• by Larry Dobrow , August 1, 2003

When Fairchild Publications snapped up Elegant Bride from Pace Communications last week, a suspiciously informed New York Times story mostly surveyed the potential impact of the deal on Advance Publications, parent of Fairchild as well as Condé Nast Publications, which houses the Condé Nast Bridal Group. The acquisition of Elegant Bride, the story suggested, would create the kind of semi-heated sibling rivalry that Advance prexy Si Newhouse supposedly tends to favor.

Left out of the story, however, was a look at the post-acquisition competitive landscape, which includes players both online (TheKnot.com) and off. Of the publications in the latter category, the only one that poses a legitimate threat to Condé Nast's dominance in the hotly competitive bridal category is the independently owned Bridal Guide. And while the magazine still lags behind CN's Bride's and Modern Bride, the gap has been narrowing in recent years.

The fact that Bridal Guide's independence tends to be the focus of stories about the magazine seems to irk owner Barry Rosenbloom somewhat. But Bridal Guide's success has flown in the face of the notion that a magazine is only as good as its corporate sugar daddy.

"If there were anything negative about being independent, I'd try not to be independent," he says. "In this particular field, if you do something right, it doesn't matter if you're part of a big group. It's just as easy to screw up as part a big group as it is independently."

Adds publisher Tom Curtain: "Because of our structure, we can be a lot more nimble than our competitors. Other publications are structured and bureaucratic. With us, when something needs to be done, I just go into Barry's office."

It's a formula that seems to be working quite well for Bridal Guide, even at a time when the bridal-mag category is slumping. When Condé Nast purchased Modern Bride in February 2002 and paired it with Bride's to form the Condé Nast Bridal Group, media pundits assumed that the combined might of the newly formed bridal behemoth would overwhelm every publication with national aspirations.

But then a funny thing happened: Bridal Guide more than held its own in the post-consolidation bridal publishing environment. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, in the first year following the formation of the CN Bridal Group (2002) Bridal Guide slipped three percent in ad pages, to 2,316, but grew its ad revenue 6% over 2001 levels, to $54.1 million. By comparison, Bride's dropped 27% in ad pages (to 2,805) during the same period and Modern Brides fell 24% (to 2,429); both plummeted 25% in ad revenue. Granted, the Condé Nast pubs were getting more revenue out of its pages ($96.4 million for Bride's and $80.7 million for MB in 2002), but Bridal Guide had remained vital in the face of the consolidation.

"We were confident that the Modern Bride acquisition would be a net positive for us, and it has been," Rosenbloom says plainly. "[The acquisition of] Elegant Bride should result in more of the same."

In the first six months of 2003, Bridal Guide has outpaced its competitors in ad pages on a percentage basis (up 15.3% over the year-ago period to 1,410; Bride's is down 8.7% to 1,636 and MB is down 7.1% to 1,220). BG continues to lag in terms of ad revenue, however: it slipped .4% to $28.3 million, while Bride's fell 14.6% to $51.8 million and MB jumped 3.1% to $47.0 million.

If the unfavorable dollar-per-page ratio is bothering Rosenbloom or Curtain, they do a good job of hiding their displeasure. Rosenbloom, who freely admits to having "expressed some interest" in purchasing Elegant Bride, says he is as happy with the way things turned out as he was when the CN Bridal Group came together. "You have to understand, when the [Condé Nast] Bridal Group was formed, it isn't like we didn't talk to our clients about it," he recalls. "They said 'just stick to your niche.'" Curtain quickly adds: "It was 'we like what you're doing, you're affordable, you're effective.'"

Advertisers have continued to embrace the publication in the year-and-a-half since. Top ad categories for the mag, not surprisingly, include fashion and travel. "Our audience aren't just voracious readers - they're voracious spenders," Curtain notes. As for the months ahead, he hopes to bait new categories into the mag using a host of favorable demographic statistics.

"I think there are businesses out there that don't understand that this is a market that should be pursued with tremendous vigor," he says. "Nearly five million Americans each year say 'I do.' Do they need life insurance and mortgages? Do they need to furnish and set up their new homes electronically? They do. As an industry, we haven't done a great job going after financial services and automotive." Rosenbloom, for his part, hopes for 15-20% annual gains in ad pages but hesitates to predict revenue growth: "It's a little harder to predict, because of the mix of pages, but we'll be up."

"The bride reads so much," he continues. "She's going to pick up everything that looks relevant to her at that time in her planning. Everybody [in this category] does a good job; we just think we do it best."