Mr. Magazine

“Of course, from a publishing perspective there has been the struggle that people thought everything digital was free. But now, I think you’re seeing that change in the web business, in general. You see a lot more people charging for content. Over time that will change more, and will allow us opportunity to invest more in digital and get the return on it. But I think print will always be at the core. And that’s not such a foreign concept. Even when you listen to TV people or movie people, they’ll tell you it starts with a script. The written word is still very important. And in our case too, the photos that we have are terrific. And those are things that live in a magazine format that’s really something unique.” Bob Harper…

“I think there is something to be said for that tactile experience. It allows them to enter a little magazine world of their own. Also with children, the magazine is the first thing that they get in the mail and it makes them feel grownup. It’s very exciting to rush to the mailbox and get that and hold it in your hand. And I do think that it helps them focus.” Mary Dalheim…

“I will tell you an anecdote that I heard recently that made me happy and really resonates now in terms of this question. My son has a friend who has a one-year-old child and he sent him a subscription to Cub and it came in the mail recently. He got a call from his friend, who told him that Cub magazine was the one thing that could get the child to be quiet. He carries it around; he sits on the floor and pages through it. He’s a one year old, so he can’t read it obviously, he can only have it read to him, but there’s something about that tactile experience and being able to look at those pictures and have some comprehension. So, the magazine has taken this one year old and captivated him. And when we can do that, it’s why we do this work.” Lori Collins…

Published by the United States National Wildlife Federation, Ranger Rick, Ranger Rick Jr. and Ranger Rick Cub magazines have always been on the mission of getting kids more actively involved in the environment and to instill a passionate interest in everything nature, from wildlife to surroundings the different animals live in. In 2018, the brand will celebrate 51 years of publishing excellence in conjoining entertainment with education to give children of all ages the best experience possible.

Bob Harper, executive publisher, Mary Dalheim, editorial director, and Lori Collins, editor in chief, are the three major keepers of the mission’s flame and have a burning desire to bring their message of conservation to more children by marrying (as Bob himself put it) their core product, the print magazine, with the many brand extensions that digital offers. It’s a noble idea for a very benevolent mission that has continued to succeed despite the disruption of the digital age.

I spoke with Bob, Mary and Lori recently and we talked about the magazines and their niche messages for each age group. With all three publications focusing on different animals and their environments, children are drawn to the spectacular imagery of the photos, the fascinating storytelling, and the interactive and fun activities that are offered in each issue. Maybe the reason this 51-year-old brand is still alive and kicking, with no intention of slowing down.

So, grab your lantern for frog-investigating and your binoculars for a little birdwatching and come along with Mr. Magazine™ for an adventure into nature with Bob, Mary and Lori from Ranger Rick.

But first the sound-bites:

Publisher NWF

On having three children’s print publications that are still going strong after 50 years in this digital age (Bob Harper): There have been lots of changes in the whole printing industry that makes it easier to do shorter-run titles, which are less expensive. It used to be that you had to have huge numbers to be able to get the make-ready costs down, but that’s changed a fair amount. So, you can start to break things out. I generally think now, in conjunction with the digital age, there’s a lot of talk about how digital business has splintered print even more, but I think they actually work very complementary together.

On how the decision is made about what content goes on which platform (Mary Dalheim): Let me break that down a little. Interestingly enough, we really think of the print magazine as our core content. And we started with the magazine, and now we’re doing a book club in which every eight weeks kids get two books, and really the content from those books comes from the magazine. We’re repurposing content that was used years ago and updating it and it’s great stuff that these kids have never seen before, so it’s another opportunity to use that content.

On whether video is becoming more important to the core product (Lori Collins): We don’t do a lot of video, but when we do video, it’s to take those still photos on the page and bring them to life. I can talk about the way a penguin moves, but if I can enhance that by showing it as well, and if I can do that with QR codes, and I know they’re outdated, but if I can do it with a QR for a child and they can have the magazine in their lap and see it all at the same time, that works for us.

On whether video is becoming more important to the core product (Mary Dalheim): Even though QR codes may be outdated for a lot of people, they’re not in our magazine, because the kids really love them. Most of the children have phones, and so if we talk about the speed of a cheetah, we’ll put a QR code and they can see the speed of a cheetah, but they’re also reading about it and looking at the most exciting and beautiful photos in the world. We use the very best photos. So, they’re getting a little bit of both in the magazine, and they’re really getting both online and in our apps too, because we started with the print content to begin with.

On whether the role of a publishing executive has changed over the last decade (Bob Harper): (Laughs) Yes, it’s changed a lot. And that’s one of the things that keeps you young and keeps it exciting. All the new channels; all the new ways to deliver content and also reach potential new customers. And being able to, as Lori and Mary said, complement the print with the additional resources that enhances the experience for the child is terrific. It really starts to roll out as an endless opportunity, if you look at all of these digital things. I think they’re very complementary and the key is how to make them work together.

On whether they are aware of any research or studies being done on comprehension or retention between print and digital (Lori Collins): To be honest, I am not aware of any of those regarding comprehension, but I will tell you an anecdote that I heard recently that made me happy and really resonates now in terms of this question. My son has a friend who has a one-year-old child and he sent him a subscription to Cub and it came in the mail recently. He got a call from his friend, who told him that Cub magazine was the one thing that could get the child to be quiet. He carries it around; he sits on the floor and pages through it. He’s a one year old, so he can’t read it obviously, he can only have it read to him, but there’s something about that tactile experience and being able to look at those pictures and have some comprehension. So, the magazine has taken this one year old and captivated him. And when we can do that, it’s why we do this work.

On whether they are aware of any research or studies being done on comprehension or retention between print and digital (Mary Dalheim): I think there is something to be said for that tactile experience. It allows them to enter a little magazine world of their own. Also with children, the magazine is the first thing that they get in the mail and it makes them feel grownup. It’s very exciting to rush to the mailbox and get that and hold it in your hand. And I do think that it helps them focus.

On how things have changed editorially since 2007 (Mary Dalheim): In 2007, we didn’t think print was dying, but we did wonder if it would take a backseat to other things. We weren’t sure how everything was going to pan out. And I think what we found is that print is the core. It’s where the content comes from; it’s where the ideas come from; and it’s something kids continually want. But they want the other things too. They’re not willing to make a choice between one or the other types of media. It’s the brand that they’re buying and the content. The core is print, but they want the other things too; the apps and the websites, etc.

On what they attribute the longevity of the Ranger Rick brand to (Mary Dalheim): It’s the animals. Animals appeal to kids and it’s one of the things that they love the most as they’re growing up. So, first of all, you can win with animals, that just never grows old.

On what they attribute the longevity of the Ranger Rick brand to (Lori Collins): Secondly, there’s a real nostalgia factor. A lot of the parents of the kids who are reading our magazines today, got Ranger Rick as a kid. And I’m sure Highlights has the same thing going on with their products. The parents remember reading it and have fond memories, and they want their children to have that experience.

On whether the current political climate has helped Ranger Rick’s conservation mission by bolstering subscriptions (Mary Dalheim): It certainly has ours, I think. Again, because I think some parents do want their children to be sensitive to conservation and do want to help raise young conservationists. And that’s part of Ranger Rick’s mission.

On how they view the magazine as an experience maker, besides storytelling (Mary Dalheim): We believe in empowerment. We want to tell kids about wildlife, and as they get older and are capable of understanding some conservation issues, we want to talk about those developments when appropriate. But at the same time, we want to empower kids so that they feel hopeful. We don’t want to tell them about an issue and then make them feel bad and worry about it. We always empower them, such as we talk about how you can make a butterfly garden which helps Monarchs. We also have a photo contest. We want to get kids outdoors, because that’s healthier for them, and it also makes them appreciate wildlife more. So, we have a lot of activities that really takes the child outside.

On how they view the magazine as an experience maker, besides storytelling (Bob Harper): If you look at the most recent Ranger Rick, there’s an article about backyard birdfeeders and the kinds of birds you can attract. And then it hooks them up to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where they do the birdfeeder survey. And so kids can become citizen scientists. There’s a lot of talk about citizen scientists these days and getting common folk to help contribute to science. And that’s an example. We try to model that kind of role for kids.

On the biggest challenge they face today (Bob Harper): On the business side, it really is marrying the print and the digital together going forward, and trying to come up with a model, as the rest of the publishing industry is trying to do, that allows us to invest in both of those successfully. And get people to see the value and be willing to pay a little bit extra, or at least what it’s worth, for the digital content.

On the biggest challenge they face today (Mary Dalheim): As editors, we see ourselves in the business of edutainment; we want it to be educational and entertaining at the same time, and that’s a continual challenge, to be entertaining as well as educating at the same time.

On anything they’d like to add (Bob Harper): I think the books are just wonderful examples of how the Ranger Rick characters and magic can be extended and I think we’re just going to do more of that in the future, so keep watching us as we try and do more things for kids. And that’s a big part of the National Wildlife Federation mission, reaching the next generation of conservationists. And we’re a big part of that; it’s our outreach. We’ve been doing it for 50 years and our plan is to do it for another 50. So, we’re going to reach even more.

On anything they’d like to add (Mary Dalheim): One thing I’d like to add about Ranger Rick is that we have an advisory board of over 200 kids. And I talked about edutainment being a challenge; they help us with that, because we are constantly asking them what they think of things. They pick our covers. We’ll send them three or four and ask them which one they like the best, and we always go with them it seems, because they really know best. And they give us reasons why they like something or don’t.

On what motivates each of them to get out of bed every morning (Lori Collins): You mean other than my dog’s nose pushing me in my face? (Laughs) I really love hearing the stories about people being engaged by the work that we produce. It’s great to hear those kinds of stories; the kid won’t go to soccer because he’s reading about chameleons.

On what motivates each of them to get out of bed every morning (Mary Dalheim): We get over 200 letters a month from kids who are really engaged with wildlife and I think that’s really rewarding. It’s also rewarding that we’re on social media with adults and almost daily we’re told how they read the magazine regularly when they were young and how it changed their lives and have seen a lot of people become scientists and wildlife naturalists because of us. It’s all very rewarding.

On what motivates each of them to get out of bed every morning (Bob Harper): For me, back to that whole idea of animals; animals are the rock stars of childhood and I think it’s great to be a roadie, behind the scenes, working with these spectacular people who make the show so great for kids.

On what she would have tattooed upon her brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about her (Mary Dalheim): I’ll tell you what comes to mind; Ranger Rick’s mother is what they call me, and at first I was horrified by that, but now I’ve become very proud of that.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him (Bob Harper): From a career perspective, my whole career has been spent in the youth market, so I hope people will remember me as someone who helped contribute to good things for kids, particularly educational and edutainment, where they both enjoyed and learned from.

On what she would have tattooed upon her brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about her (Lori Collins): I come from a family of schoolteachers, and I knew that I didn’t want to do that, but in some ways I feel like a lot of what I do is guided by that background and I’m proud of that.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at her home (Lori Collins): There’s probably a beer or a glass of wine involved. Also, maybe going to a sporting event, or hanging out with friends. And maybe TV. (Laughs)

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at her home (Mary Dalheim): I’m a reader, so I’m probably reading.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home (Bob Harper): It’s not quite that time of year, but my idea of unwinding is being outside in the yard, or hiking or biking. And soon hopefully, cross-country skiing. Certainly, that’s not every day, but when it’s nice out that’s what I’ll be doing.

On what keeps each of them up at night (Mary Dalheim): Money for one thing; it’s expensive to make these products. I want to make the very best we can and we’re trying to stretch that dollar in every way we can.

On what keeps each of them up at night (Lori Collins): I share the money concerns, but otherwise I sleep pretty well.

On what keeps each of them up at night (Bob Harper): As a publisher, it’s great to hear the editorial people put the money up there as one of the issues (Laughs), but for me it’s can we be out there enough and on top of it to ride the wave between print and digital. Just to stay on top of that in a way that keeps us going, but I’m very optimistic about it. Generally speaking, it’s not so much worrying about it; it’s more trying to think of all of the options and trying to pick the ones that work for us.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Bob Harper, executive publisher, Mary Dalheim, editorial director & Lori Collins, editor in chief, Ranger Rick, Ranger Rick Jr. and Ranger Rick Cub magazines.

Samir Husni: As executive publisher, can you talk about the fact that you have three children’s magazines in print, among other things, that are still going strong in this digital age 50 years after they were started?

Bob Harper: I’ve been in the children’s business for so long that I’ve seen the trends, which is to be able to serve narrower niches, and this is also all a part of the current child development movement too. There was a time when people just looked at kids as one big group; kids are kids are kids, and then a lot of research came out about education, etc., and kids’ abilities to comprehend things, and people realized you can’t offer a zero to three-year-old the same thing you offer a four to seven-year-old or a seven to twelve-year-old. You have to tailor your presentation to those groups.

And clearly, there have been lots of changes in the whole printing industry that makes it easier to do shorter-run titles, which are less expensive. It used to be that you had to have huge numbers to be able to get the make-ready costs down, but that’s changed a fair amount. So, you can start to break things out.

I generally think now, in conjunction with the digital age, there’s a lot of talk about how digital business has splintered print even more, but I think they actually work very complementary together. And there’s an opportunity in the future to be even more specialized, by interest and maybe even more finely, by age.

Samir Husni: Mary, as editorial director, how do you decide what content goes on which platform? Would this be better for print, or digital, or video? What is the differentiating factors for you?

Mary Dalheim: Let me break that down a little. Interestingly enough, we really think of the print magazine as our core content. And we started with the magazine, and now we’re doing a book club in which every eight weeks kids get two books, and really the content from those books comes from the magazine. We’re repurposing content that was used years ago and updating it and it’s great stuff that these kids have never seen before, so it’s another opportunity to use that content.

