Discover Financial Services is hoping to tap into Parents magazine’s readership base in a multichannel marketing push for its Discover credit card.
Discover is hoping to convert Meredith Corps.’ Parents‘ 2.2 million readers into card users through print and Web content for the parenting monthly. The magazine will feature a monthly editorial from Discover as well as a gatefold advertisement for the card.
Parents.com, the Web site for Parents and other Meredith titles American Baby and Family Circle, will have a Discover-sponsored portal on its homepage. Future plans for the partnership include direct-to-mobile parenting tips sponsored by Discover.
The content produced by the credit card company for the parents’ magazine focuses on time management and parenting tips and is part of a campaign created by Chicago-based Starcom USA.
Discover Financial Services, spun off from Morgan Stanley in 2006, has lost close to half its stock value in the past year and a half. Its executives hope the card will appeal to Parents‘ readership base: females under age 50 with young children.
“Print has been a part of Discover’s media mix,” said Mark Hosbein, Discover’s SVP of brand management and advertising, in an e-mail interview. “Our print partners have a wealth of resources at their fingertips and can help us generate high quality content and distribute it…these partnerships are a perfect marriage of content and contact.”
Meredith executives look to the partnership as a way of cementing brand strength and showing different integration opportunities to advertisers. It launched ParentsTVearlier this month and signed a product licensing agreement with Wal-Mart in October.
