Prevention Magazine: Life After iVillage

After parting ways with iVillage in January, Prevention magazine has found a new online marketing partner. The company has tapped Internet marketing consultancy Interevco to explore a host of advertising and sponsorship opportunities on its website.

The arrangement, which has already gone into effect, will see Interevco assume most of the responsibility for finding new advertisers and pairing existing ones with site content. "We know that the site is a great asset to consumers and advertisers, and we're ready to commit additional resources to it," promises Michele Murphy, Prevention's associate publisher of integrated sales and marketing.

Murphy and Interevco chief executive officer Paul DeBraccio are hoping to sell advertisers on the sponsorship of site features, such as category- and condition-specific healing centers, polls and surveys, and streamed video clips and other content featuring Prevention experts like Denise Austin (fitness) and Bobbi Brown (beauty). "The people I speak with, companies like Aventis and Pfizer and AstraZeneca, they're looking for full programs," DeBraccio says. "They want things they can own, rather than just banners and buttons."

After the split with iVillage ("the site hadn't been getting the attention it was due"), Murphy quickly determined that she wanted to partner with a company boasting significant online experience. "To be honest, the Internet thing was pretty new to me," she admits. Prevention interviewed Interep and about five more web-marketing experts before landing with Interevco, which dove into the task.

"We said, 'Wow, this is going to be relatively easy,'" DeBraccio jokes. "Prevention has quality content and a trusted brand name, and there's never any shortage of blue-chip advertisers wanting to be associated with that."

Clearly the site affords marketers in a range of categories - beyond pharmaceuticals and other health-media mainstays - a chance to hawk their wares before an increasingly savvy online audience. According to Murphy, since Prevention took management and marketing of its site in-house in January, page views have increased 33%, up to four million unique views per month. The site averages approximately 800,000 unique visitors each month and boasts more than 650,000 weekly e-newsletter subscribers. Additionally, Prevention has compiled an extensive database of consumers who have opted to receive what the company calls "targeted health update newsletters" on health topics ranging from weight loss to allergies.

While enthusiasm for Prevention.com remains predictably high among pharma companies, Murphy and DeBraccio both hope to expand the site's slate of advertisers in the months ahead. Murphy cites recent interest from the beauty and packaged goods/food categories; the latter, she suggests, might be a natural fit as a sponsor for the site's research on weight loss. She also hopes to sell financial companies on the connection between physical and fiscal fitness.

As for DeBraccio, he has set his sights on the automotive category, which has enjoyed a sporadic presence in the magazine. "Lots of car companies are coming back to station wagons," he notes. "That's certainly a fit with our audience."

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