|
|
|
Wee bit early to say.
Struggling new title for women who aren't very tall
By Jamie Jones
In theory, there is a publication for literally everyone: left-handed farmers, the high-IQed, scuba divers, one-eyed proofreaders, warmongers and gun-lovers, retired high-school beauty queens, and even perhaps the legions of hair-transplanters who over the years have resewn the pate of Sen. Joe Biden.
Or that's in theory.
The number of publications that can survive on advertising while reaching a particular subset is much smaller. For one, it has to be the right subset, one that advertisers feel comfortable identifying with.
This can be tough, and nowhere is it tougher than in the women's category.
Until More, a magazine attempting to reach mature women, was considered a sure loser.
Same for hefty women. Witness the recent closing of Mode.
But what about small women, the petites of this world?
It's an interesting challenge, one being faced by Daniel Stanton.
As publisher of Petite, Stanton would like to remove the stigma attached to women of short stature. But while that may seem a worthy endeavor, particularly for women who are not happy about being vertically disadvantaged, so far Stanton is stumbling, at least based on the magazine's initial issue, published this summer.
It came up short on both readers and advertisers.
Petite Magazine, based in Spokane, Wash., has plans to publish quarterly and eventually monthly.
While the winter edition is ready to go, Stanton says he may have to wait until enough advertising and subscriptions come in before going to press.
"We have a market that’s a monster market," says Stanton. "Over half the population of women is considered petite, and those women have no media that represent them in fashion and glamour."
Petite Magazine is about empowerment.
It features fashion spreads of petite models in petite-sized clothes, and Stanton offers a listing service for petite models on the magazine's web site.
The magazine publishes profiles of petite women in successful roles.
A section called "Petite but Tough" profiles women who work in physically demanding jobs. Another department called "Executive Petite" profiles successful businesswomen.
Stanton envisions the magazine as a touchstone not only for petite consumers but also for petites in the fashion industry, as a watering hole for consumers and insiders alike.
But exchange the word "petite" for "full-figured," and you’ve got Mode. That magazine sounded like a genuinely good idea, and particularly so when the likes of Camryn Manheim showed up on television and ad campaigns, suggesting that the fashion and retail worlds were at last embracing larger-figured women.
They may have been, but not in numbers sufficient to support a magazine.
If a similar movement for petite women is afoot in the clothing and fashion industries now, it hasn’t yet made a splash in the media.
But, undeterred, Stanton argues that this is precisely the point, that the petite market is untapped, huge, and ripe for a magazine to trumpet its cause.
The clothing industry defines petite as anyone under the height of 5 foot 4 inches, says Stanton.
The fashion industry (by which Stanton means the modeling industry) draws the line for petite at 5 foot 8.
He says that the number of women who are technically defined as petite by those standards accounts for well over half of the female population in the U.S.
"Don’t you think there should be a magazine for the average woman?" says Stanton. "Well, here we are."
Advertisers are not yet convinced.
Advertisers for the first issue of Petite included the Dress Barn and Cinderella of Boston, a petite shoe retailer. He also receives advertising from small retailers that specialize in petite clothing.
But absent were the major fashion houses, the other half of the ad equation.
Stanton is also being cold-shouldered by major national advertisers like J.C. Penney, Clairol, Old Navy, and Federated Department Stores, which operates Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, among others.
They won’t advertise until the magazine is better established, and their reluctance frustrates Stanton.
"I’m not JFK Jr. I’m not some already-made company. So they don’t want to pick it up."
And Stanton would like the magazine to expand beyond the retail sector.
"Ford has a new car in which you can adjust pedals to height. They should be in our magazine," he says.
But Stanton's bigger challenge may well be to lure readers. It matters not that half the female population is, well, petite, if that half feels no great need to read a magazine advancing its cause.
Also in question is whether petite women need such a magazine to help them shop. If anything, whether they admit it or not, they have the advantage of shopping in the children's department of many stores and saving money.
Stanton estimates that a magazine like Petite could reach a readership of up to 600,000.
But the 20,000 copies of Petite's debut summer issue that reached newsstands drew only 1,000 subscribers.
November 5, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Jamie Jones is a staff writer for Media Life.
Send
to a Friend|
Printer-Friendly Version
Cover Page |
Contact Us
