Publishing @ 50+
AARP turns 50 this year. With the world’s largest-circ magazine, among other growing products, it has a lot to celebrate.
June 2008 By James Sturdivant
The AARP, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for Americans ages 50 and older, is itself turning 50 this year, and the timing could not be better. A host of anniversary events, culminating with the “Life@50+” national event in September in Washington, D.C. (where AARP is based), will bolster the organization’s already-high profile, as millions of baby boomers add to the ranks of the largest retirement-age cohort in history.
It may seem to the casual observer that the AARP—along with its flagship publication, AARP The Magazine—is the inevitable beneficiary of a demographic tide. Such an assumption ignores the fact that these same boomers, many of whom will be truckin’ to D.C. in September to see performances by Paul Simon and Chicago, are sophisticated media consumers with a multitude of choices and high standards for news and information. The AARP’s success in recent years has been built precisely on a refusal to take any of its potential audience for granted.
“Obviously, the reason this publication exists is that this association wants it to exist. But in the marketplace, we are competing with Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Glamour, National Geographic and everyone else for ad dollars,” says Jim Fishman, vice president and group publisher of AARP Publications, located in New York.
Getting and keeping readers means being mindful of these consumer-magazine rivals—and a whole lot more.
“Coke has a phrase they use called ‘share of belly,’ meaning they are competing not just with Pepsi, but with anything you put in your mouth,” Fishman says. “We are the same way. We are competing with anything you might do instead of reading these publications, so we are driven by all the same things that any for-profit magazine is driven by … . The fact that we are an association publisher does not let us off the hook in any way.”
By any measure, AARP media products have proven tremendously successful in a world where 50-somethings are now creating Facebook accounts and contemplating second careers. AARP The Magazine, a bimonthly, lifestyle publication, goes out to 23.5 million households; its total audience of 34 million (up from around 20 million five years ago), as determined by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI), makes it the largest-circulation magazine in the world. A Spanish-language, quarterly lifestyle magazine, AARP Segunda Juventud, has a rate base of 400,000. AARP Bulletin, a monthly news publication focused on policy and advocacy concerns, and published in consort with a weekly television show and daily online edition, also reaches AARP’s 23.5 million member households.
MRI surveys confirm AARP The Magazine ranks highly in percentage of users who say they have read all recent issues, as well as in time spent with the magazine and percentage of publication read. Internal surveys show that AARP The Magazine is a primary driver of member loyalty, both toward the magazine and—critically—the association as a whole.
“To get a subscription to National Geographic, you have to join the society, but I bet if you asked most people who join if they joined the society, they would say, ‘Oh no, I have a subscription to the magazine—I don’t belong to any society,’” says Catherine Ventura-Merkel, senior vice president at AARP Publications. “The AARP has a similar publishing model, where people who join get the magazine, but after a very short tenure, the publication becomes the No. 1 or No. 2 reason people renew.”
The Importance of Brand
Getting to this point required learning the hard way how to balance a strong editorial identity with the need to amplify the organization’s core message.
“For a number of years, we didn’t call it AARP The Magazine. We called it Modern Maturity, and it was really quite amazing—our readership was quite low, and no one could figure out why,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We were doing what we thought was a really terrific magazine, but it wasn’t tied that well to membership or the brand.”
The association responded to disappointing circulation numbers by re-branding along the conventional corporate model. Modern Maturity became MM, and a new magazine was launched aimed at boomers, My Generation.
“We still weren’t growing membership,” Ventura-Merkel recalls. “We found the boomers were even more confused because they were getting this neat magazine that spoke to them, and they didn’t know who was sending it to them.”
As a result, in 2003, the AARP ditched niche marketing, embraced the AARP moniker across the board, and adopted an innovative plan to produce three distinct versions of the same magazine: one for 50- to 59-year-olds, one for 60- to 69-year-olds, and one for readers ages 70 and above.
“[We said,] ‘Let’s quit hiding … the fact that we’re AARP,’” she says, “and we doubled our readership after doing it. And, you know, it really helped change the image of AARP.”
According to Fishman, the association realized it needed to speak to broader segments in a “different voice.”
While all editions of AARP The Magazine sport the same name and cover photo, editors are given leeway in customizing each edition to match the interests of their audiences. About 25 percent of the 50-somethings’ edition is re-edited for the 60-somethings’ edition, and 25 percent of the latter is re-edited for the 70-and-over version.
