Supplement mines a huge database

By John Casey

  Looking to leverage its detailed database of 10 million subscribers, Conde Nast adds another ride-along supplement to its June magazines. Persona, aimed at women over 40, is the latest offering from Conde Nasts' nascent specialty publishing effort.
   Persona follows to market More, launched last June by Meredith, publisher of Ladies Home Journal, and aimed at the burgeoning demographic of aging baby boomers. Unlike More, though, Persona has no permanent staff and no set plans for a regular publishing schedule.
   "It's really a marketing opportunity," says Cathy Viscardi,  Conde Nast's executive vice president of marketing and sales. "Persona is really our response to our advertisers' desire to reach 40-plus, over-$75,000-income women with college educations. More and more readers are in that age group and the financial power they wield is obvious."
   But magazines for older women are traditionally a difficult proposition, note longtime magazine observers like Roberta Garfinkle, senior vice president and director of print media for McCann- Erikson. "You can't really say an older women's magazine category exists.''
   "Lears failed dismally because it was too high-brow, and though Mirabella was touted as an older women's magazine, it has positioned itself as a beauty and fashion book," says Garfinkle. ``A lot of publishing groups out there looking at More, and I would guess that Persona is at least partly a testing of the waters.''
   Persona will be selectively polybagged with 1.45 million subscriber issues of Conde' Nast magazines. Another 50,000 copies will be distributed at high-end women's health spas. The handsome, 96-page book features a perky Candace Bergen on the cover. The ad mix runs heavily to cosmetics (Lancome, Almay, Revlon) and automotive (Chrysler, Oldsmobile, Jeep).
   "General Motors, for example, advertises in all our titles," says Viscardi. " When they run an ad in, say Vogue, that ad allows them to send a special message to those readers. But Persona only goes to 200,000 to 300,000 of the Vogue readers.  So it gives GM an opportunity to hit a special niche by borrowing on an established relationship with the consumer."
   The company promises advertisers Persona will reach a median-age audience of 49.2 and a median household income of $90,695 at a CPM of $45.
   "I look at the 10 million subscribers of Conde' Nast magazines as a single entity, a core of readers that we occasionally split up so that our advertisers can gain access to the special markets they serve,'' says Viscardi. ``What this amounts to is database marketing."

John Casey is a writer based in New York.