| For years Ad Age's A-List honors were grounded in metrics such as ad pages and circulation, but these days consumers and marketers are demanding more of their media brands, so those are no longer the only way to gauge success. That's why this year we looked for magazines that were truly operating as brands, whether that meant making smart licensing moves, becoming retailers in their own right, creating revenue-generating digital content, building smart cross-media content and ad platforms, or finding a way to engage and monetize their communities. The winners in these pages are getting ready for a new era -- and, we believe, are worthy of emulation. |
Women's Health Is Ad Age's Magazine of the Year
Circ Growth Plus Smart Brand Extensions Bring in Revenue
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Most magazines say they're brands too, but Women's Health is (power) walking the talk. And its other platforms aren't just extensions -- they're revenue drivers. That's one of the reasons why Women's Health is Ad Age's Magazine of the Year.
Better Homes and Gardens Is No. 2 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
Meredith Title Pushes Beyond Print With Expansion of TV Show, Licensing
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Better Homes is a very big magazine, but we can't help but notice it hasn't stopped at the print edition. This year it expanded its Better Homes and Gardens line of licensed products at Walmart, for example, to around 1,000 from 500 at the start.
Family Circle Is No. 3 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
A Fresh Approach for a Stalwart Brings Readers, Real Ad Revenue
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When a magazine increases ad pages in an environment brutal enough to tear almost everyone else down, it's easy to suspect that the magazine is discounting its publicly quoted ad rates to the point of absurdity. Family Circle's ad pages in the issues from January through October ran nearly 13.9% higher than in the same period a year earlier, according to the Media Industry Newsletter.
The Economist Is No. 4 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
North American Edition Experiments With Sampling, Increases Subscribers
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Last year's Magazine of the Year, The North American edition of The Economist, again proved itself a brand worth honors, in print and online, particularly for innovative thinking in marketing itself -- and asking readers to pay their share of the freight.
People Is No. 5 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
E-commerce, Online Games, Mobile Apps: This Isn't Your Mom's 'People'
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Consider People's presence on the 2009 list a sign that the traditional metrics are less and less determinative. They're hugely important -- but so are the new ways forward. People suffered declines in newsstand sales and ad pages, like almost everyone else, but it also spent the year trying new things.
Essence Is No. 6 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
With the 'Pulse of a Community' Firmly in Grasp, Marketers Benefit
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Though ad pages are down somewhat, Essence remains one of the preeminent vehicles through which to reach black women. And marketers as diverse as Pantene and Disney have clearly taken note.
The Week Is No. 7 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
Title Gets Strong With Growing Ad Pages and Omnivore's Point-of-View
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If our nod for People magazine is partly an ode to scale in a fragmenting media business, our honors for The Week reflect an appreciation for exploiting a narrow niche richly.
Backpacker Is No. 8 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
Developing Niche Content Exactly in Tune With What Readers Crave Most
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Backpacker devotes precisely zero percent of its energies toward embracing newbies. And that may well be the reason the title has thrived at a time when comparable niche mags have sagged.
Cosmopolitan Is No. 9 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
A Big, Bold Brand That Fearlessly Takes on Challenges for Marketers
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- So powerful and ubiquitous is the Cosmo brand that it's easy to overlook the magazine that spawned it all. Happily for Hearst, few marketers targeting spend-happy young women fell into this trap, even during a year when many fled magazines as if they were a Fashion Bug outlet.
National Geographic Is No. 10 on Ad Age's Magazine A-List
121-Year-Old Publisher Proves It Can Learn Plenty of New Media Tricks
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- It's hard to imagine a media brand, in fact, that's created a deeper presence on a truly global scale than National Geographic.
The Atlantic's James Bennet Is Ad Age's Magazine A-List Editor of the Year
Low-Key Former Reporter Orchestrates a Multiplatform Approach to Provocative Talk
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In an age in which media people are often obnoxiously focused on trying to get everybody to pay attention to their (sigh) personal brands, James Bennet has been conspicuously inconspicuous as editor of The Atlantic, even as it's been dazzlingly resurgent under his leadership.
A-List Publishing Company of the Year: Meredith Corp.
Publishing Group Rebrands as Meredith National Media Brands to Reflect Real Mission
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Unlike some repositioning efforts we've seen, Meredith has the facts to back up its new story. For one thing, it made real changes at the publishing group before it changed the name.
Food Network Magazine Is Ad Age's Magazine A-List Launch of the Year
After Just 18 Months, Hearst Already Boasts the Second-Largest Foodie Title
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Over the last 18 months, launching magazines has become the province of masochists bent on losing lots of money really, really quickly. Rebel Ink, LoftLife, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Legends Magazine, Natural Cat -- not to take anything away from these recent debuts, but none exactly screams "blockbuster" or even "a reasonable bet to be solvent five years from now." And then you have Hearst's Food Network Magazine.
New York's NYmag.com Is Ad Age's Magazine A-List Website of the Year
Digital-Edition Revenue Up 17% Thanks to Stable of Mass-Interest Blogs
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- For much of the magazine industry, a digital strategy has amounted to throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks -- then praying really hard that consumers will follow. But New York has distinguished itself as one of the most innovative media brands when it comes to developing non-print businesses that actually deliver.
Magazine A-List: Five More Smart Moves
Not Every Ploy Has Yet Paid Off, but Here Are Some Titles Whose Efforts Are Worth Watching
It was a tough year, and most titles struggled to deliver good news on all fronts. But, while these five did not make it on to Ad Age's A-List this time around, we thought they were worth singling out for the strides they made this year.
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