• by Larry Dobrow , March 4, 2004

Tom Marshall would like to make it very clear right at the outset: Sunset is not a magazine for retirees, even if its name might suggest otherwise.

It's ironic that Marshall, the magazine's vice president/publisher, would feel the need to issue such a clarification. Sunset, which is in its 106th year of publication, received its moniker from Southern Pacific Railroad, its founding publisher. The magazine was plopped on the train that regularly ran from the Southeast to the West Coast; in essence, Sunset was the world's first in-flight publication.

Alas, this probably doesn't count for much when Marshall and his sales team are forced to launch into yet another explanation of why a magazine that chronicles life in the West doesn't have the words "living," "home," or "garden" in its title. "What I usually do is state the obvious: 'Sunset' is neither descriptive of the content of the magazine, nor does it evoke other magazine names," he says sunnily. "I'm not complaining or whining about it. It's something we've come to deal with."

If that is Marshall's biggest problem, he should consider himself fortunate. Roughly a year into his tenure at Sunset, he helps preside over a magazine that, like its Time Inc. cousin Southern Living, is viewed as a definitive regional title. Although business has been a touch slow--the mag ran precisely two fewer ad pages in 2003 than in 2002, according to the Publishers Information Bureau--Sunset has jumped its rate base to 1.45 million. And the magazine continues to dominate out West, achieving 5.8 percent market penetration in the country's 13 Western states. "If you projected that to the whole country, our circulation would be 6.3 million," Marshall chirps.

But, of course, it's not--mostly because of comparative indifference from readers in the East as well as the media community. To combat what he perceives as a need for further education in the marketplace ("the West is a bit of a foreign country to people in media in New York"), Marshall and co. spent much of this week on the road, hyping the redesigned Sunset at Western-themed crab luncheons in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Boston.

"The average person who's doing the buying responds to things that are familiar to them and their lifestyle, and the Western lifestyle is very different," Marshall explains. "TV viewership is much less. People spend more time outdoors. It's a different existence."

If Sunset is able to navigate its way onto the radar screens of East Coast readers, the magazine could find itself in a highly favorable position. As it stands, most of the mag's numbers beyond the geographical disparity look solid: readers' average household income is $77,500, and median home value is $110,000. While Marshall admits that he'd like to shave a few years off the median reader age of 49.5, he argues that this number should be considered in its proper context.

"The average 49-year-old in the West is doing what the average 35-year-old is doing in the rest of the country," he claims. "They're surfing in Southern California or hiking in Montana. They live an active lifestyle."

The newly tweaked magazine, which comes across as a guidebook of sorts for Western living, does a better job of reflecting this than the Sunset of five years ago. While the changes aren't overwhelming--more color, a different typeface, more pages devoted to features--the collective effect is airier, and distinctly more modern. "We used to hear things from media directors like 'my client doesn't see your ad in the Sunset environment,'" Marshall says. "I know we have the right environment now." Early feedback has been promising, and he expects to hear more following completion of the road tour.

Recent discussions with media folks have revolved around the regional nature of the publication, a label that Marshall resists. "Every so often, you get 'we're not buying regional magazines at this time,' but in my mind we're not a regional magazine." He might have a point: California is the country's biggest marketplace, and Sunset boasts more readers in the state than does Time or People. Similarly, many of today's biggest trends, notably the yoga and healthy-lifestyle crazes, first emerged out West.

"Even in New York, people understand that Starbucks started in the West," Marshall cracks. "For any company that has a new brand, we're a great place to highlight it."

Top ad categories include travel, automotive, and home products (window/flooring companies), with financial services high on the mag's wish list. Talbot's, Fidelity Investments, and Mercedes-Benz head Marshall's list of targets for 2004 and beyond.