• by Larry Dobrow , August 4, 2003

When Savoy Professional debuted in late 2002, it sent a sharp ripple through the media pond. Readers, mostly African-American professionals between the ages of 25 and 40, and advertisers, who had long encountered difficulty reaching that same audience, immediately embraced the magazine's mix of professional advice and lifestyle content. Alas, one question remained: Why did it take so long for Savoy Professional - or something like it - to find its way to the newsstand?

When posed this question, Len Burnett, co-founder and group publisher of Savoy Professional parent Vanguarde Media, shrugs. "Sure, looking back, you say 'how could everybody have missed this?,'" he says. "But it's a costly proposition to start a publication even during good economic times. I'm just glad we were able to get there first."

The magazine is a joint venture between Vanguarde Media, which publishes Savoy, Heart & Soul and Honey, and the Jungle Media Group (JMG), publishers of MBA Jungle and JD Jungle. Vanguarde handles the distribution and marketing; JMG produces most of the editorial. While similar partnerships in the world of publishing have produced mixed results, the two companies seem to share a sensibility that clearly resonates with Savoy Professional's target audience of young African-American professionals.

"The reason the arrangement works so well is that [Jungle Media Group] got it from the first time we met. They understand that your workstyle is your lifestyle," Burnett explains. "That's at the center of what we're doing."

Savoy Professional came together quite quickly. Vanguarde came up with the idea for the publication in April of 2002 and cemented the partnership with JMG two months later; the first issue, boasting 40 ad pages, emerged by December. "Getting everything up and going so fast, especially with all the ads, let everybody know that there was an audience for us and that we were onto a great idea," Burnett says.

That idea was to survey the issue of workplace diversity not just from the oft-chronicled employee perspective, but also from the employer's side. "Diversity is extremely important not only to our readers, but also to people trying to effect change in large organizations," explains Jon McBride, Savoy Professional's publisher and a co-founder of Jungle Media Group. "Our readers look at Savoy Professional or at MBA Jungle or JD Jungle and see people who look like them, who have the same career goals and lifestyles. That's our hook."

The median household income of Savoy Professional's readers is $53,000 and the mag skews slightly male. But what distinguishes it from titles like Black Enterprise, according to Burnett, is its focus on managerial-level employees. "Black Enterprise is a great magazine, don't get me wrong," he explains. "But they have a hodgepodge of different information. We concentrate exclusively on manager-level young professionals."

For that reason alone, it's easy to see why advertisers have immediately taken to Savoy Professional. Whereas most year-old publications dream about bagging one of Detroit's big-three automakers, Savoy Professional has run ads from all three as well as from Mercedes-Benz. The title has also scored with travel advertisers (American Airlines, Cayman Islands) and is pushing into other lifestyle-leaning categories like fashion and consumer electronics.

Where Savoy Professional has done best, however, is in the diversity-recruitment sector. Indeed, for companies interested in sending out a diversity message or wanting to reach African-American employees with superlative résumés, there are few other places to go. "The magazine affords [companies] the opportunity to reach this audience when they're not necessarily quote-unquote 'looking for a job,'" Burnett says.

Given the cost of headhunters and other recruitment tools, it's easy to see why many would-be advertisers are starting to view the pages of Savoy Professional as prime real estate. To make the mag an even more attractive venue for these same companies, Burnett and his marketing team have also put together a series of professional networking events in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and Washington, D.C. "I think it goes without saying that giving advertisers the chance to talk to their targets face-to-face qualifies as 'added value,'" he chirps.

In the months ahead, look for Savoy Professional to grow its circulation from 100,000 to 200,000 while at the same time striving to maintain the demographic integrity of its readership. "The goal isn't to have the biggest circulation, but to have an efficient circulation that reaches the right people," Burnett says. "If we're not talking to the right people, we're not doing our job."