• by Ray Schultz , March 31, 2021

Meredith Corp.’s MNI Targeted Media has launched a bookazine cover wrap ad format and is promoting it in wraps on several of its magazines, the company announced on Wednesday.  

Bookazines are single-topic premium magazines that fuse together the elements of magazines and books. They are widely seen as one area where print is thriving.  

Meredith Premium Publishing produces over 300 bookazine issues per year, most priced over $9.99. It's sold more than 18 million copies at retail in its fiscal year 2020. 

Included are such titles as People Royals, Sweet July With Ayesha Curry, Rachael Ray In Season, Traditional Home, Coastal Living, Cooking Light. 

“Consumers come to these single topic keepsakes because they allow them to binge on what they like most,” says Klarn DePalma, executive vice president at MNI Targeted Media.  

“Wrapping covers of these special issues allows advertisers to further contextually align with content that has staying power — a lot of readers hang on to and collect these bookazines.” The wraps cover the bookazine, but the logo remains.

Showing its belief in the format, MNI has launched Reimagine, a branded cover wrap campaign that promotes its programmatic media-buying platform, MNIx. The wraps are appearing on Cooking Light, Life and Essence.  

“Even though we’re staying put, your audience is on the move,” says one. “Find them wherever they are, whatever they’re doing — even if they’re bingeing a docuseries on royalty or learning to play chess from YouTube tutorials."

Meredith describes bookazine wraps as a hyper-contextually targeted advertising platform. By buying the specialized issues, consumers show a clear interest in the topics.  

“For all of the talk about digital paywalls, this is the original content paywall,” states Doug Olson, president and general manager of Meredith Magazines.