“We particularly focus on areas of lifestyle that really do change more with age, such as physical and financial well-being,” he says.
Readers report being amazed that an entire issue seems to be written exactly for them. “The editors smile,” Fishman says, “because they know the reason [readers] feel that way is that they are speaking to this very narrowly focused group.”
What was conceived as a way for editors to better connect with readers has proven a hit with marketers as well. Fishman says advertisers are attracted by the ability to customize their messages to readers at different points in their lives, and it doesn’t hurt that rate-base figures for each of the targeted segments are quite substantial—7.6 million for the 50-somethings’ edition, 7.5 million for the 60-somethings’ edition and 8.4 million for the 70+ edition.
“This magazine reaches over 40 percent of all Americans over 50, but it’s not a random 40 percent,” Fishman notes. “They’re better educated, probably because it takes a little education to figure out that AARP makes sense for them to join. And because they’re better educated, they’re higher income … so marketers like it, but they love the ability to segment by age.”
An Integrated Approach
In addition to targeted content under a unifying banner, Ventura-Merkel and Fishman agree that the success of AARP’s media products can be chalked up to two additional factors: an ability to leverage unmatched expertise in issues such as health care and finance, and a focus on making content entertaining.
The AARP has greatly expanded the variety of platforms it offers, embracing an integrated approach that, like the print publication, serves to both provide valued content and enhance the AARP brand.
The media division’s latest venture, AARP-TV, offers original lifestyle and news content through two syndicated shows, “Inside E Street” and “My Generation,” distributed through Retirement Living Television (RLTV). “Inside E Street” refers to the group’s address in Washington, D.C., and focuses on the organization’s lobbying and advocacy work, while “My Generation” is a magazine-format lifestyle show. Ventura-Merkel says the programs came out of a partnership with telecommunications firm Ericsson, owner of RLTV, and utilize the association’s own state-of-the art broadcast studio.
In April, the organization also relaunched its Web site, AARP.org, in an effort to specifically target boomers with enhanced social-networking features, interactive tools and games, access to expert advice and frequently updated news content.
“We’ve brought in experts [to] deliver messages about how the media landscape is changing,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We expect staff to keep up, and we reward people for integration across platforms. Just like every other media company, we’re still learning about how to do this right.”
A recent project, “Picking up the Pieces,” is probably the AARP’s most ambitious multimedia project to date. The special report, released in time for Memorial Day, profiles how parents and grandparents are having to radically alter their own lives in order to help loved ones recovering from massive battlefield injuries sustained in Iraq. Content coordinated through the AARP’s integrated communications group includes the feature article in print, exclusive video and audio interviews with vets and their families, a program produced for AARP-TV and hosted by Jane Pauley, a radio show, live Webcasts, a satellite media tour, interactive forums, caregiver resources and additional information on ways to help the troops, as well as related articles on subjects such as grandparents’ struggles to secure death or disability benefits when raising the children of a killed or severely disabled soldier.
Because the publishing division frequently deals with serious and emotional subjects, from war to the quandaries of the “sandwich generation” (those caring for their elderly parents and their children at the same time), the AARP has been willing to invest in top-notch journalists who can handle weighty subjects in a way that is informative and engaging.
Striking an Unusual Balance
Over the years, the AARP has built a reputation as a trusted source of information and advocacy. The range of services the association offers—from Medicare Part D plans to plain-language mutual funds—has expanded along with the scope and breadth of its media properties, and has benefited greatly from that reputation. Online social networking, for instance, is enhanced by the trust members have in the services offered under the AARP banner, suggests Fishman.
“The purpose of … AARP is not for us to operate in the publishing world,” Fishman says. “We’re not primarily publishers, we’re primarily AARP, and the best way to get information into the hands of all our members is with these publications.”
The AARP’s publishing products must strike an unusual balance, promoting both the integrity of the AARP as a powerful advocacy organization, and its media products as a vibrant, sometimes edgy, independent voice.
“We are wholly owned by the AARP. We are a major part of the organization, but we are not the mouthpiece of the organization,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We do both sides of issue journalism and have award-winning journalists who work for us and always present things in [a] non-partisan, non-AARP voice. As long as our editors and journalists know what the boundaries are, we give them a lot of room to play.”
