
Q: Who is the Home and WDSIP reader?
A: It’s a largely female readership, and we look at women of the household because they decide product acquisition for the home: appliances, countertops, siding systems and lights. It’s rarely the case that any household product is not decided on by the female, so the crossover readership between the two magazines is key.
Q: What do you mean by “crossover” readership?
A: There’s so much crossover readership between Home and the special interest publications, and we rely very much on the in-market consumer for both magazines — that’s our DNA. It makes sense for Cathy to be over both because she can also package special interest publications with what we do with Home and Home Magazine Live.
Home takes the mass approach — we’ll have lots of product choices — and as they get closer to decision-making they’ll go to special interest publications for more specific design information and where to buy, and then to PointClickHome. It’s really the same reader at different stages of the buying process.
Q: What is HOME‘s market position, and how do you hope to change that?
A: I think that integrating all of these products and activities under one person is important. If we do a marketing program for a certain lighting system, we can leverage the SIPs and bring in their audience, which is more consumers, to this market and give that advertiser more reach with various brands.
