• by Larry Dobrow , April 4, 2004

Discussing her publication's ongoing quest to seize more non-endemic advertising, Elle Decor Vice President/Publisher Tracy Gavant teems with enthusiasm as she relates recent meetings with luxury automakers and couture mainstays. Then, suddenly, she pauses. "I'm absolutely paranoid by nature," she says, only half-jokingly. "We're doing really well in less obvious categories, but I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Such, apparently, is the pressure that even successful titles in the fiercely competitive shelter category operate under nowadays. While Gavant quickly returns to her rapid-fire chattiness, the message is clear: every publisher is perpetually on the clock.

Like most of its competitors--Architectural Digest, House & Garden, and House Beautiful are the top three--Elle Decor gets a lion's share of its ad dollars from suppliers of home furnishings. And although this is a good thing, especially at a time when low interest rates are fueling a surge in home renovations, Gavant feels that complacency could prove dangerous.

"A lot of those companies are small--trade showrooms, family-owned businesses," she notes. "They've been hit pretty hard over the last few years, and marketing is sometimes the first thing to go when that happens."

Thus, a mission to lure non-endemic advertisers has been a large part of Elle Decor's modus operandi for the last few years. With its slightly more youthful audience--ED hits women in their late 30s/early 40s, while its competitors skew five to ten years older--the mag has been able to attract high-end brands like Cartier and Patek Philippe as well as mainstream mainstays like The Gap and Target. And it tends to get a wider range of advertising from many of these brands. "Chanel will run couture with us, but they'll also do sunglasses and fragrances," Gavant notes.

Perhaps because of its association with big sibling Elle, ED has grabbed more fashion and beauty advertisers than competing titles. Similarly, thanks to sibling Sound & Vision, the magazine can offer package deals to manufacturers of home-theater equipment. Although Savant is one of the few publishers that does not outwardly yearn for financial services companies ("I'm open to it, but they tend to be more male-focused"), comparable categories more often seen in Fortune and Robb Report rank high on her list (luxury products and autos, liquor).

"Shelter books seem to be conservative--and with good reason, because most people live that way. But I think our readers like to see names and brands like that," she says. Top targets for the months ahead include former advertisers like Jaguar and Estee Lauder as well as Mercedes.

As for those readers, Gavant emphasizes their youth--if not in age, then in outlook. "They don't want their houses to look like a catalog," she explains. "It's scarier to buy a funky couch than a funky scarf, but they're the ones who will do it. They want people to come in and say "Wow!" She disputes the contention that women in their late 30s and older may already have forged most of their brand loyalties: "I'm not sure this is the case. Even if it is, I think most of them are open to ad messages. They're always in information-gathering mode."

Elle Decor's main point of differentiation is its international thrust. With a 20th international edition set to launch within a few months (surely few other shelter books boast a presence in Croatia), the magazine can legitimately bill itself as a global authority. It's a positioning that ED has embraced: in two weeks, all 19 of its editions will unite in Milan to hand out the Elle Deco International Design Awards. "It's sort of like a Miss Universe pageant," Gavant quips.

Over the next year, the mag will evaluate broadcast partners for the 2005 awards; an Elle Decor publishing imprint, including titles like "Charming Hotels Around the World," has been in stores for some time now. Beyond that, Gavant says the company will consider upping the mag's frequency from eight issues per year to 12 once the economy strengthens further. "I don't think it's pressing, because we carry more ads in eight issues than most of our competitors do in 12," she says.

After last year's elevation of the circulation from 450,000 to 500,000, further adjustments are unlikely in the immediate future. "500,000 is a magic number. It's a psychological thing for many media people," Gavant continues. "We could get more readers if we sent out millions of subscription offers, but I'm wary of diluting our demographics."