Actually, we’re doing a lot of new games and apps on the website; we’re working on that right now, they’re not quite up yet. And that also really came from the core, the magazine, and we took that content, it’s scientific content that we’ve had experts check about animals, wildlife and conservation, and we’re just taking that same content and using it as an app and asking how can we make it even more exciting?

Lori Collins: Mary’s right; everything starts with print for us; it’s where we spend most of our energy and resources. It’s more a question of how can we take that print and enhance it?

Mary Dalheim: And one way would be in making it more interactive. If we can look at that print and make it more interactive with the child, whether it’s with video or voice or something else.

Samir Husni: Lori, as editor in chief, is video becoming more important to the core product?

Lori Collins: We don’t do a lot of video, but when we do video, it’s to take those still photos on the page and bring them to life. I can talk about the way a penguin moves, but if I can enhance that by showing it as well, and if I can do that with QR codes, and I know they may seem outdated, but if I can do it with a QR for a child and they can have the magazine in their lap and see it all at the same time, that works for us.

Mary Dalheim: Even though QR codes may be outdated for a lot of people, they’re not in our magazine, because the kids really love them. Most of the children have phones, and so if we talk about the speed of a cheetah, we’ll put a QR code and they can see the speed of a cheetah, but they’re also reading about it and looking at the most exciting and beautiful photos in the world. We use the very best photos. So, they’re getting a little bit of both in the magazine, and they’re really getting both online and in our apps too, because we started with the print content to begin with.

Samir Husni: Bob, if you look back over the last decade, has your job as a publishing executive changed in those years?

Bob Harper: (Laughs) Yes, it’s changed a lot. And that’s one of the things that keeps you young and keeps it exciting. All the new channels; all the new ways to deliver content and also reach potential new customers. And being able to, as Lori and Mary said, complement the print with the additional resources that enhances the experience for the child is terrific. It really starts to roll out as an endless opportunity, if you look at all of these digital things. I think they’re very complementary and the key is how to make them work together.

Of course, from a publishing perspective there has been the struggle that people thought everything digital was free. But now, I think you’re seeing that change in the web business, in general. You see a lot more people charging for content. Over time that will change more, and will allow us opportunity to invest more in digital and get the return on it. But I think print will always be at the core. And that’s not such a foreign concept. Even when you listen to TV people or movie people, they’ll tell you it starts with a script. The written word is still very important. And in our case too, the photos that we have are terrific. And those are things that live in a magazine format that’s really something unique.

Samir Husni: Lori, from a scientific approach and working with the childhood studies that are out there; are you seeing any research being done in the comprehension or retention between print and other forms of media?

Lori Collins: To be honest, I am not aware of any of those regarding comprehension, but I will tell you an anecdote that I heard recently that made me happy and really resonates now in terms of this question. My son has a friend who has a one-year-old child and he sent him a subscription to Cub and it came in the mail recently. He got a call from his friend, who told him that Cub magazine was the one thing that could get the child to be quiet. He carries it around; he sits on the floor and pages through it. He’s a one year old, so he can’t read it obviously, he can only have it read to him, but there’s something about that tactile experience and being able to look at those pictures and have some comprehension. So, the magazine has taken this one year old and captivated him. And when we can do that, it’s why we do this work.

Mary Dalheim: I think there is something to be said for that tactile experience. It allows them to enter a little magazine world of their own. Also with children, the magazine is the first thing that they get in the mail and it makes them feel grownup. It’s very exciting to rush to the mailbox and get that and hold it in your hand. And I do think that it helps them focus.

Another interesting story that I told Lori about and it made her day was that a mother recently told me that she couldn’t get her child to go to soccer practice because he was reading Ranger Rick Jr., and he wanted to finish the story on chameleons. So, there again is that focus that we’re talking about.

Samir Husni: Mary, I think the last time you and I spoke was in 2007; how have things changed since then?

Mary Dalheim: In 2007, we didn’t think print was dying, but we did wonder if it would take a backseat to other things. We weren’t sure how everything was going to pan out. And I think what we found is that print is the core. It’s where the content comes from; it’s where the ideas come from; and it’s something kids continually want. But they want the other things too. They’re not willing to make a choice between one or the other types of media. It’s the brand that they’re buying and the content. The core is print, but they want the other things too; the apps and the websites, etc.

We received a picture that’s really cute that we ran in the most recent issue of Ranger Rick, and it’s of a girl that saves all of her Ranger Rick magazines. In the picture she has them on the floor and she’s looking at them. And she’s not the only reader that does that. We have a lot of readers that just save all of them and they go back and review them over and over again. So, there is that tactile print adoration again.

Lori Collins: I also think the key to what we do, whether it’s in print, which is what we do mostly, or if it’s another medium; we’re storytellers. And people like a good story. We happen to tell non-fiction stories primarily, but that’s what’s captivating the kids.

Samir Husni: We’ve seen a lot of new children’s magazines come into the marketplace, but what do you attribute the longevity of Ranger Rick to, especially now as you enter your 51st year?

Mary Dalheim: It’s the animals. Animals appeal to kids and it’s one of the things that they love the most as they’re growing up. So, first of all, you can win with animals, that just never grows old.

Lori Collins: Secondly, there’s a real nostalgia factor. A lot of the parents of the kids who are reading our magazines today, got Ranger Rick as a kid. And I’m sure Highlights has the same thing going on with their products. The parents remember reading it and have fond memories, and they want their children to have that experience.

Recently, I was recruiting people to evaluate some new things that we’re doing and several of the people who responded very proudly told me about how much they had enjoyed reading the magazine as a kid and they wanted to pass that on to their children. So, I think that’s a lot of what’s going on with us.

Mary Dalheim: We really are raising young conservationists and that’s what we hear from the parents who write in. We find out that the parents are naturalists or scientists, and they started with Ranger Rick.

Samir Husni: I hear from many of the adult conversation magazines that the current political climate has helped their causes a lot and they’re seeing more people subscribing and requesting their magazines.

Mary Dalheim: It certainly has ours, I think. Again, because I think some parents do want their children to be sensitive to conservation and do want to help raise young conservationists. And that’s part of Ranger Rick’s mission.

Samir Husni: How do you view the magazine as an experience maker, besides the storytelling?

Mary Dalheim: We believe in empowerment. We want to tell kids about wildlife, and as they get older and are capable of understanding some conservation issues, we want to talk about those developments when appropriate. But at the same time, we want to empower kids so that they feel hopeful. We don’t want to tell them about an issue and then make them feel bad and worry about it. We always empower them, such as we talk about how you can make a butterfly garden which helps Monarchs. We also have a photo contest. We want to get kids outdoors, because that’s healthier for them, and it also makes them appreciate wildlife more. So, we have a lot of activities that really takes the child outside.

Bob Harper: If you look at the most recent Ranger Rick, there’s an article about backyard birdfeeders and the kinds of birds you can attract. And then it hooks them up to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where they do the birdfeeder survey. And so kids can become citizen scientists. There’s a lot of talk about citizen scientists these days and getting common folk to help contribute to science. And that’s an example. We try to model that kind of role for kids.

Mary Dalheim: We also have another article about frogs and they can join FrogWatch USA and help conservationists monitor frogs and keep an eye on how they’re doing. So, we’re always trying to engage kids with wildlife and the outdoors.

Bob Harper: And on the conservation side, the Ranger Rick adventures, we have the comic strip with Ranger Rick and the Deep Woods Gang every issue, and they always cover a kind of conservation issue with a fun way of doing it. And for the December/January, some of the kids worry about what happens to the Christmas trees; well, there are stories about using the Christmas trees to stop erosion in the marshlands of Louisiana by bundling them together.

Samir Husni: What would you consider your biggest challenge today?

Bob Harper: On the business side, it really is marrying the print and the digital together going forward, and trying to come up with a model, as the rest of the publishing industry is trying to do, that allows us to invest in both of those successfully. And get people to see the value and be willing to pay a little bit extra, or at least what it’s worth, for the digital content.

Mary Dalheim: As editors, we see ourselves in the business of edutainment; we want it to be educational and entertaining at the same time, and that’s a continual challenge, to be entertaining as well as educating at the same time.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Bob Harper: I think the books are just wonderful examples of how the Ranger Rick characters and magic can be extended and I think we’re just going to do more of that in the future, so keep watching us as we try and do more things for kids. And that’s a big part of the National Wildlife Federation mission, reaching the next generation of conservationists. And we’re a big part of that; it’s our outreach. We’ve been doing it for 50 years and our plan is to do it for another 50. So, we’re going to reach even more.

Mary Dalheim: One thing I’d like to add about Ranger Rick is that we have an advisory board of over 200 kids. And I talked about edutainment being a challenge; they help us with that, because we are constantly asking them what they think of things. They pick our covers. We’ll send them three or four and ask them which one they like the best, and we always go with them it seems, because they really know best. And they give us reasons why they like something or don’t. But they give us ideas; they tell us what they’re interested in and what they care about. We’re in constant contact with them, weekly contact.

Samir Husni: What motivates you to get out of bed every morning?

Lori Collins: You mean other than my dog’s nose pushing me in my face? (Laughs) I really love hearing the stories about people being engaged by the work that we produce. It’s great to hear those kinds of stories; the kid won’t go to soccer because he’s reading about chameleons.

I’ve been doing this for a long time, and Mary has been doing it for a long time as well, and there are only so many animals in this world. So you write these stories that you’ve already written before and you think that you did the best job you could 10 years ago, how are you going to make it better? And you realize that you don’t have to do it completely differently, because it’s a different child that’s reencountering it, but you do. You want to make it better; you want to make it right for today’s kid as opposed to 10 years ago. And we seem to be doing a good job with that.

Mary Dalheim: We get over 200 letters a month from kids who are really engaged with wildlife and I think that’s really rewarding. It’s also rewarding that we’re on social media with adults and almost daily we’re told how they read the magazine regularly when they were young and how it changed their lives and have seen a lot of people become scientists and wildlife naturalists because of us. It’s all very rewarding. And we get to work with the most beautiful photography in the world and fascinating topics.

Lori Collins: We’re also lucky because having worked in materials that were designed for schools, where you had to follow curriculum and things like that, that can really feel like your hands are tied behind your back. Our only constraints are accuracy and being respectful of our readers. We don’t have to worry about some of these other imposed restrictions, so it’s rewarding to work in that environment.

Bob Harper: For me, back to that whole idea of animals; animals are the rock stars of childhood and I think it’s great to be a roadie, behind the scenes, working with these spectacular people who make the show so great for kids. It’s really spectacular and the people are just great. And the cause is great; the edutainment is great.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Mary Dalheim: I’ll tell you what comes to mind; Ranger Rick’s mother is what they call me, and at first I was horrified by that, but now I’ve become very proud of that.

Bob Harper: From a career perspective, my whole career has been spent in the youth market, so I hope people will remember me as someone who helped contribute to good things for kids, particularly educational and edutainment, where they both enjoyed and learned from.

Lori Collins: I come from a family of schoolteachers, and I knew that I didn’t want to do that, but in some ways I feel like a lot of what I do is guided by that background and I’m proud of that.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; cooking; watching TV; or something else?

Lori Collins: There’s probably a beer or a glass of wine involved. Also, maybe going to a sporting event, or hanging out with friends. And maybe TV. (Laughs)

Mary Dalheim: I’m a reader, so I’m probably reading. But I would like to say what you would catch Lori doing if she was at a party, or even at her own party, she hands out Ranger Rick magazines.

Lori Collins: I actually take them where my son works at because there’s always kids there looking a little lost. (Laughs) I keep them in my car so I can pass them out whenever.

Bob Harper: It’s not quite that time of year, but my idea of unwinding is being outside in the yard, or hiking or biking. And soon hopefully, cross-country skiing. Certainly, that’s not every day, but when it’s nice out that’s what I’ll be doing.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps each of you up at night?

Mary Dalheim: Money for one thing; it’s expensive to make these products. I want to make the very best we can and we’re trying to stretch that dollar in every way we can.

Lori Collins: I share the money concerns, but otherwise I sleep pretty well.

Bob Harper: As a publisher, it’s great to hear the editorial people put the money up there as one of the issues (Laughs), but for me it’s can we be out there enough and on top of it to ride the wave between print and digital. Just to stay on top of that in a way that keeps us going, but I’m very optimistic about it. Generally speaking, it’s not so much worrying about it; it’s more trying to think of all of the options and trying to pick the ones that work for us.

Samir Husni: Thank you all.

“I want to thank you for reading the magazine. It means a lot, because what I say to people is this, especially in a world of 15-second sound-bites; a world where everything refreshes literally in seconds, on your phones, on your screens, in front of you; for people to actually know what’s happening in the magazine, they have to read it cover to cover. And they have to go on the journey with us and with me to see how we are iterating this magazine and how we’re changing it for the 21st century.” Whitney Robinson…

“I’m doing this out of the deep passion and love and commitment that I have for this industry, but it’s also because I really do believe passionately that design is all around us; everywhere we are.” Whitney Robinson…

For nearly 30 years Elle Décor has been on the cutting edge of design, of where fashion and the home meet. The magazine has showcased international trends, with its 30 worldwide editions, and has also kept the American Dream of a sanctuary at home alive and well, while opening its pages to a unique mix of culture, cuisine, art and travel, at the same time.

This past summer Whitney Robinson was named editor in chief after his most recent position as style director at Town & Country, where he wrote, assigned and collaborated on a wide variety of stories and topics. Whitney comes to Elle Décor with a diverse blend of knowledge and vision for the brand.

I spoke with Whitney recently and we talked about that knowledgeable vision he has. His thought processes are very straightforward: audience first, readers first. Put the beautiful out there alongside the unusual and the unique, and then let the readers decide. But always show them everything, respecting their ability to discern what they prefer. Audience first; Mr. Magazine™ definitely agrees with that course of action.

