• by Dana Blankenhorn , March 31, 2003

A risky strategy aimed at a highly coveted demographic will launch this fall in the form of JAQK, a magazine targeting young men.

Publisher Brett Garfinkel hopes to gather 300,000 male readers aged 25-44, average household income of $100,000, with a mix of action and luxury that is one part Esquire, one part Mens Journal and one part Las Vegas. The prototype now making the rounds features a cover painting of actor George Clooney in a tuxedo shirt and undone tie, a jacket slung over one shoulder, posed in front of the "vintage" Las Vegas of the "Rat Pack" era.

Publisher Brett Garfinkel is in his early 30s and previously worked at Wenner Media's Mens Journal as National Luxury Director, and in similar departments at Conde-Nast and Meredith. "They were all targeting guys from business school, investment bankers. Yet they were having trouble finding something masculine and elegant," he said.

Garfinkel's solution is tied up in two words - risk and reward. Articles by writers like Skip Bayless and Jay McInerney will focus on risk-taking in politics, business, sports and entertainment. This will be backed by a lifestyle focus on rewards, branded luxury from advertisers like Bill Blass, Bulgari and Calvin Klein.

The publication itself will be luxurious. JAQK will be printed on paper usually reserved for high-end catalogs. The cover art for the prototype was an original oil painting that was then photographed.

Perhaps the riskiest aspect of this deal is its relationship with gambling interests. Casinos will mail the magazine, with a letter, to selected high rollers. Some casinos, like Hard Rock, will put the magazine in rooms, while Mandalay Bay will put it in its luxury suites. Garfinkel even wants to create a branded "loyalty card" covering several different casino companies.

Still, "We are not a Vegas magazine, not a gambling magazine," Garfinkel insisted. It's just that his target market loves action. A spokeswoman noted that 53 U.S. communities now get over 1 million tourists a year for gambling, and as Garfinkel admitted, the industry has "the best databases in the country."

Garfinkel hopes to create "a James Bond allure" in the magazine. "There's always a casino scene, with Bond wearing a tuxedo. He knows what to drink, he knows how to play, and knows how to enjoy it all."

In addition to those databases Garfinkel said he is tapping Fitness Insite, an online network for the fitness industry with 5 million members, and buying lists - segmented to that 25-44 male demographic - from such magazines as Variety and Institutional Investor.

JAQK will publish twice in 2003 before going to a bi-monthly schedule next March. Published rates are $30,000 for a full-page ad, $15,000 for a quarter page, with frequency discounts, and insertion orders due six weeks before publication, which for the first issue means mid-July.

So with a war raging you have a young publisher pushing a new magazine focused on luxury goods and a gambling lifestyle. That's risky, but if it works there's a high reward. That's JAQK.