It is primarily niche magazines that drive the growth of magazine brands. In the United States, for example, the top two magazines in circulation growth were Men’s Health and Women’s Health, according to Capell's Circulation Report’s 26th annual “Best Performers in Circulation” list for 2008, as reported in Folio magazine (the niche magazine of the magazine industry). Other niche magazines in the top ten included the business magazine Fast Company, the cooking magazine Every Day with Rachel Ray, the home magazine House Beautiful and the woman’s magazine Elle.

Perhaps what’s most remarkable about niche magazine brands is their ability to serve extremely narrow audiences and still survive. Niche magazines offer intimate, focused and thoroughly vetted brands because—via specialized content, design and brand promise—they appeal to the specific values of limited segments of people. This sense of exclusivity creates a tight bond—more so than with larger, more generalized magazine brands. In fact, the Publishers Information Bureau indicated a nearly 12 percent decline in US magazine ad pages in 2008—but niche magazines such as Organic Gardening and Technology Review had ad page increases of more than 25 percent each.

One of the strongest niche magazine markets is the regionals—those magazines that target a specific city or region. One of the long-time survivors, New York magazine, began publishing as a weekly in 1968 and today boasts 1.6 million weekly readers. At the 2007 National Magazine Awards, New York won five awards, including one for general excellence in its circulation category. Its sophisticated masthead has remained unchanged since its launch.

In the US, 24 new regionals launched in 2008, according to MediaFinder.com. They included Business New England, Virginia Wine Lover, New Heights (Tampa, Florida) and New West (Western Mountain), according to Folio magazine. Some regionals segment their brands even further: Dallas, Texas–based D magazine, for example, has spun off D Home, D CEO and D Weddings.

Another area of robust growth has been business-to-business and professional magazines. In the world of information technology, for example, niche magazine branding is anything but stagnant. One publisher, IDG, is responsible for all of these major global print/online niche publications, read by more than 200 million each month: ChannelWorld, CIO, Computerworld, CSO, DigitalWorld, GamePro, InfoWorld/TechWorld/TecChannel, Macworld, Network World and PC World. IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers around the world, branding many of its major conferences and events under its publications’ names.

Barry Silverstein has been a frequent brandchannel contributor since 2007. He has thirty years of advertising and marketing experience and is currently a freelance writer and marketing consultant. He founded and ran his own direct marketing agency and held executive positions with Epsilon, a leading database marketing firm and Arnold, a major ad agency. Silverstein is the author of three marketing books, including the McGraw-Hill book, The Breakaway Brand, which he co-authored with Arnold CEO Fran Kelly.