So, before you begin reading this most intriguing interview with a man who definitely has a panache and style of his own, let us all take a moment to wish Whitney a very Happy Birthday, as he celebrates on November 16. Happy Birthday, Whitney! And here’s wishing you many, many more! And now the interview with Elle Décor’s editor in chief.

But first the sound-bites:

On what a print magazine should look like in 2017: That’s a very good question; I call it a 3-D Venn Diagram, because I don’t think it can look like one thing and I don’t think it’s the same thing day-to-day and I don’t think it’s the same thing from medium to medium. What that means is, especially for a magazine like Elle Décor; we have many different facets of the magazine.

On whether the reengineering of the magazine, beginning with the October issue, presents a more intentionally humanized element within the pages: We’re iterating in real time. And this is something that I think few magazine editors have done before, probably for good reason (laughs), because we’re a little crazy here, which I think you have to be. And that means, rather than showcase a magazine the way it was, and then just spend six months figuring it out, or eight months, or a year, whatever it is for a typical redesign, and then introduce that to your audience…which by the way, historically has always failed. There are very few instances of a full redesign of any magazine in the last 30 years that has worked, both for subscribers – the loyalists, and also on the newsstand. So, what we decided to do was take a much more contemporary approach to that by experimenting.

On whether he feels the American edition of Elle Décor sets the precedent for the international editions: Historically, you’re talking about a numbers game here. We had the most subscribers and newsstand sales and therefore as a de facto, we became the global leader in showcasing what the magazine could be. And I think taking a more holistic view of this brand; it’s a very American concept, as opposed to dividing it into total, and so, sure; I love for our European counterparts; our Asian counterparts; and our South American counterparts to take a look at what we’re doing here and dovetail into it.

On whether he’s on top of the mountain now or he feels there’s more climbing for him and the magazine: Oh, we haven’t even started. We’re just beginning, and I say that to our readers as well. They’re along on this journey with us, and I thank them for that, because it is a journey. And again, rather than dumb it down or placate them or showcase this monolithic vision of something, I’ve really invited everybody to the party.

On the human feel of the magazine: And there’s a lot of reasons for that. And I’ve said this before, it’s about bringing in the whole world of design and that includes our sections on interiors, fashion and food. And it’s really not the specific topics, because I didn’t invent that coverage in this magazine. I didn’t invent celebrity coverage in this magazine, they’ve been covering it for 30 years. I didn’t invent food in this magazine, Daniel Boulud has been our resident chef for 25 years. What we’ve done is made the topics that we’re covering with those people more relevant, so they don’t feel evergreen or out of time. But actually, and this is where fashion comes in, similar to fashion or pop culture magazines, and more plugged into what’s actually happening in the world around us.

On the back page of the magazine, which has been dubbed the “Not for Sale” page: The genesis of that came from a studio visit with Lindsey Adelman, who is a very well-respected designer in Manhattan. She’s been working in the business for about 25 years, but when she created this brass chandelier, she became super-well-known and super-lauded, and now has a robust global practice. I was in Lindsey’s studio and she showed me ceramic vessels that her son had made for her and I told her they were fantastic. I said that we have to put them in the magazine, and she told me that they weren’t for sale. And I thought that was a sentiment for our time, and because there is so much product in the magazine and so many things for sale, I felt that we needed something that was a bit different.

On his biggest challenge: My biggest challenge is to convince everybody, that’s everyone’s biggest challenge. I’m doing this out of the deep passion and love and commitment that I have for this industry, but it’s also because I really do believe passionately that design is all around us; everywhere we are. From the look of our coffee cups to the cars that we drive to the design of our iPhones it’s absolutely everywhere. And so, talking about it in such a way where it’s more than just pretty; although “just pretty” sometimes matters just as much. But we’re talking about it in a deeper way.

On what’s coming up in 2018 for the brand: It’s a journey. So, we’re ever-evolving; I’m also a Scorpio so it’s my nature. You should do the zodiac signs of editor in chiefs, because I think there’s quite a few of us in this building who have birthdays this week. It’s ever-evolving, but it isn’t that we break news, just to get down to brass tacks and practicality, but it’s that we look like that moment in time that we’re making this magazine.

On anything else he’d like to add: I’m very glad that Elle Décor is a part of the conversation. Again, historically, design magazines have been put to the side, where people say they love design and décor magazines, and they’re so easy to read. But actually, design magazines are functioning in the space that everyone else is too, and we’re asking challenging questions; we’re showcasing magnificent homes around the world, but we’re also relevant.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him: That I thought differently and we were able to change people’s perceptions. I think that’s the ultimate goal. It’s the hardest one. Someone once told me that if you think you’re going to a “clap, clap” emoji for changing people’s opinions, think again. (Laughs)

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home: What day is it? Some days you’ll find me at CVS on a Sunday morning, reading all of the papers. Or I’ll be reading articles, ripping things out, getting mad at my editors because we didn’t get something first, calling our contributors to do it, and then watching 60 Minutes. That’s my Sunday. Yesterday, I was playing with a Nintendo Switch all day, and it’s a fantastic piece of technology, by the way. It changes day-to-day, I guess.

On what keeps him up at night: Zero. I sleep like a baby. I’m a deep sleeper. People ask me this question, and it’s so funny; we do this for passion. It’s a passion project. People have a lot of different goals; if your goal is cash, go work for Goldman Sachs. If your goal is politics, go work in the White House or you can work for the Peace Corps. The passion for what we do in magazines is such a specific thing; it’s a band of outsiders, a gangly group, who really believe passionately in this industry.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Whitney Robinson, editor in chief, Elle Décor.

Samir Husni: In your editor’s letter for the October issue, you write – Apologies to those who have heard this spiel before, but here it goes: What should a print magazine look like in 2017? So, what should it look like?

Whitney Robinson: That’s a very good question; I call it a 3-D Venn Diagram, because I don’t think it can look like one thing and I don’t think it’s the same thing day-to-day and I don’t think it’s the same thing from medium to medium. What that means is, especially for a magazine like Elle Décor; we have many different facets of the magazine.

So, we have our print magazine, which is the core of what we do; it’s what brings in the majority of our revenue, and it’s where most people familiarize themselves with the brand historically. At the same time, we have 2.2 million Instagram followers, a huge social following for any brand at Hearst, but also the most socially-engaged brand at Hearst, which means we get the most comments per post than any other brand here, and that’s extraordinary.

We have a robust online platform, elledecor.com. And we have 31 editions total of Elle Décor around the globe. And on top of that, we have the halo of Elle too. And if you were sitting in front of me now, you’d see me drawing circles with a coffee cup and a candlestick to demonstrate the fact that this is a moving Venn Diagram. And depending on where we are in a cycle, and what stories we’re trying to tell, the importance of each medium changes and ebbs and flows.

But what a magazine should look like in 2017, a print magazine specifically, is something that you want to have pride-of-place on your coffee table or your bookshelves, but it should also be reflective of the time and place that it’s being made. That is to say, if you’re working on a December issue, and our December issue recently hit newsstands; that issue should look like December 2017. It should be reflective of both the topics and the subjects that are inside of it, and also what’s on the cover, and of any given moment of that particular time. Not six months before; not six months after.

Samir Husni: Since you began the reengineering of Elle Décor, from the October, November and December issues; are you trying to humanize the brand? As I read those three issues, I felt there was a strong element of humanization within the brand; is that intentional, or am I now seeing more of Whitney on the pages of Elle Décor?

Whitney Robinson: I want to answer your question, but first I want to thank you for reading the magazine. It means a lot, because what I say to people is this, especially in a world of 15-second sound-bites; a world where everything refreshes literally in seconds, on your phones, on your screens, in front of you; for people to actually know what’s happening in the magazine, they have to read it cover to cover. And they have to go on the journey with us and with me to see how we are iterating this magazine and how we’re changing it for the 21st century.

And what I would say is that we’re doing just that; we’re iterating in real time. And this is something that I think few magazine editors have done before, probably for good reason (laughs), because we’re a little crazy here, which I think you have to be. And that means, rather than showcase a magazine the way it was, and then just spend six months figuring it out, or eight months, or a year, whatever it is for a typical redesign, and then introduce that to your audience…which by the way, historically has always failed. There are very few instances of a full redesign of any magazine in the last 30 years that has worked, both for subscribers – the loyalists, and also on the newsstand.

So, what we decided to do was take a much more contemporary approach to that by experimenting. We’re saying, here’s what the world of Elle Décor looks like, which simply is wherever design happens, and that’s everywhere design happens. So, we’re taking a look at global design, and as a journalist of global design, if you read my editor’s letter, it isn’t about showcasing just the pretty or the chic, but showcasing also the cutting edge and the sublime. And making sure that we show you everything that’s out there, and then letting the reader decide what they like or don’t like.

And I think, perhaps controversially, it’s not about someone saying that they love everything in the magazine or they even like it, it’s about them seeing what’s out there and then letting them choose their own adventure. Iterating in real time means that you show the breadth of what the magazine could be. It does not mean that every section we do or that we have in the magazine that you see in any given issue will continue. And the idea that a magazine can be a living thing doesn’t mean we don’t want a consistency or a thread of a vision that runs through all of it, but that’s a more subtle concept or conceit, than the fact that we can change columns as we see fit. We can reflect, again, the time and the place that it’s being made, to make sure that we’re staying as current as possible.

It doesn’t mean breaking news, by the way. If you want to break news, then you should work on the digital platform. If you want to reflect the news and if you want to create a specific point of view…which is, by the way, what these magazines were able to do and why they were so popular in the beginning, because they provided a specific point of view. You knew what you were going to get when you picked up the magazine. And I hope people pick up this magazine and realize that they’re going to get the best global design. And they’re going to get the most informed, smartest, the most beautiful visceral vision of that global design.

Samir Husni: In your editor’s letter, you’re engaging your readers with all of the evolution that’s taking place at Elle Décor, and as an editor of a brand that exists in over 30 markets worldwide, do you feel an intense responsibility to the other markets? As though whatever you do here is going to be reflected worldwide? How do you interact with the responsibility of the American edition of Elle Décor? Is it setting the stage for everybody else?

Whitney Robinson: Historically, you’re talking about a numbers game here. We had the most subscribers and newsstand sales and therefore as a de facto, we became the global leader in showcasing what the magazine could be. And I think taking a more holistic view of this brand; it’s a very American concept, as opposed to dividing it into total, and so, sure; I love for our European counterparts; our Asian counterparts; and our South American counterparts to take a look at what we’re doing here and dovetail into it.

And I tell you, we’ve already gotten great feedback from our counterparts in Europe, particularly from the U.K. and Ben Spriggs, an editor who just took over the helm of that magazine, and he’s thrilled with what we’re doing and we’re talking about how we can collaborate better together already. And that’s unprecedented.

Samir Husni: Are you now on top of the mountain or is there still more climbing you and Elle Décor need to do?

Whitney Robinson: Oh, we haven’t even started. We’re just beginning, and I say that to our readers as well. They’re along on this journey with us, and I thank them for that, because it is a journey. And again, rather than dumb it down or placate them or showcase this monolithic vision of something, I’ve really invited everybody to the party.

Are there more people in this magazine; sure; lifestyle has been a dirty word, but not for me. If people want to call it lifestyle, then so be it. It is about the best of design, but it really shows how people live today. And if anyone thinks that’s radical, then they’re not actually living in the world here. It’s about how people interact with everything; the ME generation, so we’re talking about how we can reflect out, but imitate in a beautiful way. And it’s not about selfies and writing LOL in my copy, which I’ve been quoted as saying before. But it is about taking a more conversational approach to our text; it’s about taking a looser look at our photography, so it doesn’t feel so tight.

Samir Husni: And I felt that humanization; it was very evident to me.

Whitney Robinson: And there’s a lot of reasons for that. And I’ve said this before, it’s about bringing in the whole world of design and that includes our sections on interiors, fashion and food. And it’s really not the specific topics, because I didn’t invent that coverage in this magazine. I didn’t invent celebrity coverage in this magazine, they’ve been covering it for 30 years. I didn’t invent food in this magazine, Daniel Boulud has been our resident chef for 25 years. What we’ve done is made the topics that we’re covering with those people more relevant, so they don’t feel evergreen or out of time. But actually, and this is where fashion comes in, similar to fashion or pop culture magazines, and more plugged into what’s actually happening in the world around us.

Samir Husni: One of the things that really stands out to me is your back page; the “Not for Sale” page. Would you tell me a little more about the idea of showcasing and having something in the magazine that’s not for sale?

Whitney Robinson: The genesis of that came from a studio visit with Lindsey Adelman, who is a very well-respected designer in Manhattan. She’s been working in the business for about 25 years, but when she created this brass chandelier, she became super-well-known and super-lauded, and now has a robust global practice.

I was in Lindsey’s studio and she showed me ceramic vessels that her son had made for her and I told her they were fantastic. I said that we have to put them in the magazine, and she told me that they weren’t for sale. And I asked, what do you mean they’re not for sale? And she explained how meaningful they were to her, because they were made by her son. And she didn’t feel that everything had to have a commercial value placed on it in order to be valuable.

And I thought that was a sentiment for our time, and because there is so much product in the magazine and so many things for sale, I felt that we needed something that was a bit different. And back pages are often; I won’t say they’re a throwaway, but they’re often the last thing that you get to. Often, they’re easy to produce and don’t require a ton of thought, and again that goes across the board from fashion to home. And this is really an antidote to the rest of the commerciality of the magazine. The idea that it has a social conscience as well was built into the fact that we wanted people to be able to donate to charities of their choice by showcasing these items. So, it’s something that does well for the magazine, but also does good. And that’s a model that I’m always using in the creation of Elle Décor.

Samir Husni: What’s your biggest challenge now?

