• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 8, 2011

For the past few years, Teen Vogue has taken advantage of the buzz surrounding Fashion Week (and teen mall-going habits) to reach young female fashion aficionados with experiential marketing in the form of "Haute Spot" "pop-up" stores at suburban New York malls. This year, for the first time, Teen Vogue is moving the pop-up store experience out of the malls and bringing it to Lincoln Center.

The fashion mag is setting up a "Haute Spot" at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, where it will be open to the public from Sept. 8-15. Like all good experiential marketing, of course, it's not just about shopping. In previous years, Teen Vogue's temporary immersive retail experiences have featured feature free snacks, informal modeling, a perfume bar, a makeup station, charging stations for cell phones and iPods, a gift-wrapping counter and racks of clothes.

The Haute Spot at Lincoln Center also includes makeovers, opportunities to meet fashion authors and bloggers, and a variety of fashion-related video content. Girls who think they have the chops for modeling can even talk to talent agents from IMG Worldwide and get some modeling tips. There's also a Haute Spot iPhone shopping app to keep teens connected with the services (and the Teen Vogue brand) wherever their browsing may take them.

This year, the Lincoln Center Haute Spot features a number of brand and designer sponsors, including Aldo, American Apparel, Bebe, Guess, Jessica Simpson, Maybelline, Paul Frank, Roxy and Vera Wang. In 2009, Teen Vogue's Haute Spot pop-up stores at malls around the country attracted about 50,000 visitors.

Budget Travel Lets Readers Choose Cover

For the second year in a row, Budget Travel Magazine has put the cover of its November "Reader's Choice" edition up for a vote by readers and visitors to its Web site -- a move in keeping with the ethos of the special edition, which is composed entirely of "user-generated content" submitted by readers. This year's winner is a photograph of the Venice Canal by Guido Baviera, which won a decisive 66% of the popular vote.

Not coincidentally, this year Venice won the "Budget Travel Magazine Readers' Choice Awards World's Most Beautiful City" award -- one of a number of awards across different travel categories, including best destinations, hotels, resorts, cruises, cameras, car rentals, travel apps. Altogether, it attracted 145,000 online votes at the Budget Travel Web site. The November "Reader's Choice" issue will hit the newsstands on Oct. 18.

Car and Driver Drives Awareness with Facebook's "Car Town"

With Facebook users spending billions of hours on casual games, it behooves magazine brands to make sure they don't forget about the real world. With that in mind, Car and Driver has joined forces with Facebook to incorporate Hearst Corp.'s iconic automotive enthusiast brand into game play on "Car Town," a casual game and virtual world from Cie Games hosted on the social network, which attracts about 5.8 million users per month.

Players will get a (virtual) copy of Car and Driver whenever new (virtual) car models are introduced on "CarTown," displaying the new car on the cover -- which otherwise will look exactly like the actual magazine. The magazine will highlight winners of Car Town contests for virtual car design and related user-generated content. Hearst says the magazine will also cover "the latest features, hints and tips for the game."

Time Ups Gibbs To Deputy Managing Editor

Time magazine promoted Nancy Gibbs to deputy managing editor, making her the lead contender to succeed Rick Stengel as the magazine's top editor, reports the New York Post. If that happens, she would be the first woman to edit the newsweekly. Gibbs has been at Time since 1985 and have written more cover stories than any other Time writer, including the first 9/11 cover, Hurricane Katrina and four election-night covers.

West Joins MSLO as CFO

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has named Ken West as its new chief financial officer, the multimedia publisher announced this week. West is filling the spot vacated by interim CFO Allison Jacques, who will continue to serve MSLO as senior vice president and controller. Previously, West served as executive vice president and chief financial officer for Marvel Entertainment. Earlier, MSLO unveiled digital subscription sales for digital editions of Martha Stewart Living and Everyday Food on the iPad.

Gregory Joins Newsweek Daily Beast as President

Rob Gregory, formerly the president of network sales for Plum TV, has jumped ship to serve as president of Newsweek Daily Beast, formed by the merger of the weekly news title and the news aggregation Web site. Before joining Plum TV, Gregory served as publisher of Maxim from 2005-2007, where he worked with Stephen Colvin, who is now CEO of Newsweek Daily Beast.