Those boundaries include a keen knowledge of any potential conflicts of interest. “We are very careful to be clear when we are stating an AARP position, or if we have a product or service related to a topic we are covering,” she says. “We try to always be honest with readers, and we have very strict guidelines in terms of what we can and cannot do in promoting a service.”
In some sense, AARP The Magazine has its feet in two worlds: association advocacy and the modern media marketplace. Balancing the two requires vigilant attention to respecting readers’ intelligence without being too wonkish (always a danger for an inside-the-
Beltway organization), and, above all, giving members strong reasons to frequent the Web site or welcome the arrival of a print magazine.
“When for-profit magazines find readers not renewing their subscriptions, they call them up and say, ‘Why aren’t you renewing?’ and the reason is always, ‘Because I don’t have time to read the magazine,’” Fishman says. “Of course, that’s not the reason at all. The reason is, ‘I’m choosing not to make time to read it. I used to make time, but your magazine bores me, so I no longer choose to.’
“We take this thing very seriously,” he says of ensuring that the magazine stays true to its multiple missions. “Our job is not to mail out 23.5 million copies; our job is to get 23.5 million households to look forward to receiving this magazine and reading it.”
It may seem to the casual observer that the AARP—along with its flagship publication, AARP The Magazine—is the inevitable beneficiary of a demographic tide. Such an assumption ignores the fact that these same boomers, many of whom will be truckin’ to D.C. in September to see performances by Paul Simon and Chicago, are sophisticated media consumers with a multitude of choices and high standards for news and information. The AARP’s success in recent years has been built precisely on a refusal to take any of its potential audience for granted.
“Obviously, the reason this publication exists is that this association wants it to exist. But in the marketplace, we are competing with Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Glamour, National Geographic and everyone else for ad dollars,” says Jim Fishman, vice president and group publisher of AARP Publications, located in New York.
Getting and keeping readers means being mindful of these consumer-magazine rivals—and a whole lot more.
“Coke has a phrase they use called ‘share of belly,’ meaning they are competing not just with Pepsi, but with anything you put in your mouth,” Fishman says. “We are the same way. We are competing with anything you might do instead of reading these publications, so we are driven by all the same things that any for-profit magazine is driven by … . The fact that we are an association publisher does not let us off the hook in any way.”
By any measure, AARP media products have proven tremendously successful in a world where 50-somethings are now creating Facebook accounts and contemplating second careers. AARP The Magazine, a bimonthly, lifestyle publication, goes out to 23.5 million households; its total audience of 34 million (up from around 20 million five years ago), as determined by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI), makes it the largest-circulation magazine in the world. A Spanish-language, quarterly lifestyle magazine, AARP Segunda Juventud, has a rate base of 400,000. AARP Bulletin, a monthly news publication focused on policy and advocacy concerns, and published in consort with a weekly television show and daily online edition, also reaches AARP’s 23.5 million member households.
MRI surveys confirm AARP The Magazine ranks highly in percentage of users who say they have read all recent issues, as well as in time spent with the magazine and percentage of publication read. Internal surveys show that AARP The Magazine is a primary driver of member loyalty, both toward the magazine and—critically—the association as a whole.
“To get a subscription to National Geographic, you have to join the society, but I bet if you asked most people who join if they joined the society, they would say, ‘Oh no, I have a subscription to the magazine—I don’t belong to any society,’” says Catherine Ventura-Merkel, senior vice president at AARP Publications. “The AARP has a similar publishing model, where people who join get the magazine, but after a very short tenure, the publication becomes the No. 1 or No. 2 reason people renew.”
The Importance of Brand
Getting to this point required learning the hard way how to balance a strong editorial identity with the need to amplify the organization’s core message.
“For a number of years, we didn’t call it AARP The Magazine. We called it Modern Maturity, and it was really quite amazing—our readership was quite low, and no one could figure out why,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We were doing what we thought was a really terrific magazine, but it wasn’t tied that well to membership or the brand.”
The association responded to disappointing circulation numbers by re-branding along the conventional corporate model. Modern Maturity became MM, and a new magazine was launched aimed at boomers, My Generation.
“We still weren’t growing membership,” Ventura-Merkel recalls. “We found the boomers were even more confused because they were getting this neat magazine that spoke to them, and they didn’t know who was sending it to them.”