Whitney Robinson: My biggest challenge is to convince everybody, that’s everyone’s biggest challenge. I’m doing this out of the deep passion and love and commitment that I have for this industry, but it’s also because I really do believe passionately that design is all around us; everywhere we are. From the look of our coffee cups to the cars that we drive to the design of our iPhones it’s absolutely everywhere. And so, talking about it in such a way where it’s more than just pretty; although “just pretty” sometimes matters just as much. But we’re talking about it in a deeper way.

Samir Husni: What is coming up for Whitney and Elle Décor in 2018?

Whitney Robinson: It’s a journey. So, we’re ever-evolving; I’m also a Scorpio so it’s my nature. You should do the zodiac signs of editor in chiefs, because I think there’s quite a few of us in this building who have birthdays this week. It’s ever-evolving, but it isn’t that we break news, just to get down to brass tacks and practicality, but it’s that we look like that moment in time that we’re making this magazine.

And our schedule is really just about four weeks out now, which has made everyone on the staff get on their toes, and that’s exciting. And rather than know what’s going to happen a year from now, which is historically how a lot of shelter magazines are produced, they produce about a year in advance and that’s how they photograph; ours is produced to the cuff. So, we produce as a news magazine would, like a New York Times Magazine. We produce really close up until we ship.

Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?

Whitney Robinson: I’m very glad that Elle Décor is a part of the conversation. Again, historically, design magazines have been put to the side, where people say they love design and décor magazines, and they’re so easy to read. But actually, design magazines are functioning in the space that everyone else is too, and we’re asking challenging questions; we’re showcasing magnificent homes around the world, but we’re also relevant.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Whitney Robinson: That I thought differently and we were able to change people’s perceptions. I think that’s the ultimate goal. It’s the hardest one. Someone once told me that if you think you’re going to a “clap, clap” emoji for changing people’s opinions, think again. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; cooking; watching TV; or something else?

Whitney Robinson: What day is it? Some days you’ll find me at CVS on a Sunday morning, reading all of the papers. Or I’ll be reading articles, ripping things out, getting mad at my editors because we didn’t get something first, calling our contributors to do it, and then watching 60 Minutes. That’s my Sunday. Yesterday, I was playing with a Nintendo Switch all day, and it’s a fantastic piece of technology, by the way. It changes day-to-day, I guess.

What day are we at? For example, today, I’m off on the Red-Eye; I have to ship the magazine today. We’re shipping a cover, and I do not have a dinner tonight, so I will be home with my partner, and we’ll probably cook a Persian meal, because Mark is half Persian, half German, so we’ll cook a Persian stew up, and I’ll put on a rerun of Charlie Rose or Masterpiece. We’re real housewives; we flip through it all. We like a little bit of everything. You know, you can say that you watch Real Housewives or you can lie about watching Real Housewives, but the truth is, you know what we’re talking about. So, we watch a little bit of everything.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Whitney Robinson: Zero. I sleep like a baby. I’m a deep sleeper. People ask me this question, and it’s so funny; we do this for passion. It’s a passion project. People have a lot of different goals; if your goal is cash, go work for Goldman Sachs. If your goal is politics, go work in the White House or you can work for the Peace Corps. The passion for what we do in magazines is such a specific thing; it’s a band of outsiders, a gangly group, who really believe passionately in this industry. So, I wake up excited to do this every day. I get to talk about and write about and tell stories about incredible people, places and things. What more could you ask for?

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“It was time to create something that didn’t exist, that conformed to what 2012 was bringing on and what 2017 today has really embraced, which is publishing a high-quality product on the highest-quality paper stock; a quarterly book. Obviously with print, no one can deny or challenge that print is really where the majority of the ad revenue still comes from. And I don’t believe, whether it’s the bigger media companies or whomever, they are feeling anything different. And there’s the power of print to create your community, your brand, in a physical and meaningful way.” Jason Binn…

DuJour is the luxury magazine that makes no apologies for its exquisite tastes. The magazine promotes and revels in the intoxicating lifestyles of the rich and famous. And does it with style and class. Since 2012, when the word magazine was becoming more and more taboo, DuJour burst through the publishing door and dropped a print diamond in the middle of a plethora of pixels. And the man who stepped over that threshold and brought the magazine to the targeted audience with a smile and a flourish was Jason Binn.

Jason has been in the publishing business for almost 25 years, so he knows something about magazines and magazine brands, having launched Ocean Drive in 1993. But with DuJour he has tapped into a very elite market that appreciates his efforts of bringing them a quarterly magazine and a digital monthly. I spoke with Jason recently and we talked about what he feels is and will continue to be a hot topic in the months and years to come: staying in front of your audience both online and offline, playing that dual role. And so far, DuJour is everywhere their readers want them to be. And that’s exactly the idea.

So, with the confetti and pomp that Jason’s DuJour cover parties are known to feature, I bring you the Mr. Magazine™ interview with a true entrepreneur, a man who believes that if it doesn’t come to life, it just won’t work, Jason Binn, CEO/Publisher, DuJour magazine.

But first the sound-bites:

On how life changed for him as a publisher/CEO of luxury magazines since his launch of Ocean Drive magazine over 20 years ago: Having the opportunity to launch a multi-tier platform; a digital, print, hybrid publication that was in a sense responsible for getting the audit by BPA for my digital distribution, and leveraging the data and transparency of accessing the most affluent individuals in 10 markets that are responsible for the affluent consumers and/or the majority of the sales and purchasing power, was amazing. It was a great time to evolve, not just personally, but as a business.

On what he has learned in his almost 25 years of being in the publishing business: I learned that while everyone is playing so many channels, everyone is also chasing their consumers and ways to message the audience, but when I go back and look at the evolution of media and social media, I look at how people feel content. And whether it was 1999 when it was an advertorial, or 2000 with Myspace, or 2001 with QR codes, or even 2002 with Google+, or 2004 with Twitter; Tumblr in 2007, or Pinterest in 2010, and native advertising content just a few years ago; you learn that you are in control of your audience and your messaging. And your success is to maintain and retain your audience and build your community.

On why he thinks no one has ever been able to do what he does with the cover parties, events and the success of DuJour’s glitz and glamour-type business model: I think people try to do it, but I think it’s no different than the business model of distribution of content and leveraging your platforms. If you look on DuJour.com at our media kit, we have these robust channels, and what I’m doing today through my social distribution, whether it’s our million followers – and by the way, Departures has 34,000 followers on Instagram, Robb Report has around 60,000, and DuJour has 60,000 , so between Robb Report and Departures, that’s 100,000 followers. And those businesses have been around for 100 years.

On whether DuJour is a reflection of himself: You see the people. Our job is to access and make these people accessible to our readers and consumers. The amazing thing about DuJour now is that everybody who gets the magazine and opts in on and offline, self-collected; those people also get to be a part of our community and our events. And when we do events, whether we have 100 people or 200 people, or 30 people, I always know those people are the best potential audience for our clients, because they have the three highest filter-checks that exist today with the most prominent and prestigious data mining companies.

On the biggest challenge that he’s facing today and how he plans to overcome it: To keep going deeper into the mindset, lifestyles and behaviors of that one-percent that we own. To constantly communicate and win them over and make them partake in responsible and more meaningful ways, so our advertisers can communicate their brands or their messaging, or expose their products to these people. We’re going deeper into the one-percent and evolving the platforms more and more.

On anything he’d like to add: It’s important to be a dual audience, lifestyle magazine today that focuses on a fashion issue, an arts issue, and a music issue. When you’re a lifestyle and you’re focusing on fashion, art, entertainment, accessories; you have all of these constant columns on and offline. And you’re thinking toward a dual audience and it’s great to be in their homes and invited to sit on their coffee tables, because yes, today, there aren’t as many magazines in people’s homes. And to be invited and accepted into their homes, and to be a magazine that caters to all, 80 percent of our readers are female, but we still walk a very responsible line, so that it is something that men and women can enjoy in their homes and that speaks to everyone.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him: When it comes to DuJour, my work or my art, I’m a passionate, engaged and responsible entrepreneur.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home: For me, it’s work and family. When I’m not working I’m at home with the kids and the family, and that’s it. To me working is playing. I enjoy what I do. I’m on the frontline with my team. And I think that’s important today. A lot of people hide behind their titles or their businesses, and then there’s people who go out there and really fight for what they believe in and what they have. And I have been fortunate enough since 2012 to have people want to go on this mission with me, this journey. And win. And we only win.

On what keeps him up at night: I just want to make sure we’re always ahead of the competition. It wasn’t any different than when I started Niche Media. National advertisers didn’t do regional; they just didn’t do it. And they didn’t do a network in markets that multiple magazines were in for many years. And redefine it and see where those city magazines ended up later in the game. It’s great to know that what you do has purpose and that it has staying power. We’re not here to do what everyone else is doing, because that wouldn’t make us different.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Jason Binn, CEO/Publisher, DuJour magazine.

Samir Husni: You’ve come a long way since Ocean Drive magazine, so between Ocean Drive and DuJour; how did life change for you as a publisher/CEO of luxury magazines?

Jason Binn: I was very fortunate. Do you know many luxury magazines that launched in 2012?

Samir Husni: (Laughs) I think I could count them on one hand.

Jason Binn: Having the opportunity to launch a multi-tier platform; a digital, print, hybrid publication that was in a sense responsible for getting the audit by BPA for my digital distribution, and leveraging the data and transparency of accessing the most affluent individuals in 10 markets that are responsible for the affluent consumers and/or the majority of the sales and purchasing power, was amazing. It was a great time to evolve, not just personally, but as a business.

Just because back in the old days when I first started, data was leveraged to intellect with things and learn about homes, etc., eventually we’d get to know their names. But in 2012, I had a whiteboard and I was able to build from the bottom up and look at what the advertisers and the readers wanted. And back then, in 2012, when I called the Magazine Publishing Association, and I wanted to find out what the recommended frequency was, or the least amount of frequency you could publish, and they said to me quarterly, if you had won awards and accolades, which we had the hottest magazine by Adweek and we got the Webby Award, 60 countries, 50 states, 14,000 applicants, and we won the Webby for homepage and navigation, beating out Google and Condé Nast.

So, it was time to create something that didn’t exist, that conformed to what 2012 was bringing on and what 2017 today has really embraced, which is publishing a high-quality product on the highest-quality paper stock; a quarterly book. Obviously with print, no one can deny or challenge that print is really where the majority of the ad revenue still comes from. And I don’t believe, whether it’s the bigger media companies or whomever, they are feeling anything different. And there’s the power of print to create your community, your brand, in a physical and meaningful way.

And there are other platforms, no different than maybe a Refinery29 or Vice, where these platforms complement each other and are strategically aligned so that you’re messaging people through newsletters, data mining, events; through content and photography. It just becomes more channels and creates more communities and interaction and experiences with your readers and consumers.

Samir Husni: In 2018, you’ll be celebrating 25 years in the publishing business, that’s when you launched Ocean Drive in 1993. Then 20 years later came DuJour; you’ve set a standard for luxury magazines, both in print and digital. What have you learned in those 25 years?

Jason Binn: I’ve learned that the rich stay rich or get richer (Laughs). I learned that while everyone is playing so many channels, everyone is also chasing their consumers and ways to message the audience, but when I go back and look at the evolution of media and social media, I look at how people feel content. And whether it was 1999 when it was an advertorial, or 2000 with Myspace, or 2001 with QR codes, or even 2002 with Google+, or 2004 with Twitter; Tumblr in 2007, or Pinterest in 2010, and native advertising content just a few years ago; you learn that you are in control of your audience and your messaging. And your success is to maintain and retain your audience and build your community.

And quarterly magazines if done right, are timed with the seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall. And being a lifestyle book, to be invited into a home, to the opt-in selected audiences that we have, where each recipient has opted in for the digital with the print. But if they opt out, we don’t send the print.

So, we have this engaged audience on and offline, and we leverage our platforms; we don’t sell against them. We don’t break it up by digital emails, social media, events; we don’t breakdown those channels of distribution and different P&L’s or revenue streams. We actually work hard to integrate them all and create a budget that has monthly or quarterly billing where these assets are laid out and clients can use it at their leisure when they want to.

I think the more that we can put our business model and audience, and shape it around the readers and the clients, and then give them the affordability and access to choose those assets when or how they want over the fourth of their contractual agreement, it gives the advertiser more freedom and flexibility. Because what’s going on today is everyone is creating assets for distribution no differently than someone who creates a movie and is looking for distribution. And the luxury brands’ clients are distributing these assets through their own distribution channels, whether it’s their websites, or their social media outlets.

And what I’m seeing is that they’re getting zonked after the first eight months or a year; they don’t really see a building of their community or audience on or offline. They keep distributing their own assets through their own channels and messaging the same people over and over again. And what DuJour has become to many clients is a distribution channel of content and assets. I’m not here to create native content for our clients. I’d rather distribute content through our unique channels that’s on-brand with them, and what we do. I think that’s the point of differentiation.

I also think a point of differentiation in where we’re heading is print and digital need to be bundled, which is how DuJour has been packaged since its launch in 2012. We were bundled up into one buy. Or you can buy us individually, but 80 percent of the clients that came in our first issue in 2012, bought the combination buy of print and digital. And to me that was a revelation. There were only a handful of clients that just said we don’t want to be in the digital sense.

I also find that our digital lines push content out sooner and aren’t beholden to print when it comes out. Many times the magazine’s stories come out and they’re great, but they are great sooner online. Sometimes the companies are competing with themselves. It’s no different than a publisher or an editor, knowing who’s on the cover and how to market those people, whether through cover parties or through integrations that are meaningful. Where the advertisers can connect with the consumers in a social environment and be a part of what that media company does.

Samir Husni: Many people say that you’re the whiz of social parties around the magazine and having all of the events; can DuJour’s model be duplicated or does it have to be Jason Binn that makes it work? Why do you think no one else has succeeded in doing what you do? Is it because of you and your “Binn” there skills?

