• by February 2, 2004

Alloy and Hachette Filipacchi's new cross-media sales and promotional partnership could be a model for future alliances between online and offline publishers. The long-term deal between Hachette's Ellegirl magazine and Web site and Alloy's network of teen girl properties gives both companies a lift.

Hachette gets access to Alloy's massive reach--millions of teen girls via Alloy.com and Delias.com, in addition to location-based events, direct mail, catalogs, and other media assets--and Alloy gets content and context. Both partners will help one another tap into advertisers that would be hard for them to reach on their own.

"I see this venture with Alloy and its marketing arm 360 Youth as a way that we can take our niche [brand] and make it work across a vast integrated platform," says Deborah Burns, VP-publisher, Ellegirl. "It takes that niche and gives us instant access to 25 million teens, and it's very powerful for advertisers, from a circulation point of view and from a marketing point of view," Burns says, adding: "The relationship with Alloy is a way to give the advertiser scale that makes them take that second look at Ellegirl; now we can bring them something that even the mass titles cannot."

Burns says the partnership will extend for at least three years. She declined to specify the terms of the deal.

"With Ellegirl, we now will have a very strong editorial voice that we can overlay with our reach," says Samantha Skey, VP-convergent marketing, Alloy. Skey says she hopes to develop unique convergent packages that both sales can take to advertisers.

Hachette's Burns is already on the case: She heads to Detroit today to talk with auto marketers. While autos and consumer electronics are non-endemic advertisers in the teen girl world, they are exactly the kinds of advertisers Hachette and Alloy hope to crack.

"Sure, the teen market is not really a target for automotive companies but as the parent of teenagers, every single auto or consumer electronics decision isn't made by my husband or me, it's guided by teen opinions," Burns says. Alloy believes Ellegirl will help spur fashion advertisers on its network, as well as a fashion presence vis-à-vis events and on the Web.

Burns says she thinks advertisers will be excited about the possibilities. Teen girls are influencers and trendsetters. They're also spenders. By some industry estimates, the overall teen market spends as much as $140 billion annually. Alloy and its network of sites and offline properties has zeroed in on events and promotions that strike a nerve among teen girls. The media surround/viral approach creates cadres of influencers who pass along trend information to their friends. Lately, Alloy has teamed with music labels to break young artists online via teen girls.