Chatelaine has unveiled its newest pet project. The Rogers Publishing title has partnered with retailer PetSmart on a new custom magazine called Pawprints that is aimed at so-called “pet parents” who treat their pet as a member of the family.
Approximately 450,000 copies of the super digest-sized Pawprints will be distributed to Chatelaine subscribers as an insert in the June issue, with an additional 25,000 copies available at PetSmart stores throughout English Canada.
Pawprints is also available as both a downloadable PDF at Chatelaine.com and as an interactive tablet edition that invites readers to upload a picture of their own pet on the cover and enables them to share it via social media channels.
The 20-page publication features seven full-page ads from PetSmart, including one page of coupons. As with a recent special edition of Chatelaine created specifically for Target, Chatelaine’s editorial team had complete control over Pawprint’s editorial direction.
Penny Hicks, group publisher, women’s service (a group that includes Chatelaine, Today’s Parent and Canadian Health & Lifestyle), publishing, for Rogers Media, said that Pawprints has its origins in a 2012 project done in partnership with Nestle S.A.’s Purina One called Cat-elaine, which invited readers to upload a picture of their cat to have it featured on the cover of the Chatelaine-referencing title.
Pawprints is designed to mimic the Chatelaine brand from both a content and design perspective, with editorial that reflects two of the master brand’s key pillars: style and health. “Just like Chatelaine, we really wanted to deliver tips and inspiration and how-to’s to make the everyday extraordinary, not just for the reader but for their pets,” said Hicks.
Hicks said projects like this could potentially help revitalize magazine advertising, which the latest ad spend forecast from ZenithOptimedia projects to decline by 2.3% to $555 million this year, with further declines expected in each of the next two years.
“When you develop a true partnership you’re creating something bigger than the sum of its parts,” she said. “In Pawprints, we have seven pages of advertising that really come to life in a new way when you have content that is really creating an environment for those ads to be in the minds of the reader. The closer we are to understanding a partner’s objectives, the closer we are to developing a win-win partnership.”
Disclosure: Rogers owns Marketing and MarketingMag.ca
