Bonnier’s Parenting magazine will split into two separate editions — Parenting Early Years and Parenting School Years — as of February 2009.
The split is intended to help Bonnier segment its audience into better-targeted groups. Early Years, with a rate base of 1.65 million, will primarily target mothers of newborns to preschoolers, while School Years, with a rate base of 500,000, will focus on parents of kids in kindergarten through fifth grade. Together, the two editions will maintain Parenting‘s 2.15 million rate base.
“In the research we’ve done since the latter part of last year, readers have very clearly stated that they had specific information needs, and those change when a child goes to school,” said Greg Schumann, VP, publisher of the Parenting Group. “This is going to facilitate us in having a longer relationship with moms than has been the case in recent history with general parenting titles. The fact that we now have dedicated information being served up specifically for moms of school-age children will help them stay in the category longer, puts us in a unique positions… and will facilitate much greater possibilities for life-stage marketing for our advertising partners.”
Starting in November, the magazine will launch a multichannel campaign to alert readers of the split. Direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing and the in-book editor’s letter will all urge readers to self-select which edition to receive. Additional marketing campaigns for the split editions will run across the Parenting.com online portal and other holdings in the Parenting group, such as the Babytalk magazine franchise.
The current Parenting staff will work on both editions of the magazine, under the leadership of Susan Kane, editorial director of the Parenting Group.
Schumann said he expects the split will lead to “healthy growth” in the School Years audience. He also expects to gain deeper penetration in certain advertising categories, such as food and household products.