Jason Binn: I think people try to do it, but I think it’s no different than the business model of distribution of content and leveraging your platforms. If you look on DuJour.com at our media kit, we have these robust channels, and what I’m doing today through my social distribution, whether it’s our million followers – and by the way, Departures has 34,000 followers on Instagram, Robb Report has around 60,000, and DuJour has 60,000 , so between Robb Report and Departures, that’s 100,000 followers. And those businesses have been around for 100 years.

What that shows me is a rich desire or appetite on social and Instagram with affluent people, especially when their brands are on-brand on and offline. I think very key to your business is being defined on and offline. Not moving your message or your audience on your different platforms, which I believe is one of those things that helps make these events get bigger and better every year, and makes us keep doing them.

The other thing is DuJour’s knowledge; the business model that I created at Niche and the mindset when I was there; everything needs to come to life, else it doesn’t work. It’s a very simple idea. Everything must come to life. I don’t care if it’s bringing the people on the pages to the parties; I don’t care if it’s posting the screenings for the films of the celebrities on the cover; whatever it is. Editors have to think like marketers. We spend millions of dollar a year, millions, on creating great content. If we don’t bring it to life, whether it comes off the screen, the mobile device; off the magazine, whatever platform; if we don’t bring it to life it’s not successful to me. It’s not a win. And my editors have always known that from day one.

Samir Husni: Are your magazines a reflection of yourself? Do I see Jason on the pages of DuJour or on the pixels on the website’s screen?

Jason Binn: You see the people. Our job is to access and make these people accessible to our readers and consumers. The amazing thing about DuJour now is that everybody who gets the magazine and opts in on and offline, self-collected; those people also get to be a part of our community and our events. And when we do events, whether we have 100 people or 200 people, or 30 people, I always know those people are the best potential audience for our clients, because they have the three highest filter-checks that exist today with the most prominent and prestigious data mining companies. They have a million dollar-plus home, $250-plus income, and they have a net worth of $5 million.

A consumer today lives in the money, makes the money, and has the money. They’re not saving up to buy a home; they don’t have money in the bank to earn income off their investments; these are people who can go on their devices and buy products. And that’s a unique thing. If we talked about building something like that today; I definitely would question myself today. Would I be able to do today what I did in 2012, because 2012 was such a point of challenges for print. And so when people ask what’s going on today, 2012 was worse. No one was even talking about magazines. All of the big layoffs were coming the year before and into 2012. All of the big layoffs. It was the first time that people had said the big companies were human and actually could bleed.

So, for me today, what I see now is I’m going deeper into the one-percent; I’m getting to know them better. And I see that the other media companies are going wider and farther out there to reach more and more people through more and more channels, which has become an exercise where I know 95 percent of the people in our universe.

So, our wheelhouse between all of our platforms is six million people a quarter. That’s using the magazine, the quarterly rhythm of the magazine, and then plugging in all of the newsletters, direct mail, and email. We have 400,000 people that are responsible for over 70 percent of the nation’s wealth and purchasing power. It really does come down to, 25 years later, the one-percent. It comes down to a small select group of people and when you hit six million people a quarter for your wheelhouse, that’s 24 million people a year. So, I’m not reaching what a traditional national book has of 250 million maybe over the course of a year, but I know out of 24 million people, 95 percent of those people could actually afford the products and services that we do business with.

Samir Husni: What’s the biggest challenge that you’re facing today and how do you plan to overcome it?

Jason Binn: To keep going deeper into the mindset, lifestyles and behaviors of that one-percent that we own. To constantly communicate and win them over and make them partake in responsible and more meaningful ways, so our advertisers can communicate their brands or their messaging, or expose their products to these people. We’re going deeper into the one-percent and evolving the platforms more and more.

Today to be a lifestyles, dual audience magazine, and have access to the homes and coffee tables of these people, we break it down this way – Tier-One distribution: Miami, New York, L.A., and Chicago., which gets anywhere from 15 to 20,000 books direct mail. Tier-Two markets are: San Francisco, Dallas, the markets you would assume, Orange County, and then Houston. The sizzle markets are Aspen during the summer and winter; the Hamptons during the summer and fall; and Palm Beach during the spring and winter. So, it’s not super-complicated, and everything we do is transparent, so what you see on the magazine’s spine are the markets we’re in.

The business model hasn’t been touched since we launched, which to me is a good thing. The business model we set and announced in the summer of 2012 and went live in the fall has not changed course. I was fortunate enough to have access to these people who have really wanted to be a part of our world. And it’s been accredited and documented all over, so I don’t really know who does what I do, because it’s kind of something that I had the luxury over the last 25 years to understand each market and the styles and sensibilities of these communities. So, 70 percent of the magazine is national and 30 percent is the New York City section.

What I’ve learned is 47 percent of the people that go to Miami are from New York. Aspen gets people from Dallas, Chicago, Houston, and New York. The Hamptons, that resort market gets Philly, Boston, and that area, the East Coast and New York City and Miami. And then Palm Beach gets a different crowd, it’s a very ancestral kind of community, where people are first cousins or second cousins.

So, those 100 or 200 influencers are the ones that move each market. Their families and/or themselves have primary, secondary and third homes in these markets. And the news that we cover comes a lot from New York and L.A. These seasonal markets and second Tier markets, there’s news, but not a lot of it, but we’re responsible to cover each market in our DuJour cities. Obviously, the Tier-One cities get more coverage; Tier-Two markets get less; and then the sizzle markets we cover during the seasons. It’s a glocal magazine. It just feels to me like a very responsible magazine that’s engrained in these markets editorially and promotionally.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Jason Binn: It’s important to be a dual audience, lifestyle magazine today that focuses on a fashion issue, an arts issue, and a music issue. When you’re a lifestyle and you’re focusing on fashion, art, entertainment, accessories; you have all of these constant columns on and offline. And you’re thinking toward a dual audience and it’s great to be in their homes and invited to sit on their coffee tables, because yes, today, there aren’t as many magazines in people’s homes.

And to be invited and accepted into their homes, and to be a magazine that caters to all, 80 percent of our readers are female, but we still walk a very responsible line, so that it is something that men and women can enjoy in their homes and that speaks to everyone. Younger people want to feel a little more sophisticated, and sophisticated people want to feel younger, and we’re fortunate enough that we own DuJour, the name, on every level.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Jason Binn: When it comes to DuJour, my work or my art, I’m a passionate, engaged and responsible entrepreneur.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; cooking; watching TV; or something else?

Jason Binn: For me, it’s work and family. When I’m not working I’m at home with the kids and the family, and that’s it. To me working is playing. I enjoy what I do. I’m on the frontline with my team. And I think that’s important today. A lot of people hide behind their titles or their businesses, and then there’s people who go out there and really fight for what they believe in and what they have. And I have been fortunate enough since 2012 to have people want to go on this mission with me, this journey. And win. And we only win.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Jason Binn: I just want to make sure we’re always ahead of the competition. It wasn’t any different than when I started Niche Media. National advertisers didn’t do regional; they just didn’t do it. And they didn’t do a network in markets that multiple magazines were in for many years. And redefine it and see where those city magazines ended up later in the game. It’s great to know that what you do has purpose and that it has staying power. We’re not here to do what everyone else is doing, because that wouldn’t make us different.

By looking at the playing field of lifestyle magazines at the big media houses, there’s only three or four of them in the country, and when I look at the market, it comes out at the end of the day, 25 years later, those top markets that I’ve been fortunate enough to work and play in, it’s great that I was able to evolve my brand and put out the highest-quality content on the highest-quality paper, and work with people that I’ve never worked with before. Being able to work with Bruce Weber or Peter Lindbergh is another level.

Even the guy in the magazine with the navigation bars at the top and the page numbers on the side, where your fingers hold the magazine; all those little things, those details, are important. Why are the page numbers on the side? Someone a thousand years ago put them on the bottom right. It’s almost like the monthly magazines come out two weeks before the month. September comes out in November. My digital monthlies come out on the first and goes through that month, whether it’s January or February; it’s the entire month.

And today to be a monthly digital with a quarterly print is exciting too, because you want to keep active and engaged with your audience, and to be able to have this audience that we talk with every month, and do covers and activations; it just keeps your brand out there and keeps people talking about what you’re doing. And then we do the quarterly print, which wraps ourselves around that season. I think many magazines, as we have seen, are reducing their frequency, but they’re not leveraging that distribution of content and creating a digital magazine every month. Magazines were trying to sell digital subscriptions on their own and charging premium for them in 2012, and then they were charging print a different price, and then they did the combo, and now they just do all access and wrap it all in together. I think people are still trying to find their way. And I believe we’ve found our way and we just keep beating to that beat.

Today, being in a controlled environment and dictating and shaping around the right audience is important. We’ve laid out the map and we’ve built it and people have come and embraced it.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“A friend of mine recently wondered; he had written a story in 2011, which prophesized that the Kansas City Royals would win the World Series in 2014, which turned out to be true, and is actually one step further ahead than where the Astros stand right now. The Astros haven’t won the World Series yet. And yet my friend was openly wondering on social media recently why more people hadn’t paid attention to that particular prediction, as opposed to the Astros prediction, which actually hasn’t come to full fruition yet. And the reason is very simple; one of the biggest reasons is that the Astros prediction was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And we are talking about it to the extent we have recently because that prediction was on the cover of a print magazine, and if it wasn’t on the cover of a print magazine, it would not be the same discussion.” Chris Stone…(On the Houston Astros cover that SI ran in 2014 and has been a hotbed of discussion recently)…

Sports Illustrated has been the go-to source for everything that is “sports” for over 60 years. The brand’s coverage of all types of sports is a trusted source for enthusiasts who want to get that deeply immersive print experience and those who want to get their scores quick and clean online. From the ink on paper magazine to Si.com, Sports Illustrated always has and still does reflect some of the best journalism in sports.

And with Chris Stone, a 25 year SI vet, who began his career at the magazine as a fact checker and now holds the reins of the entire brand, Sports Illustrated has some new moves on the field for 2018 that will bring a deeper, more premium print experience to its readers and a much larger digital footprint as well.

I spoke to Chris recently and we talked about these new and improved changes that will begin in 2018, starting with a reduction in frequency from a weekly to 26 issues per year, which will allow for some aesthetic changes to the magazine as well, such as an increase of 15 percent in its paper stock. And of course, the continuation of the rich content that SI is known for.

And when it comes to its digital footprint, Chris said new platforms are being explored in order to bring the digital audience a more diverse and varied portal to receive their content, with the goal of giving consumers what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.

As far as their current digital space, he added that SI.com is coming off its best traffic month in the history of the site for September 2017 and according to the September 2017 comScore report, traffic to SI.com (UVs) was up an amazing 62 percent year over year. And October is on track to be an even bigger traffic month for the site. So, it seems SI has found the right playbook for its future and the right man to order up those plays in Chris Stone.

So, without further ado, the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Chris Stone, editorial director, Sports Illustrated.

But first the sound-bites:

On his 25-year journey from Sports Illustrated fact checker to editorial director for the brand: It’s hard to remember what I thought when I was 22-years-old and arrived at Sports Illustrated. I was fairly certain that I wanted to stay a while, whether I anticipated being here 25 years, I’m not sure. But I did want to be around for quite a while, and be able to participate in the evolution of Sports Illustrated in whatever direction it was going.

On how his thought processes switch between all of the different platforms within the brand: The core of what we do, and I anticipate the core of what we’ll always do, will be built around the stories we tell and the journalism that we do. Over my 25 years, the stories and the commitment to those stories, especially the ambitious, longer form stories; the commitment to those things hasn’t changed at all. They’re very much an essential part of our DNA. Now how we get those stories out to our audiences has most certainly changed in a huge way.

On how he feels the brand will evolve with some of the recent changes in frequency and paper upgrades he is making: Much of our reputation over the last 60-plus years has been built on the back of a weekly magazine, so we were creating a premium weekly experience. And once upon a time that seemed like a high-velocity thing. Think about it, once upon a time to create a weekly magazine meant that you were really working fast. That was a high-velocity product. But in 2017, there’s nobody who is going to suggest that a magazine is a high-velocity product. If you were building a magazine in 2017 from scratch and you said we want to build a weekly magazine because it’s moving at the speed that all of our consumers are, people would laugh at you. In fact, what we have to create in the magazine is an experience that in some ways better replicates what a monthly magazine does.

On whether he feels the industry as a whole, and Sports Illustrated as well, took longer than necessary to realize there needed to be differentiation among its many platforms: I think that’s a fair point. I wish we had done this 10 years ago.

On why he thinks the industry did not implement this type of differentiation 10 years ago: I think that the marketplace was less cluttered and that the foothold magazines had 10 years ago was still pretty strong, with a lot of revenue that was still being thrown off. And when you’re throwing off solid revenue and solid margins, I think a lot of companies, not just within the media industry; it’s hard to recalibrate yourself and anticipate that those margins and revenues might continue to decline. And if you’re still throwing off big profits, I think there’s an inclination not to mess with that.

On how his past decisions as managing editor will impact the brand and his decisions today as editorial director: The goal when I became the managing editor in 2012, in context with my boss, Paul Fichtenbaum and Matt, was to create a more seamless organization, more of a single ecosystem, in which all of the great content that we produced to some degree would be platform agnostic. It’s funny, I was thinking about when I got here in 1992, and all of these great stories would come in a week ahead of time, these great college football stories that were written overnight Saturday and come in on Sunday morning. The same with the NFL Sunday night into Monday morning. And in 1992, imagine if we had the capacity to be able to deliver those stories to our readers immediately?

On the biggest challenge he thinks the brand will face moving forward into 2018 and how he plans to overcome it: The biggest challenge remains economic. There are more good storytelling and journalistic entities out there now than there has ever been, competing for a finite amount of revenue. And that will always remain. And that will remain our biggest challenge going into the new year. Now, the way to combat that and overcome it is to really fortify those new platforms that we’re creating. The digital platforms and the video platforms that enable us to take the best of what we do and reach people the way they want to be reached. And to reach them as quickly as possible.