As a result, in 2003, the AARP ditched niche marketing, embraced the AARP moniker across the board, and adopted an innovative plan to produce three distinct versions of the same magazine: one for 50- to 59-year-olds, one for 60- to 69-year-olds, and one for readers ages 70 and above.
“[We said,] ‘Let’s quit hiding … the fact that we’re AARP,’” she says, “and we doubled our readership after doing it. And, you know, it really helped change the image of AARP.”
According to Fishman, the association realized it needed to speak to broader segments in a “different voice.”
While all editions of AARP The Magazine sport the same name and cover photo, editors are given leeway in customizing each edition to match the interests of their audiences. About 25 percent of the 50-somethings’ edition is re-edited for the 60-somethings’ edition, and 25 percent of the latter is re-edited for the 70-and-over version.
“We particularly focus on areas of lifestyle that really do change more with age, such as physical and financial well-being,” he says.
Readers report being amazed that an entire issue seems to be written exactly for them. “The editors smile,” Fishman says, “because they know the reason [readers] feel that way is that they are speaking to this very narrowly focused group.”
What was conceived as a way for editors to better connect with readers has proven a hit with marketers as well. Fishman says advertisers are attracted by the ability to customize their messages to readers at different points in their lives, and it doesn’t hurt that rate-base figures for each of the targeted segments are quite substantial—7.6 million for the 50-somethings’ edition, 7.5 million for the 60-somethings’ edition and 8.4 million for the 70+ edition.
“This magazine reaches over 40 percent of all Americans over 50, but it’s not a random 40 percent,” Fishman notes. “They’re better educated, probably because it takes a little education to figure out that AARP makes sense for them to join. And because they’re better educated, they’re higher income … so marketers like it, but they love the ability to segment by age.”
An Integrated Approach
In addition to targeted content under a unifying banner, Ventura-Merkel and Fishman agree that the success of AARP’s media products can be chalked up to two additional factors: an ability to leverage unmatched expertise in issues such as health care and finance, and a focus on making content entertaining.
The AARP has greatly expanded the variety of platforms it offers, embracing an integrated approach that, like the print publication, serves to both provide valued content and enhance the AARP brand.
The media division’s latest venture, AARP-TV, offers original lifestyle and news content through two syndicated shows, “Inside E Street” and “My Generation,” distributed through Retirement Living Television (RLTV). “Inside E Street” refers to the group’s address in Washington, D.C., and focuses on the organization’s lobbying and advocacy work, while “My Generation” is a magazine-format lifestyle show. Ventura-Merkel says the programs came out of a partnership with telecommunications firm Ericsson, owner of RLTV, and utilize the association’s own state-of-the art broadcast studio.
In April, the organization also relaunched its Web site, AARP.org, in an effort to specifically target boomers with enhanced social-networking features, interactive tools and games, access to expert advice and frequently updated news content.
“We’ve brought in experts [to] deliver messages about how the media landscape is changing,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We expect staff to keep up, and we reward people for integration across platforms. Just like every other media company, we’re still learning about how to do this right.”
A recent project, “Picking up the Pieces,” is probably the AARP’s most ambitious multimedia project to date. The special report, released in time for Memorial Day, profiles how parents and grandparents are having to radically alter their own lives in order to help loved ones recovering from massive battlefield injuries sustained in Iraq. Content coordinated through the AARP’s integrated communications group includes the feature article in print, exclusive video and audio interviews with vets and their families, a program produced for AARP-TV and hosted by Jane Pauley, a radio show, live Webcasts, a satellite media tour, interactive forums, caregiver resources and additional information on ways to help the troops, as well as related articles on subjects such as grandparents’ struggles to secure death or disability benefits when raising the children of a killed or severely disabled soldier.
Because the publishing division frequently deals with serious and emotional subjects, from war to the quandaries of the “sandwich generation” (those caring for their elderly parents and their children at the same time), the AARP has been willing to invest in top-notch journalists who can handle weighty subjects in a way that is informative and engaging.
Striking an Unusual Balance
Over the years, the AARP has built a reputation as a trusted source of information and advocacy. The range of services the association offers—from Medicare Part D plans to plain-language mutual funds—has expanded along with the scope and breadth of its media properties, and has benefited greatly from that reputation. Online social networking, for instance, is enhanced by the trust members have in the services offered under the AARP banner, suggests Fishman.
