The landscape is littered with failed TV projects modeled on magazine brands. Yet this month, Time Inc.'s massively successful women's title Real Simple and cable net TLC will roll out the series Real Simple. Real Life, a lifestyle-makeover show that shares the magazine's mission of helping women simplify their lives with practical advice on family, homemaking, style, health and other topics.

While Real Simple has fashioned a range of smart extensions -- among them, print spinoffs, a syndicated newspaper column and a line of products at Target -- its success on the tube is anything but a sure bet, as Mediaweek's Lucia Moses points out in "Ready, Set, Simple." Still, if anyone can pull it off, it's Real Simple, under the guidance of its visionary president and brand steward, Steve Sachs. Having come up through the consumer-marketing ranks at Time Inc., Sachs -- who is slated to share his wisdom at this week's American Magazine Conference in San Francisco -- is known for getting in the heads of his target audience and developing products that resonate. The new show, with a cross-platform sales strategy that roped in the likes of such sponsors as Kraft, Sears and Aveeno, could finally be the model for publishers looking to make magic in prime time.

Real Simple is among the brands that started life in print but since have spread their influence across a whole sea of sidelines. We spotlight some of the standouts in our annual Magazine Brand Leaders rankings. New to this year's list are power brands like Meredith's Better Homes and Gardens, Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle and Conde Nast's Gourmet. Considering print's horrific prospects, publishers will need to continue to find creative ways to grow their brands. --Tony Case, special reports editor

BRAND LEADERS:

1. BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS

2. ELLE

3. MEN'S HEALTH

4. REAL SIMPLE

5. GOURMET

6. MARTHA STEWART LIVING

7. PEOPLE

8. INSTYLE

9. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

10. COSMOPOLITAN

READY, SET, SIMPLE -- 'SIMPLE LIFE' GOES PRIME TIME




1. BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
At Meredith's stalwart Better Homes and Gardens, multiplatform branding is a household term. A Wal-Mart deal spawned more than 550 BH&G-branded products (including bedding, dinnerware and, this fall, a line of music CDs) while a pact with Universal Furniture put BH&G furniture in stores nationwide. The title has spun off a wine club, international editions (including China and India) and hundreds of SIPs, while this summer saw the launch of the brand's own real estate brokerage. The relaunched bhg.com continues to lure America's homemakers -- and keep them glued (time users spent on the site swelled 116 percent over the last year, per Nielsen Online). Better TV reaches viewers both online and via TV syndication, and the signature red plaid cookbook, after more than 75 years, remains a staple of kitchens everywhere. What will they cook up next?



2. ELLE
Hachette Filipacchi Media's Elle continues to strut its stuff with a constellation of brand extensions, from the airwaves to retail chains. Building off its high-profile relationship with Bravo's Project Runway (on which former fashion director Nina Garcia, now at Hearst's Marie Claire, played a prominent role), this month brings The CW's Stylista, which features Garcia's successor, Anne Slowey, and the magazine's creative director, Joe Zee. Elle's big digital push includes not only the relaunched elle.com but e-mail blasts and microsite "Fall A to Zee," featuring Zee's fashion picks. To boot, a seventh Elle Accessories SIP and the coffee table book Women in Hollywood make a splash this fall. The brand has secured retail tie-ins tailored to fashion plates (Henri Bendel, Bloomingdale's) as well as the hoi polloi (Kohl's). When it comes to brand development, Elle really knows how to work it.



3. MEN'S HEALTH
Call it the brand that just won't quit. Rodale's phenomenally successful Men's Health, along with hit spinoffs Women's Health and Best Life, continue to demonstrate how to translate a print powerhouse into a whole universe of products. Brand steward David Zinczenko spun out best-selling book Eat This, Not That, which itself spawned a blog and, next spring, a bookazine. A 39th international edition of MH launched in France, while a second edition of shelter title Men's Health Living is slated for December. Building on its aggressive digital strategy, MH launched mobile and DVD products this year, while menshealth.com continued to build strength, unique audience growing 70 percent year over year, per Nielsen Online. Women's Health keeps pumping out a range of DVDs, books, bookazines, events, and on and on. Even in weaker times for magazine publishers, this brand has muscle.



