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of naming magazines
It ain't easy. Pick wrong and you risk death.
By Jeff Bercovici
Picking a name might seem like the easiest part of launching a magazine. After all, it only has to be one word—at most four or five.
How hard can that be?
Pretty hard, it turns out. Just ask people who have done it.
The perfect name, they say, contains information about a publication's mission and content but also carries desirable connotations, perhaps even subconscious ones. (Have you gotten Lucky lately?)
It can’t be too out-there, nor should it be too generic. (Although sometimes generic—Time, Money, People, etc.—works fine too.)
Lastly—or maybe firstly—it’s best to pick one that’s available as a trademark, preferably across a variety of media, at least if you don’t want to go to court over it. (See: Oprah Winfrey’s battle with the publisher of a German fetish magazine over the use of the letter O.)
Clarity, versatility, originality—every editor and publisher has his or her own opinion about which of these is the most important ingredient, but all agree on one point: The right name can mean the difference between success and failure for a magazine launch.
"Everything's in a name," says Susan Ungaro, editor in chief of Gruner + Jahr's Family Circle.
Having served as an editorial adviser in the company's launch of Rosie, Ungaro helped choose one of the more memorable magazine titles of recent years.
The process whereby McCall's became first Rosie's McCall's and then just plain Rosie was actually fairly simple, she says.
Unlike the typical high-profile launch by a top-tier publisher, the team behind Rosie made only limited use of focus group testing, mainly because of time restrictions.
"Focus groups can be wonderful, but they’re very costly and take a lot of time," says Ungaro.
In addition to being obvious and easy to remember, Rosie met Ungaro's No. 1 criterion for a good name: "I think the most important thing for a logo on a magazine is that it not narrow your potential."
That means, among other things, avoiding names that won't weather the passage of time well.
Ungaro believes several of Family Circle's competitors are saddled with names that now seem dated, namely Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens.
"Some of them seem somewhat downright frumpy and old-fashioned."
Not that that's necessarily the kiss of death, she says.
"A logo that may not have the image of the moment can be kept vital by the photography and cover lines on the magazine."
While they may seem anachronistic, these names are exactly the kind favored by publishing veteran Don Welsh, who believes in clarity über alles.
"The most important thing to do is telling exactly what the magazine's about in the title," says Welsh, whose track record of launches includes Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Barbie magazine and the new Budget Living.
Given the enormous number of magazines on the market, a title that effectively articulates a new publication’s mission can be the key to generating strong newsstand and subscription sales out of the gate, especially when the publication is looking to build a mass audience, he says.
The more abstract the name, the more investment required to sear it into the minds of consumers.
"It’s branding, really. If you spend enough money on a new brand name it becomes a household name."
That said, Welsh allows that there are exceptions, cases where a subtly evocative name might work better than a more straightforward one. He cites Wallpaper and The Source as two such examples.
Similarly, Ungaro says that names like Vibe and Spin seem to work by being "alluring" rather than informative.
The common thread here may be that all these magazines are at least as much about style and attitude as they are about conveying information.
If so, that could be good news for Maer Roshan, who plans to launch a new pop culture magazine called Radar next spring.
"What we’d like to do with this magazine is measure and kind of be in touch with the culture around us," says Roshan, who previously served as Talk's editorial director. "So Radar kind of had that finger-to-the-wind quality."
Roshan acknowledges the downside of having a name like Radar whose aptness is not immediately obvious.
"I get from some people that they think it's going to be this weird military magazine," he says.
Welsh, at least, thinks Radar is a pretty good choice.
"It's a very cool name," he says. Still, "it’s going to cost him a lot more money and time to get across to his target readership."
November 26, 2002© 2002 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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