“The purpose of … AARP is not for us to operate in the publishing world,” Fishman says. “We’re not primarily publishers, we’re primarily AARP, and the best way to get information into the hands of all our members is with these publications.”
The AARP’s publishing products must strike an unusual balance, promoting both the integrity of the AARP as a powerful advocacy organization, and its media products as a vibrant, sometimes edgy, independent voice.
“We are wholly owned by the AARP. We are a major part of the organization, but we are not the mouthpiece of the organization,” Ventura-Merkel says. “We do both sides of issue journalism and have award-winning journalists who work for us and always present things in [a] non-partisan, non-AARP voice. As long as our editors and journalists know what the boundaries are, we give them a lot of room to play.”
Those boundaries include a keen knowledge of any potential conflicts of interest. “We are very careful to be clear when we are stating an AARP position, or if we have a product or service related to a topic we are covering,” she says. “We try to always be honest with readers, and we have very strict guidelines in terms of what we can and cannot do in promoting a service.”
In some sense, AARP The Magazine has its feet in two worlds: association advocacy and the modern media marketplace. Balancing the two requires vigilant attention to respecting readers’ intelligence without being too wonkish (always a danger for an inside-the-
Beltway organization), and, above all, giving members strong reasons to frequent the Web site or welcome the arrival of a print magazine.
“When for-profit magazines find readers not renewing their subscriptions, they call them up and say, ‘Why aren’t you renewing?’ and the reason is always, ‘Because I don’t have time to read the magazine,’” Fishman says. “Of course, that’s not the reason at all. The reason is, ‘I’m choosing not to make time to read it. I used to make time, but your magazine bores me, so I no longer choose to.’
“We take this thing very seriously,” he says of ensuring that the magazine stays true to its multiple missions. “Our job is not to mail out 23.5 million copies; our job is to get 23.5 million households to look forward to receiving this magazine and reading it.”
… from Jim Fishman, vice president and group
publisher, AARP Publications
Best Management Tactic: My management style has always been to hire smart people and let them run their own business, and to create an environment of integrity and congeniality.
Biggest Challenge as Vice President and Group Publisher: … To ensure our print, online, events and broadcast sales efforts are keeping at just the right pace with our clients’ integrated marketing needs.
Keeps You Up at Night: The responsibility of serving an audience of more than [34 million] people.
AARP Publications’ Biggest Strength: We are the only media franchise created for and about 50+ Americans. That, combined with our unparalleled reach through our publications and our other media, makes us the leading choice for companies who want to reach and impact the 50+ market.
Fastest Growing Product or Segment: Even though we just launched two syndicated television shows and relaunched our Web site, our fastest growing product is our lifestyle publication, AARP The Magazine. In the past year alone, our readership grew by 2.8 million readers—or over 7,500 new readers per day—to a total of 34+ million [according to MRI data, Spring 2008]. 50+ has also just become the new online majority [MRI data, Fall 2007], so we are making sure to connect with our audience everywhere they are.
publisher, AARP Publications
Best Management Tactic: My management style has always been to hire smart people and let them run their own business, and to create an environment of integrity and congeniality.
Biggest Challenge as Vice President and Group Publisher: … To ensure our print, online, events and broadcast sales efforts are keeping at just the right pace with our clients’ integrated marketing needs.
Keeps You Up at Night: The responsibility of serving an audience of more than [34 million] people.
AARP Publications’ Biggest Strength: We are the only media franchise created for and about 50+ Americans. That, combined with our unparalleled reach through our publications and our other media, makes us the leading choice for companies who want to reach and impact the 50+ market.
Fastest Growing Product or Segment: Even though we just launched two syndicated television shows and relaunched our Web site, our fastest growing product is our lifestyle publication, AARP The Magazine. In the past year alone, our readership grew by 2.8 million readers—or over 7,500 new readers per day—to a total of 34+ million [according to MRI data, Spring 2008]. 50+ has also just become the new online majority [MRI data, Fall 2007], so we are making sure to connect with our audience everywhere they are.
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I am a member of AARP and was very pleased to read what the strategy behind magazine and media. It's the only relevant source that speaks to my current lifestage