On some who have compared the recent changes to be implemented at Sports Illustrated to what ESPN does and whether he thinks that’s a fair comparison: No, I think that would be an unfair comparison. I would argue that the fact that there are similar methods that we might be adopting from some of our competitors such as ESPN, it’s not just ESPN that’s adopting that model, it’s all of our competitors out there to some degree that are trying to find a model that happily optimizes the things that they do best. And many of the things that we do best will remain what we do in the magazine.

On whether he’s enjoying his position as editorial director of the SI brand, or he feels as though he has the whole wide world of sports upon his shoulders: No, I don’t feel like I have any particular burden on me, other than the same burden that’s always existed. You don’t stay at a company for 25 years unless you really love what you’re doing. And I’ve been here for 25 years for a reason, and that’s because I love what we’re doing and I love the possibilities that exist. I love the heritage that we have and I love how that heritage enables us to build something bigger and really exciting for our future.

On anything else he’d like to add: Obviously, the future of Sports Illustrated is not going to be built on the back of the magazine, and certainly not the magazine alone. But I’ll tell you a little story that is reflective of why the magazine is a very powerful part of our future in whatever form it takes. A friend of mine recently wondered; he had written a story in 2011, which prophesized that the Kansas City Royals would win the World Series in 2015, which turned out to be true, and is actually one step further ahead than where the Astros stand right now. The Astros haven’t won the World Series yet. And yet my friend was openly wondering on social media recently why more hadn’t paid attention to that particular prediction, as opposed to the Astros prediction, which actually hasn’t come to full fruition yet. And the reason is very simple; one of the biggest reasons is that the Astros prediction was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And we are talking about it to the extent we have recently because that prediction was on the cover of a print magazine.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him: I’ll borrow something from my old boss and mentor, Mark Mulvoy – sometimes right, sometimes wrong; never in doubt.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home: Often cooking, while watching a live sporting event.

On what keeps him up at night: Sports Illustrated keeps me up at night.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Chris Stone, editorial director, Sports Illustrated.

Samir Husni: First, congratulations; this is your 25th year at Sports Illustrated.

Chris Stone: It is and thank you.

Samir Husni: You started as a fact checker for Sports Illustrated, and now you’re in charge of the entire brand, not only the magazine, but everything that makes up the Sports Illustrated brand. Can you describe that journey from fact checker to editorial director?

Chris Stone: It’s hard to remember what I thought when I was 22-years-old and arrived at Sports Illustrated. I was fairly certain that I wanted to stay a while, whether I anticipated being here 25 years, I’m not sure. But I did want to be around for quite a while, and be able to participate in the evolution of Sports Illustrated in whatever direction it was going.

I knew from the start that this wasn’t just a job, but it was something that felt very much like an extension of my adolescence. I was doing the same thing that I had been doing pretty much every day since I was seven years old, when I became a sports fan. I was paying attention to sports and I was contemplating what it meant; why we cared about it so much. Why I cared about it so much. So, being here 25 years later, I feel very lucky, and if I could have mapped it out this way, there are worse scenarios that could have unfolded.

Samir Husni: Today, you’ve almost assumed every editorial position conceivable at the brand, at the magazine. You were the managing editor and now you’re the editorial director; how do you shuffle between the changes you’re implementing at the printed magazine; the video facet of the brand and the app? How does your thought processes switch between all of these different platforms within the brand?

Chris Stone: The core of what we do, and I anticipate the core of what we’ll always do, will be built around the stories we tell and the journalism that we do. Over my 25 years, the stories and the commitment to those stories, especially the ambitious, longer form stories; the commitment to those things hasn’t changed at all. They’re very much an essential part of our DNA. Now how we get those stories out to our audiences has most certainly changed in a huge way.

So, if you start with the foundation of great stories and great journalism, and continue doing that, you’ve accomplished one important part of our mission going forward. The harder part, and perhaps maybe even the most essential part, is how are we going to get these great stories and this great journalism in front of as many people as possible?

When I got here in 1992, Sports Illustrated to some degree represented a virtual monopoly on national and global sports coverage, and we had a certain competitive advantage that has been eroded by digital changes, because there’s more great storytelling journalism than there has ever been before because of access to the platforms to tell those stories in journalism. So, we have to accept that we’re now competing in a very cluttered marketplace.

The two things we have to do is continue to tell the best stories and do the best journalism, and to find and build those platforms that help us reach those audiences, because I’m certain that the audience is out there as much as they have evolved over the years, and they still have an appetite for the best, most differentiated content there is. Now, it’s our mandate to find a way to get this to those people.

Samir Husni: One of the things that I read you’re doing as you’re changing the existing platforms and introducing new ones, is decreasing the frequency of Sports Illustrated to 26 times per year, but adding more editorial pages and using better paper for print. How do you feel the brand is evolving with that mix of print and digital in a very cluttered sports marketplace today?

Chris Stone: Much of our reputation over the last 60-plus years has been built on the back of a weekly magazine, so we were creating a premium weekly experience. And once upon a time that seemed like a high-velocity thing. Think about it, once upon a time to create a weekly magazine meant that you were really working fast. That was a high-velocity product. But in 2017, there’s nobody who is going to suggest that a magazine is a high-velocity product.

If you were building a magazine in 2017 from scratch and you said we want to build a weekly magazine because it’s moving at the speed that all of our consumers are, people would laugh at you. In fact, what we have to create in the magazine is an experience that in some ways better replicates what a monthly magazine does. In other words, when the magazine arrives in your hands, the stories that you’ll read in that magazine have to resonate a week later; two weeks later. We can’t just anticipate that every consumer of our magazine, every reader, is going to pick the magazine up from their mailbox on a Thursday or Friday and immediately start reading it. It might lie around for a week or even two weeks, but when that reader does ultimately pick up the magazine it still has to feel fresh.

And the other reason for the frequency change is that the magazine is a product; it is a physical product. And with the changing marketplace, the ability to create a weekly magazine that felt thick, in the way that we remembered Sports Illustrated, was becoming increasingly difficult. So now we have the opportunity to actually create a more premium product on a biweekly basis. It’s not just going to be a single issue of Sports Illustrated; in 2018, it will be 64 to 68 edit pages. Right now it ranges between 48 and 52. So, that’s a pretty substantial change right there.

And on top of that, again, as I mentioned, this is a product, and paper is an essential piece of that product. So, we want to create something that feels more like a premium product in a literal sense. And so, we’re increasing our paper stock by 15 percent. In a year, if we’re having this conversation, I think we’re going to be marveling at what a different product the magazine is, as opposed to what it is now.

Samir Husni: Do you think the industry as a whole, and Sports Illustrated too, took longer than it needed to reach that point of realization that in the midst of all this clutter in the marketplace it had to differentiate between the different platforms: print, digital, and everything else that’s being done?

Chris Stone: I think that’s a fair point. I wish we had done this 10 years ago.

Samir Husni: Why do you think the industry did not?

Chris Stone: I think that the marketplace was less cluttered and that the foothold magazines had 10 years ago was still pretty strong, with a lot of revenue that was still being thrown off. And when you’re throwing off solid revenue and solid margins, I think a lot of companies, not just within the media industry; it’s hard to recalibrate yourself and anticipate that those margins and revenues might continue to decline. And if you’re still throwing off big profits, I think there’s an inclination not to mess with that.

Samir Husni: When you became managing editor in 2012, five years ago, before you became editorial director, you seemed to start two tracks; you were investing in the content of the print magazine, having great editorial moments, whether it was the Jason Collins story or the LeBron James piece, and you also invested in the brand’s digital footprint with Matt Bean, who was your managing editor for SI.com, with the MMQB and the SI Edge. You also built the video production unit, which was the first at Time Inc. So, you had all of these things in the making; how did that impact your current decision to go 26 times a year with the print magazine and the other changes that will happen?

Chris Stone: The goal when I became the managing editor in 2012, in context with my boss, Paul Fichtenbaum and Matt, was to create a more seamless organization, more of a single ecosystem, in which all of the great content that we produced to some degree would be platform agnostic.

You referenced Jason Collins and LeBron, but remember those two pieces lived first digitally, and they probably resonated most deeply as digital stories. What we really wanted to do was recognize that we have this extraordinary trove of content that we produce on a daily basis. So, how do we get that in front of as many people as possible?

And obviously, some of that could work in the magazine, but the fact that digital is every day, digital is every hour and every minute; when stories started to come in, we began to evaluate them as to how they could work best for our audience. Are we holding this story to create a better magazine at the expense of what is the best reader experience? If we have a piece of news like LeBron James or Jason Collins, people should be able to access that as quickly as possible.

It’s funny, I was thinking about when I got here in 1992, and all of these great stories would come in a week ahead of time, these great college football stories that were written overnight Saturday and come in on Sunday morning. The same with the NFL Sunday night into Monday morning.

And in 1992, imagine if we had the capacity to be able to deliver those stories to our readers immediately? In other words, on Sunday for college football; on Monday for pro football, rather than requiring them to wait an extra three or four days. Wouldn’t we sign up for that? And so, digital has afforded us that opportunity. Video affords us the ability to tell those great stories we do in documentary format.

Obviously, this resonates with audiences, especially younger audiences, when you look at the success of something like 30 for 30 and that’s what we want to do with our video going forward. We want to recognize that one enduring trait of Sports Illustrated; that there is always going to be great stories and there’s always going to be great journalism. But if we’re not maximizing those stories in journalism by putting them on the best platform, then we’re doing a disservice not just to our readers, but to ourselves.

Samir Husni: What do you think will be the biggest challenge that you’ll have to face as the brand moves into 2018 and how will you overcome it?

Chris Stone: The biggest challenge remains economic. There are more good storytelling and journalistic entities out there now than there has ever been, competing for a finite amount of revenue. And that will always remain. And that will remain our biggest challenge going into the new year. Now, the way to combat that and overcome it is to really fortify those new platforms that we’re creating. The digital platforms and the video platforms that enable us to take the best of what we do and reach people the way they want to be reached. And to reach them as quickly as possible.

Samir Husni: One of your critics suggested that Sports Illustrated was taking a page from ESPN with the changes; would that be a fair comparison?

Chris Stone: No, I think that would be an unfair comparison. I would argue that the fact that there are similar methods that we might be adopting from some of our competitors such as ESPN, it’s not just ESPN that’s adopting that model, it’s all of our competitors out there to some degree that are trying to find a model that happily optimizes the things that they do best. And many of the things that we do best will remain what we do in the magazine.

We have the opportunity, as we’ve already discussed, to create the most premium magazine experience than an SI reader has had in a long time, in at least a decade. At the same time, we have the opportunity to tell the stories in new ways, and just because the platforms are similar to the platforms that competitors are leveraging, the big differentiating piece is, what is it that we are putting on those platforms? What are the stories that we’re telling; what is the journalism that we’re putting on those platforms? That’s what will represent the competitive advantage for Sports Illustrated and what will differentiate us from what our competitors are doing. It’s in the premium natures of that experience.

Samir Husni: Are you enjoying your work today as an editorial director much more than, say, five or 10 years ago? Or do you feel as though you have the whole wide world of sports on your shoulders now?

Chris Stone: No, I don’t feel like I have any particular burden on me, other than the same burden that’s always existed. You don’t stay at a company for 25 years unless you really love what you’re doing. And I’ve been here for 25 years for a reason, and that’s because I love what we’re doing and I love the possibilities that exist. I love the heritage that we have and I love how that heritage enables us to build something bigger and really exciting for our future.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Chris Stone: Well, you’re Mr. Magazine™, right? That’s what they call you, correct?

Samir Husni: (Laughs) That’s my trademark, yes.

Chris Stone: I bring that up because I want to make one more point about the magazine and the power of the magazine. Obviously, the future of Sports Illustrated is not going to be built on the back of the magazine, and certainly not the magazine alone. But I’ll tell you a little story that is reflective of why the magazine is a very powerful part of our future in whatever form it takes. Are you familiar with the cover of the Houston Astros that we did three years ago?

Samir Husni: Yes, I am.

Chris Stone: Obviously, recently that has been a big discussion point that we received a lot of attention for. And I can tell you that a friend of mine recently wondered; he had written a story in 2011, which prophesized that the Kansas City Royals would win the World Series in 2015, which turned out to be true, and is actually one step further ahead than where the Astros stand right now. The Astros haven’t won the World Series yet.

And yet my friend was openly wondering on social media recently why more people hadn’t paid attention to that particular prediction, as opposed to the Astros prediction, which actually hasn’t come to full fruition yet. And the reason is very simple; one of the biggest reasons is that the Astros prediction was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And we are talking about it to the extent we have recently because that prediction was on the cover of a print magazine, and if it wasn’t on the cover of a print magazine, it would not be the same discussion. I think we have to recognize that there are parts of the magazine that are always going to be appealing to a broad audience as long as you can continue to deliver topnotch content within that magazine.

I think it’s been a revelation how many people have wanted to talk about that particular prediction. I guarantee you that very few, if any, people would want to talk about that particular story prediction if it had not been on the cover of a magazine. The magazine still represents a point of differentiation, and by extension, a competitive advantage. So, why wouldn’t we feed that competitive advantage, especially when our bosses are giving us the opportunity to create the best print product that we can from a product standpoint in a very long time.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Chris Stone: I’ll borrow something from my old boss and mentor, Mark Mulvoy – sometimes right, sometimes wrong; never in doubt.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; cooking; watching TV; or something else?

