• by Melynda Fuller , November 4, 2019

Meredith Corp’s Health brand is preparing for future growth with new hires and an investment in its print magazine. The plans follow a recent editorial redesign, promising ad performance and a 50% increase in unique visitors year-over-year, reaching nearly 10 million unique visitors.

“The Health brand is a considerable franchise that our executive team feels passionately about growing into an even more robust multiplatform business,” said Doug Olson, president, Meredith Magazines.

He added that with "increased investment, we believe Health will continue to strengthen its position in the marketplace as an even more relevant and widespread resource spanning legacy and emerging media channels.” 

According to Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, Health.com is the company’s fourth-largest site as of September.

Coming aboard as publisher of Health is Brendan Smyth, most recently publisher of the recently shuttered Famiy Circle. Smyth succeeds Maria Jakubek, who is now executive director of sales at People.

Former Family Circle EIC Cheryl Brown joins Health magazine as its executive editor and will report to Health EIC Amy Conway. Previously, Brown launched Allrecipes as its EIC. Brown succeeds Bethany Heitman, who continues as an editor at large.

Also joining Health are senior editors Amber Brenza, who will focus on Health.com’s condition content hubs, and Susan Brickell, who will focus on commerce coverage.

Health is focusing specifically on its print product, with enhanced paper stock and a larger trim size. These changes will be reflected in the March 2020 issue.

The investment comes as Health reports ad revenue is up 7% year-to-date through the December issue. Health has attracted new advertisers from most categories, including beauty, food, pharma and household supplies.

The brand’s expansion follows the launches of new products earlier this year, including Balance by Health, an Alexa skill and Facebook chatbot focused on daily wellness inspiration. Balance by Health mines content from Health, Shape, EatingWell and Cooking Light. The brand also launched 360-brand platform Wellness Warriors. 

Meredith Corp is deepening its investment in the health and wellness space in other divisions as well.

Just last week, the company announced the acquisition of mindfulness app Stop, Breathe & Think (SBT). The app is expected to be particularly beneficial to the company’s affinity marketer Synapse, which will create new customer loyalty offerings across its retail and online distribution channels through SBT.