• by John Gaffney , July 17, 2003

As the success of magazines like Real Simple shows, cocooning has taken on the aura of a business opportunity. Life is more complex, frenetic and unpredictable than ever before, demographers tell us, so American are concentrating on home and family. That means a need more do-it-yourself decorating information, lifestyle features and advertising that fits well within that mix. It's a recipe for opportunity if you're a shelter magazine. And the category has been growing despite a fiercely competitive situation this year.

To try and define the shelter titles that most capture the attention of their readers, we took 17 titles that routinely show up on planners' screens when home is the topic. We measured them against the Involvement Index. Publications were measured and ranked on their ability to connect with homeowners. The new Involvement Index formula, created as the result of the 2003 Knowledge Networks study-which correlated high reader involvement with high ad recall-was applied to data from the spring 2003 MRI report. The new, validated formula, uses three MRI involvement measures: The average frequency of reading score counts 51%, while the balance is split between average reading minutes (25%) and average rating or preference score (24%).

To round out the planner's-eye view, we included each magazine's composition (the percentage of homeowners) and corresponding index. The Involvement Index is calculated based on all magazines tracked by MRI. Interestingly enough, while the Knowledge Networks study linked high reader involvement to high ad recall, this analysis shows that measuring magazines by composition and involvement highlights connection and recall opportunities that might be obscured by a focus on audience composition alone.

Home Connection

Higher reader involvement yields higher ad recall. Chart compares 17 shelter titles on the basis of involvement and composition among homeowners.

Rank	Publication	Involvement Index	Composition Index	Rank
1	The Family Handyman	126	117	2
2	Sunset	117	116	4
3	Southern Living	113	115	6
4	Traditional Home	108	114	8
5	Country Living	106	115	5
6	Architectural Digest	106	109	13
7	Better Homes and Gardens	105	110	12
8	This Old House	105	111	11
9	Real Simple	105	101	16
10	Country Home	103	114	7
11	House Beautiful	103	111	10
12	Martha Stewart Living	98	104	14
13	House & Garden	97	113	9
14	Midwest Living	97	118	1
15	Home	95	100	17
16	Southern Accents	94	117	3
17	Metropolitan Home	88	102	15
source: MRI Spring 2003
Index of 100=average of all MRI-measured magazines