Chris Stone: Often cooking, while watching a live sporting event.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Chris Stone: Sports Illustrated keeps me up at night.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“We’ve been hearing from readers that they’re on every platform that they want to be on. They’re very savvy. They go where they want to get the information the way they want to find it. If they want to find a Butternut squash recipe, they Google it or search for it on bhg.com. If they want to see things in the print magazine, because many of them will say, even millennials, that they like a paper product on certain points because it’s easier to show their husband or their partner an idea, rather than having to find it on their phone. They can just dog-ear the page and then discuss whatever it is with them. So, they’re very savvy about how they use every platform and we as a brand need to be wherever they want and need us to be.” Stephen Orr…

“So, when my advertisers ask me: 7.6 million, are you kidding? I break out my statement and I show them exactly how we’re reaching them. Newsstand isn’t what it used to be, of course, but we still have this magazine going into the homes of consumers across the country and they’re waiting for it and spending time with it. So, our advertisers know this and that’s why we had such a terrific last year, because they want the “reach” title.” Stephen Bohlinger…

Better Homes & Gardens, Meredith’s flagship lifestyle, home and food brand, has grown a lot since it first premiered in 1922. And it’s continued to both maintain and flourish during the digital disruption and rapid technological changes that face the industry on almost a daily basis. Today, it reaches nearly 40 million readers on a monthly basis and still maintains its 7.6 million in guaranteed circulation that it has had for years.
Many would call that amazing in this day and age, but Editor in Chief, Stephen Orr and VP/Group Publisher, Stephen Bohlinger, would say it’s because the magazine has stayed true to its audience and true to its roots, yet evolved with the times, bringing in as many millennials and new readers as its sustained legacy audience.

I spoke with the two Stephen’s recently and we talked about the solid direction of the brand. Stephen Orr is an editor in chief who believes in speaking to his vast readership as both a group and as individuals, realizing that until the magazine seems personal and meant for one single reader, it hasn’t connected the way it should, and BH&G has its voice down pat, reaching each and every reader as though that issue was meant for just them. His edits are strong and sure, just as Stephen Bohlinger knows how to sell his brand to the advertiser, putting the reader right at the table during the presentation, making it a win/win for the consumer and the ad client.

So, sit back and relax and come into the world of Better Homes & Gardens, a magazine that’s been around for almost a century, yet has stayed as strong with relevance today as it was yesterday – the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Stephen Orr and Stephen Bohlinger, the Stephen-Squared team that continues to bring the brand success.

But first the sound-bites:

On being the editor in chief of the largest non-membership magazine in the country (Stephen Orr): It’s a very exciting responsibility, which is two strange words to use together, because usually responsibility is not something you call exciting, but I do think of it as a big responsibility, but also very exciting. You’re speaking to such a huge audience, but you’re also speaking to individuals, so each individual is as important as the group. So, when we’re making the magazine, we really are thinking about different types of individuals that different stories will reach. And hoping to reach a broad market, but also speak very specifically to our readers.

On being the group publisher of the largest non-membership magazine in the country (Stephen Bohlinger): When I got the job about a year ago, from Doug Olson, my new boss, he said sit down, I’m about to hand you the keys to the kingdom. And I was elated. Every morning before my feet hit the ground, I am just so invigorated and so excited to work with a juggernaut, a giant magazine called Better Homes & Gardens, and the people that I work for; the brand and the corporation. Meredith, obviously, is so well-poised to win as an organization. The Better Homes and Gardens brand is the largest, so when he tells you you’re going to be handed the keys to the kingdom, that’s certainly a lot of pressure, but I love it.

On what the secret formula is to Better Homes & Gardens continued success in circulation after all of these years and an unpredictable marketplace (Stephen Orr): I think for me, editorially, and that includes the print magazine, digital, video, social, and everything that we’re doing, is we’re a moment of respite for our audience, because to them Better Homes and Gardens means that they can take a break from everything they’re doing with the kids, the demands of the household budget, or the scheduling of everything, or their jobs. All the things that stress people out. We are a break from that. We’re an inspirational break and creative break.

On whether advertisers tell Stephen B. that he is out of his mind when he tells them that the magazine still has 7.6 million in circulation (Stephen Bohlinger): Yes, it’s a question that we get all of the time. We have our earnings call from Meredith coming up and one of the things that Steve Lacy, our chairman, always says to the board of directors and to our shareholders is that we’ve been putting 7.6 million copies of Better Homes and Gardens out today because there’s a need. Our consumers still want it. And what we have today is a contemporary breakout women’s lifestyle magazine, really.

On how Stephen Orr is juggling between retaining his legacy audience and acquiring new readers, such as the millennial age group (Stephen Orr): I’d say that one of the big things is that the idea of the magazine, as far as being relevant, as Stephen was talking about, is that people of all ages want to know what’s cool. They want to know what’s trending; they may not want to do it, but they want to know. In one of our recent focus groups, we had a younger set and an older set of people. And both sides were very similar in their desire to keep up with what the trends are for home décor, home decorating, gardening, cooking and recipe trends. They want to keep up. Now, they may not do all the trends, but they want to know about them. And that resonates over all ages.

On whether you can afford for any advertiser not to love the content of the magazine (Stephen Bohlinger): (Laughs) It’s all about the education process. Think about the median age of our magazine buyers today; our media planners across the country. They keep getting younger every year. The funny thing is, I now have my two kids in the industry, they’re 25 and 24, and they didn’t come up in the same way as young media planners did 20 years ago, which meant their magazines were coming in and it was their priority. They have this thing called mobile in their hands today, so it’s the education process. When we’re talking to them, no matter what account that they’re working on, it’s just explaining to them the significance and the relevance of a magazine brand, specifically the size and scope of Better Homes & Gardens.

On whether he sells everything individually to advertisers, such as print separate, digital separate, video separate, or everything as a package (Stephen Bohlinger): You might recall the old brand wheel. The old brand wheel would have the magazine in the middle and then the spokes would be our special interest magazines, our video, our digital, our partnership with Wal-Mart; whatever it may have been. Now, the brand is in the middle – the brand being Better Homes & Gardens, and the magazine becomes a spoke. So, when we present the brand, we present it as an Omni-channel first and foremost, that’s the first slide we show.

On how he decides what content is best for which platform (Stephen Orr): In the digital space; if people are going to a website, they’re looking for something specific. Generally speaking, they’re coming in looking for one thing that they want; a certain recipe, or a certain way to do some home improvement, or a DIY project. In the magazine, what we always talk about as editors is that we’re showing people things that we think they want before they know they want it. So, we’re giving them ideas and inspiration before they actually recognize it. It’s a surprise for them; it’s more of an a-ha.

On what makes people come to Better Homes & gardens in this Internet age of infinite information (Stephen Orr): Trust, 100 percent. We’re trusted and they know us. We put our recipes through every kind of testing that you can do in our test kitchen in Des Moines. We’ve done all of the homework and we have the knowledge.

On how important that trust factor is in advertisement in today’s world of fake news, fake ads, fake-just-about-anything (Stephen Bohlinger): It’s at the top of the list. They want to trust the editorial product; they want to trust the editor; that’s why the most important thing that I can do for my clients is to get my editor in chief, Stephen Orr, in front of them. Recently, we had a meeting out in the Midwest and Stephen was in town, and Crate & Barrel were also there, and we had a meeting with them and it wasn’t a sales pitch at all, really. It was really to talk about how Stephen curates his edits; and is a modern-day editor’s role different today than it was maybe even four or five years ago, and certainly 20 years ago. And it was an eye-opening presentation, and something that we’re going to consider taking to some other clients, because it’s not a sales pitch; it’s really about the trust of what Stephen has built with his editorial team across the country, and why this is a relevant product today.

On whether there is any internal feeling of competition between all of the many successful Meredith brands (Stephen Orr): Editorially, absolutely not. I’ve never worked at a company where the editors are as closely-knit together. We have regular meetings and phone calls. If one of us has a question about what another person is doing for a specific ad, integration, or app, we just pick up the phone and talk. It’s a completely open-door policy here among the editors, and non-competitive.

On whether there is any internal feeling of competition between all of the many successful Meredith brands (Stephen Bohlinger): And from the advertising perspective, I’ll mirror what Stephen said. I was 20 years at Time Inc. and we certainly got together and shared, but nothing like we do here at the Meredith Corporation. We have publishers meet weekly on Friday mornings at 8:00 a.m. and it’s full disclosure.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him (Stephen Bohlinger): For me it would be that I care about people. At the end of the day, the most important thing to me is respect and reputation. And it all begins and ends with who you surround yourself with. I’m the son of a coach; my father was a high school gym coach and I learned a lot about how he treated everyone with respect. And that’s something that has carried with me my entire life and I take it very personally. I have three children of my own and the most important thing that you can do and hold is your reputation, and that starts with how you treat people.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him (Stephen Orr): I would say good. I think there’s something about that word that gets overlooked because many lean more toward great. But there’s something about good that is very solid and lasting. And if that was something that I was known for I would be very happy. To be known as a good person and someone who did good work and worked with good people like Stephen Bohlinger and all of the editors I work with, I think that word gets overlooked a lot.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home (Stephen Orr): I would be cooking and gardening.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home (Stephen Bohlinger): I would be coaching, youth Lacrosse or helping out with the youth basketball team. Again, I’m the son of a coach and a lot of what I’ve learned as an athlete, I played Lacrosse in college, and both my boys played collegiately and I coached them. It’s the greatest joy. I consider my job here as a publisher as a coach. I refer to myself as that, and when you’re a coach, you get some great satisfaction. So, that’s what you would find me doing at home, coaching.

On what keeps him up at night (Stephen Orr): Invariably, it’s making sure the people that work with me on my team have what they need to succeed in a time of shrinking resources, and it’s not always shrinking, sometimes it’s moving, probably more moving than shrinking. It’s the constantly shifting landscape of media and I just want to make sure that the people I work with have all of the resources that they can use to succeed and thrive.

On what keeps him up at night (Stephen Bohlinger): For me, it’s one word: short-term-itis. I don’t even know if it’s a word, but I was at a conference and someone used it and it really stuck with me. And what I mean by short-term-itis is in the industry today we’re always closing the next issue and looking at what’s in front of us at the moment. And what keeps me up is as a publisher and a leader of this great brand, you have to have a 30-60-90, right? You have to think long-term and sometimes you’re going to take your hits and your lumps, but you can’t get caught up with short-term-itis.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Stephen Bohlinger, VP/Group Publisher, & Stephen Orr, Editor in Chief, Better Homes & Gardens.

Samir Husni: This question is for the both of you; how does it feel to be the editor and group publisher of the largest non-membership magazine in this country with 7.6 million guaranteed circulation?

Stephen Orr: It’s a very exciting responsibility, which is two strange words to use together, because usually responsibility is not something you call exciting, but I do think of it as a big responsibility, but also very exciting. You’re speaking to such a huge audience, but you’re also speaking to individuals, so each individual is as important as the group. So, when we’re making the magazine, we really are thinking about different types of individuals that different stories will reach. And hoping to reach a broad market, but also speak very specifically to our readers.

And I can tell from the correspondence that I get, either from emails, handwritten letters; a lot of people Tweeting comments to me or private messaging me on Instagram with compliments or criticisms; Facebook too; it’s every form of communication that you can think of where I hear from the readers. And every one of those readers shows one thing, which is that they think the magazine is just for them and that’s exciting and what we want to try and keep going. This personalization with the product for our readers, that even though it’s such a huge audience, every reader feels like it’s written for just them.

Stephen Bohlinger: When I got the job about a year ago, from Doug Olson, my new boss, he said sit down, I’m about to hand you the keys to the kingdom. And I was elated. Every morning before my feet hit the ground, I am just so invigorated and so excited to work with a juggernaut, a giant magazine called Better Homes & Gardens, and the people that I work for; the brand and the corporation. Meredith, obviously, is so well-poised to win as an organization. The Better Homes & Gardens brand is the largest, so when he tells you you’re going to be handed the keys to the kingdom, that’s certainly a lot of pressure, but I love it.

I’ve been in the industry since 1985 and you always want to be with the biggest. It’s like being with the New York Yankees, right? The Dallas Cowboys; the big organization. And to be here at this point in my career, with the knowledge and everything that I’ve learned over the years, it’s just the perfect timing for me. And it’s the perfect timing for me to be with Stephen Orr, who is the best and smartest editor that I’ve ever worked with.

Samir Husni: So, having the two of you together, the Stephen-squared, with the exact same spelling, I might add (Laughs), seems to be working greatly. What’s the secret formula that has kept Better Homes & Gardens, after all of these years, at the same level of circulation with all of today’s changes in the marketplace? It’s still a big, mass-circulation, print magazine, in addition to all of the other digital venues that you have put into place.

Stephen Orr: I think for me, editorially, and that includes the print magazine, digital, video, social, and everything that we’re doing, is we’re a moment of respite for our audience, because to them Better Homes & Gardens means that they can take a break from everything they’re doing with the kids, the demands of the household budget, or the scheduling of everything, or their jobs. All the things that stress people out. We are a break from that. We’re an inspirational break and creative break.

And our audience will tell us that when they get the magazine, or they want to look through our social media, it’s a way for them to connect to their own creativity. And the print magazine, especially, when it shows up, is very special. Recently, we’ve been doing focus groups, and people have told me that they love being able to have that magazine. They will set it aside until they know they can get to it at some point during the week, because that’s going to be their time, maybe with a glass of wine, where no one is going to bother them.

And they can cut out recipes or look at a DIY project that they want to do and dream about how things can look, so I think that’s our connection to the audience. And we haven’t lost that over the years. And that’s what the entire existence of the brand is about, making life better every day. In this day and age, when things can be upsetting on all fronts, Better Homes and Gardens is a haven for people. So, we just keep doing what we’ve been doing and I think the authenticity of that resonates with our audience.

Samir Husni: Stephen, advertisers don’t tell you that you’re out of your mind when you tell them that you still have 7.6 million in circulation?

Stephen Bohlinger: Yes, it’s a question that we get all of the time. We have our earnings call from Meredith coming up and one of the things that Steve Lacy, our chairman, always says to the board of directors and to our shareholders is that we’ve been putting 7.6 million copies of Better Homes & Gardens out today because there’s a need. Our consumers still want it. And what we have today is a contemporary breakout women’s lifestyle magazine, really.

