• by Larry Dobrow , May 13, 2003

You'll have to forgive Parenting publisher Jeff Wellington if he's a bit giddy nowadays. Over the course of the last week, his magazine has won the American Society of Magazine Editors' top prize for large-circulation publications, seen its Publishers Information Bureau year-to-date numbers surge in both total ad pages and revenue, and been ranked ahead of top competitor Parents in a New York Times blurb listing May ad pages.

In other words, Parenting and Wellington are enjoying a nice little run. But short-term euphoria aside, Wellington is quick to note that the seeds of the magazine's recent successes were planted around 15 months ago.

"We started a significant brand study in February 2002," he recalls. "We studied moms in general, not just our readers, from all walks of life - we broke it down by income, age, number of children, age of children and much more. The idea was to generate a truly complete profile of our potential readers."

Armed with this data, Parenting editor Janet Chan (to whom Wellington assigns a lion's share of the credit for the mag's triumphs) was given free reign to re-create the publication in order to better reflect the wants and needs of the 21st century mother. The changes debuted in the May 2003 issue; they include a new logo, a retooled cover shot/blurb, and a more mom-centric focus.

"It was much more than a redesign," Wellington stresses. "It's not like we hired an art director and said 'we don't like the color blue anymore.' It was more a tonality shift in the magazine." Since the changes only recently went into effect, their impact won't be felt for another few months at the earliest. But Wellington claims they have already won over potential advertisers: "What we did was show them the research and say 'stay tuned.'"

Perhaps it's worth asking whether the magazine is messing with a good thing. According to the Publishers Information Bureau April's numbers, Parenting is up 26.4% in ad pages (to 351.0 from 277.7) in 2003, with revenue increasing 30.9% to $41.5 million. Wellington, not surprisingly, brushes off such talk. "The look, feel and tone of the new issues far surpass what we've done in the past," he counters. "When we've been showing our presentation to advertisers, they get it. After all, they're parents, too. You see their heads nodding in appreciation."

Parenting still has a ways to go before it passes long-time rival Parents. Despite the Times blurb (which cited Mediaweek reports that Parenting bested Parents in May ad pages, 135.9 to 134.0), Parents still boasts a sizable advantage in both ad pages and revenue. The lead is narrowing, however, with Parenting posting greater percentage gains over 2002 in each category. "Competition is a good thing," Wellington quips diplomatically. "They produce a fabulous magazine. I'm sure they enjoy the competition, too, and readers have two excellent options."

Parents Media Group vice president and publisher Jan Studin returns the compliments, equally diplomatically: "Healthy competition is terrific. I don't think anybody is upset that the whole category is up - 12.8% through May, by our figures." However, she's clearly not ready to concede that Parents has lost an iota of ground to Parenting. "We believe we've pioneered the category, and we're still clearly number one in pages and revenue," she notes. "We have 27% more readership and we're number one on the newsstand, which says a lot about our vitality."

As for the ASME award (for general excellence in the two million-plus circulation category), Wellington notes its encouraging effect both on staff morale and advertiser perception of his publication. "I can say 'we've been telling you for months that this magazine is the best in the business - now I can prove it to you,'" he notes.

And while this may come across as a tad bombastic, there's no denying that Parenting's ASME victory is stunning for a number of reasons, most notably that a parent/family magazine hadn't even been nominated in 15 years. "The way I look at it is, hey, it's about time," Wellington laughs. "It's nice to know the things we're doing are being recognized and appreciated, but it doesn't change our mission one bit."