• by Larry Dobrow , August 11, 2003

When IFCRant launched three years ago, film buffs were quick to embrace it - that is, those film buffs who knew that it existed. Though the magazine reflected a sensibility that couldn't be found in multiplex-worshipping titles like Premiere or Movieline, IFCRant was almost a nonentity from a marketing perspective. As a result, it felt more like a fanzine, albeit one with an incredibly authoritative and passionate editorial voice, than a major-league consumer publication.

With its recent relaunch, however, IFCRant seems ready for its close-up. The mag, produced by IFC Companies in conjunction with online film hotspot indieWIRE, has overhauled its design and started an aggressive push for marketing partners. Alas, while indie film auteurs can afford to turn up their noses at anything that smacks of commercialism, magazine publishers most certainly cannot. Thus the challenge for IFC Companies senior vice president of marketing Caroline Bock and her team: maintaining the mag's credibility while at the same time luring advertisers to provide the backing that allows its writers to wax philosophic on, say, Jules and Jim.

"We've pumped up the design but we've also kept our content and style cutting-edge," Bock says. "As long as we want to stay a fairly underground magazine, which we do, it's always going to be a balancing act."

Central to Bock's growth strategy for IFCRant is a more synergistic relationship with parent IFC Companies, which owns indie beacon The Independent Film Channel as well as film production and distribution arms. In the past, it seemed that IFCRant never truly bonded with its elder siblings; now, the channel is running a subscription spot as well as minute-long "IFC Rants" by channel mainstays like John Waters and Martha Plimpton. Similarly, the mag is forging alliances with prime venues for indie films: film festivals, universities and so-called art houses. "Things like these are obviously a great way to reach the independent film fans we know are watching the network and seeing our films," Bock says.

As for those fans, they may well prove IFCRant's biggest selling point for advertisers. The company's readers and viewers tend to be in their mid-30s, with a fairly advanced level of education and household income. "They're entertainment consumers and they have disposable income," Bock notes. Not surprisingly, then, consumer electronics and entertainment companies reside near the top of the mag's marketing hit list: "Our readers are likely to go out and try all the new gadgets before the masses do - high-definition TV, digital video, everything." Other ad categories in which Bock sees potential are high-end liquors (she lists Absolut and Skyy Vodka as prime targets, and IFCRant recently did a promotion with Bombay Sapphire) and automotive (Volkswagen is already on board).

Given that IFCRant is unaudited, it's tough to discern exactly how the magazine is making its way through the media food chain. Nonetheless, IFC prints around 175,000 copies of the magazine, up from 100,000 at launch. It is handed out for free at around 500 theaters in the U.S., including those in the Landmark Theatres and Clearview Cinemas networks, and is available on several airline shuttles and at Virgin Megastores, Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million. "We have a somewhat unorthodox distribution system," Bock allows.

IFCRant is priced very much in line with the indie ethos - two bucks per copy and annual subscriptions for $7.99 - but lacks a major newsstand presence. Clearly this is something that Bock plans to address, and soon. "The goal is to keep growing at a fairly aggressive rate, somewhere between 20 to 30% per year," she says. "Obviously newsstand is a big part of that." By mid-2004, Bock hopes to grow circulation into the 200,000-250,000 range; IFCRant and indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez says he wants to boost the mag's frequency up from its current six-times-per-year schedule.

"The best-case scenario is that everyone who sees Camp and the new John Sayles film [Casa de Los Babys] also sees the magazine," Bock quips. "Given where the magazine is and where independent film is, I think our goals are realistic."