And what Stephen Orr has done is he’s made it relevant for today’s Better Homes and Gardens reader. We have 7.7 million millennials who read this magazine, and it’s because Stephen is connecting with this new generation of Better Homes & Gardens readers. How is he reaching them? He’s reaching them via Instagram, social; he isn’t waiting for the snail mail to show up like we did 25 years ago; he is taking the brand in a direction that is going to be able to communicate with these millennials, and that is making this brand relevant today. And 7.6 million is still the audience because that’s what the demand is.

So, when my advertisers ask me: 7.6 million, are you kidding? I break out my statement and I show them exactly how we’re reaching them. Newsstand isn’t what it used to be, of course, but we still have this magazine going into the homes of consumers across the country and they’re waiting for it and spending time with it. So, our advertisers know this and that’s why we had such a terrific last year, because they want the “reach” title.

Samir Husni: You have 40 million readers per month, and as Stephen said, you have 7.7 million millennials and the rest are your traditional readers. How are you juggling between retaining your current audience and gaining the millennials who are not familiar with the magazine?

Stephen Orr: I’d say that one of the big things is that the idea of the magazine, as far as being relevant, as Stephen was talking about, is that people of all ages want to know what’s cool. They want to know what’s trending; they may not want to do it, but they want to know. In one of our recent focus groups, we had a younger set and an older set of people. And both sides were very similar in their desire to keep up with what the trends are for home décor, home decorating, gardening, cooking and recipe trends. They want to keep up. Now, they may not do all the trends, but they want to know about them. And that resonates over all ages.

They want to keep up with what’s happening, whether it’s a new color or a trend for wallpaper, houseplants, or certain ingredients you might use in a recipe that is new to your pantry. All of those things resonate with all age groups. And what I do is try to take all of the trends that I see and keep up with them in the same way through social media, and friends that I admire who have great taste, and I’m thinking of how I can translate that to our audience.

And it seems to be resonating. If we alienate one group of people with something, other people love it. So, you kind of have to balance it where you know where you’re pushing it a little bit, and you recognize that some will love it and some won’t. But I find that our audience is very accepting for the most part, and recognize that even if it’s not something they want to do, they still want to know about it. People want to be current.

Samir Husni: Stephen, from an advertiser’s point of view, you don’t have the same luxury that Stephen does with the editorial: if someone doesn’t love something, no big deal, they’ll find something they do love. With your advertisers, can you afford to have someone not love you?

Stephen Bohlinger: (Laughs) It’s all about the education process. Think about the median age of our magazine buyers today; our media planners across the country. They keep getting younger every year. The funny thing is, I now have my two kids in the industry, they’re 25 and 24, and they didn’t come up in the same way as young media planners did 20 years ago, which meant their magazines were coming in and it was their priority. They have this thing called mobile in their hands today, so it’s the education process. When we’re talking to them, no matter what account that they’re working on, it’s just explaining to them the significance and the relevance of a magazine brand, specifically the size and scope of Better Homes and Gardens.

So, you really need to slow it down a little bit. And you need to get in there and educate this young team of new media planners that are coming up, and why print. Print in its Omni-channel experience, the way Better Homes & Gardens is presented, is so very important to the ROI of their client’s business. Whether they’re targeting 25-34, 25-54, or 55+, we’re a big brand and no matter how you slice it, we can do runs against your business spec and show why we’re efficient against your business.

Advertisers today are looking for efficiencies and they’re looking for efficiencies with ROI’s. And Better Homes and Gardens provides that. We’re the best and the most efficient, and we’re not compromising our product to get you there. And that’s what Stephen and I do; we meet and talk on a weekly basis.

What I love about Stephen is he has two residences, one here on the East Coast, and one in Des Moines, so he’s back and forth. And when he’s in New York, we meet face-to-face and if he’s in Des Moines, we’re on the phone. He becomes to me like my publishing director. He’s a student of the industry; he’s not just an editor. He’s a modern-day editor who understands the ebbs and flows and the unique asks of advertisers today, and we talk openly about that regularly. And about how best we can work with them, so that they win and our consumers win.

Samir Husni: When you and your team are selling the magazine, are you selling it as an Omni-channel or are you selling each format separate, such as print, digital, video, etc.?

Stephen Bohlinger: You might recall the old brand wheel. The old brand wheel would have the magazine in the middle and then the spokes would be our special interest magazines, our video, our digital, our partnership with Wal-Mart; whatever it may have been. Now, the brand is in the middle – the brand being Better Homes and Gardens, and the magazine becomes a spoke. So, when we present the brand, we present it as an Omni-channel first and foremost, that’s the first slide we show.

Then it depends on what the need of the advertiser is. Sometimes the advertisers that we’re calling on are very specific, such as just print buyers. But we always present the brand as an Omni-channel out of the gate, and we put the consumer, our client, in the middle, whatever their need is, and then everyone decides. If they want just certain things, we can talk to them about that too. We really let them have it the way they want it.

Stephen Orr: And I’d also add to that about the Omni-channel, multiplatform strategy; we’ve been hearing from readers that they’re on every platform that they want to be on. They’re very savvy. They go where they want to get the information the way they want to find it. If they want to find a Butternut squash recipe, they Google it or search for it on bhg.com. If they want to see things in the print magazine, because many of them will say, even millennials, that they like a paper product on certain points because it’s easier to show their husband or their partner an idea, rather than having to find it on their phone. They can just dog-ear the page and then discuss whatever it is with them. So, they’re very savvy about how they use every platform and we as a brand need to be wherever they want and need us to be.

Samir Husni: How do you decide what content is best for which platform?

Stephen Orr: You could say that one topic could be expressed differently and what’s the reader’s desire on how they want to receive that information? So, let’s say, in the digital space; if people are going to a website, they’re looking for something specific. Generally speaking, they’re coming in looking for one thing that they want; a certain recipe, or a certain way to do some home improvement, or a DIY project. In the magazine, what we always talk about as editors is that we’re showing people things that we think they want before they know they want it. So, we’re giving them ideas and inspiration before they actually recognize it. It’s a surprise for them; it’s more of an a-ha.

It’s less likely, unless they’re spending a lot of time working their way through the website, that they’re going to have all of those a-ha moments. So, two ways we service to them in ways they don’t know they want yet is through the print magazine and social media. People look at their Instagram, and it’s served to them much like the print magazine is; it’s things we think they’ll like, and they either like or they don’t, right? They either hit the red heart or they don’t hit the red heart.

Also on Pinterest; if someone is looking for inspiration for a bathroom remodel, they’re looking for something specific. They may also go into their Pinterest account just to look at beautiful images that are served to them in their account. But generally speaking, a lot of people are looking for something specific there. So, we’re there however they like to receive information.

As a journalist, one of the most exciting parts is to give people what they want before they know they want it. That’s very exciting and the trend part of what we’re trying to do.

Samir Husni: In this day and age, where people are bombarded by information and the Web is available at the touch of your fingertips; what makes people come to Better Homes and Gardens?

Stephen Orr: Trust, 100 percent. We’re trusted and they know us. We put our recipes through every kind of testing that you can do in our test kitchen in Des Moines. We’ve done all of the homework and we have the knowledge.

When I go looking for a recipe, a new something that I want to make for Thanksgiving dinner maybe, I have to really compare what the sources are. And as you know from news particularly, what’s given to you on Facebook and through different social media, such as Twitter; you really have to look and see where it’s coming from. And now more than ever, an authentic sense of trust with a brand is more valuable than anything. So, in many ways that’s what we’re giving people is trust, because if it just came from some random spot, it may not work out. But our stuff works and that’s why people keep coming back for all these many decades.

Samir Husni: And how important is that trust factor in advertising in today’s fake ads, fake information, fake you name it?

Stephen Bohlinger: It’s at the top of the list. They want to trust the editorial product; they want to trust the editor; that’s why the most important thing that I can do for my clients is to get my editor in chief, Stephen Orr, in front of them. Recently, we had a meeting out in the Midwest and Stephen was in town, and Crate & Barrel were also there, and we had a meeting with them and it wasn’t a sales pitch at all, really. It was really to talk about how Stephen curates his edits; and is a modern-day editor’s role different today than it was maybe even four or five years ago, and certainly 20 years ago.

And it was an eye-opening presentation, and something that we’re going to consider taking to some other clients, because it’s not a sales pitch; it’s really about the trust of what Stephen has built with his editorial team across the country, and why this is a relevant product today. Where he’s getting his information through social and how he’s finding new ways to inspire and invigorate these readers, which has just been tremendous. And that’s all about trust.

Samir Husni: Meredith is known for reaching more women than any other company; you have the corner on the women’s market in this country, in terms of media brands. Do you ever feel any internal competition? There’s Martha, Rachael, Allrecipes, Chip and Joanna Gaines; is there any feeling of internal competition among the many successful brands?

Stephen Orr: Editorially, absolutely not. I’ve never worked at a company where the editors are as closely-knit together. We have regular meetings and phone calls. If one of us has a question about what another person is doing for a specific ad, integration, or app, we just pick up the phone and talk. It’s a completely open-door policy here among the editors, and non-competitive.

Just to make our portfolio as productive and diverse as possible, I share my cover ideas for as many months out as I can with other titles, so that we can make sure we’re not duplicating cover ideas, because especially around the holidays, you might get the same turkey or Christmas tree idea, and we want to show diversity among our cover images, so we share those images to make sure we’re not working on the same idea. Sometimes we make a mistake, and double up, but we try not to as much as we can. And that kind of sharing I’ve never experienced at any other publishing company.

Stephen Bohlinger: And from the advertising perspective, I’ll mirror what Stephen said. I was 20 years at Tine Inc. and we certainly got together and shared, but nothing like we do here at the Meredith Corporation. We have publishers meet weekly on Friday mornings at 8:00 a.m. and it’s full disclosure. We’re sharing with one another, there’s a great respect for each other, and we don’t let it get in each other’s way. At the end of the day, we want the Meredith Corporation to win and that’s at the forefront. When Meredith wins, we all win. Obviously, we have our own individual brands, but we don’t ever feel the internal competition like you might at other publishing houses.

Samir Husni: Stephen, do you feel like a Midwesterner now? Have you adjusted to the move?

Stephen Orr: I feel like I have the best of both worlds. And many New Yorkers are from somewhere else; I consider myself a New Yorker, but I was born and raised in West Texas and left right after college and moved to New York City. So, I’ve lived most of my life in New York City, but now I’m two and a half years in Des Moines, and I think as a magazine editor, what really works for me is that I can be in New York once every six weeks, and I can soak up as many of those trends and fresh ideas that you get on the streets in New York. Just the way people present themselves; all of the diversity that you see; all the ideas you can pick up from an art museum or a new store or a new restaurant. All of those things help me come back and talk to my editors, and we have New York editors as well, of course, for that reason.

And then when I’m in Des Moines, what’s great is that I’m in the middle of the country, and Iowa has always been symbolic of the heart and soul of middle America, it’s a bellwether state on so many different points, and it’s great to be able to connect with people who live in the Midwest and that way I can understand our reader, many of whom do not live in NYC, obviously. So, I have the best of both possible worlds. I love it and the house I have in Des Moines is my favorite house that I’ve ever lived in. And I love my garden. It’s been great all around.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Stephen Bohlinger: For me it would be that I care about people. At the end of the day, the most important thing to me is respect and reputation. And it all begins and ends with who you surround yourself with. I’m the son of a coach; my father was a high school gym coach and I learned a lot about how he treated everyone with respect. And that’s something that has carried with me my entire life and I take it very personally. I have three children of my own and the most important thing that you can do and hold is your reputation, and that starts with how you treat people.

I’ve been very fortunate to be in the industry for a long time and I’ve been a publisher since 2004, which the lifespan of a publisher if you Google it, is not really as long as I’ve been happy to enjoy. And I’ve been able to take with me some of the best people in the industry because of the respect that we have for one another.

Stephen Orr: I would say good. I think there’s something about that word that gets overlooked because many lean more toward great. But there’s something about good that is very solid and lasting. And if that was something that I was known for I would be very happy. To be known as a good person and someone who did good work and worked with good people like Stephen Bohlinger and all of the editors I work with, I think that word gets overlooked a lot.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; cooking; watching TV; or something else?

Stephen Orr: I would be cooking and gardening.

Stephen Bohlinger: I would be coaching, youth Lacrosse or helping out with the youth basketball team. Again, I’m the son of a coach and a lot of what I’ve learned as an athlete, I played Lacrosse in college, and both my boys played collegiately and I coached them. It’s the greatest joy. I consider my job here as a publisher as a coach. I refer to myself as that, and when you’re a coach, you get some great satisfaction. So, that’s what you would find me doing at home, coaching.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Stephen Orr: Invariably, it’s making sure the people that work with me on my team have what they need to succeed in a time of shrinking resources, and it’s not always shrinking, sometimes it’s moving, probably more moving than shrinking. It’s the constantly shifting landscape of media and I just want to make sure that the people I work with have all of the resources that they can use to succeed and thrive.

Stephen Bohlinger: For me, it’s one word: short-term-itis. I don’t even know if it’s a word, but I was at a conference and someone used it and it really stuck with me. And what I mean by short-term-itis is in the industry today we’re always closing the next issue and looking at what’s in front of us at the moment. And what keeps me up is as a publisher and a leader of this great brand, you have to have a 30-60-90, right? You have to think long-term and sometimes you’re going to take your hits and your lumps, but you can’t get caught up with short-term-itis.

That keeps me up a little bit, and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. We’re going to be around for a long, long time in print and the brand, Better Homes & Gardens, will be around for another 100 years. And you can’t think short-term-itis.

Samir Husni: Thank you.