4. REAL SIMPLE
Time Inc.'s Real Simple is ready for its closeup. This month, the makeover series Real Simple. Real Life premieres on cable's TLC with a landmark multiplatform sales strategy that may prove to be the standard for publishers looking to expand their brands to TV. The show is just the latest in the brand's rich assortment of extensions, including a Weddings magazine (in association with Crate & Barrel), international editions, a syndicated column in more than 50 newspapers, a partnership with Fresh Direct, an XM Satellite Radio show and products at Target stores. (Thanks to its relationship with Target, its magazine pockets have grown from 3,400 to 10,500 over the last two years.) Unique audience at realsimple.com (relaunching in Q4) has soared 73 percent in the last year, per Nielsen Online. All of which makes for a knockout brand, plain and, well, simple.



5. GOURMET
Conde Nast's Gourmet has churned out a smorgasbord of deliciously innovative spinoffs. This month brings the sixth annual Gourmet Institute, where foodies pony up $1,400 a pop to rub elbows with the brand's editors and top celebrity chefs. This year, Gourmet and sister CN title Cookie launched Kids Restaurant Week in Chicago. Legendary EIC Ruth Reichl has established herself as a one-woman brand, with best-selling memoirs (her fourth comes next spring) and appearances on the Emmy-nominated PBS series Diary of a Foodie (third season bows in January). A new volume of the popular Gourmet Cookbook is on deck. The brand boasts an on-demand channel on TiVo and cookbook club. Launched in January was the lush gourmet.com. Gourmet has solidified its place as the cream of epicurean magazine brands.



6. MARTHA STEWART LIVING
A perennial in these rankings, MSLO's Martha Stewart Living -- after all these years and a seemingly endless roster of products emanating from the magazine that spawned a multimedia empire back in 1991 -- still takes the cake. The indefatigable Stewart and team with a syndicated TV show, Sirius Satellite Radio channel and product lines at Kmart, Wal-Mart, Costco and Macy's, lately have expanded the Martha Stewart Weddings sideline with a Philippines edition and a weddings channel on marthastewart.com. The flagship MSL launched an edition in the former Martha Kostyra's ancestral home of Poland. This year also brought new book titles (Martha Stewart's Cookies, Martha Stewart's Cooking School). Its first-ever Easter crafting and entertaining workshop drew 18,000 attendees, and nearly 40,000 signed up for its Halloween event. At Martha's place, brand building is certainly a good thing.



7. PEOPLE
One of the most successful magazines in history and still going strong in print even during sobering times for publishers, Time Inc.'s People has also been one of the most ambitious when it comes to growing the business beyond the page. Even in the crowded marketplace of celebrity news online, people.com is a star, its unique audience growing 59 percent over the last year, per Nielsen Online. (It was named AdweekMedia's first-ever Magazine Web Site of the Year this year.) November brings a free, ad-supported mobile site. Print spinoffs include a range of SIPs as well as People en Espanol, shopping guide StyleWatch, Hollywood Daily (produced around the Academy Awards) and, more recently, People Country. The brand has also spun out a variety of books and multiple TV tie-ins, with ABC, CMT and Extra. No other celebrity weekly comes close to the brand dominance of this player.



8. INSTYLE
Time Inc.'s InStyle remains one of the most ambitious magazine brands around, putting its name on a vast assortment of print, digital and TV projects as well as events. Print sidelines include InStyle Makeover (published every fall), the quarterly InStyle Weddings and 14 global editions (most recently, China). New next spring: InStyle Hair (rate base 500,000). TV tie-ins include the appearance of two InStyle editors on an episode of The CW's hit Gossip Girl this month. Its Web site offers a range of fun applications, including the Hollywood Hair Makeover Tool (resulting in more than 50 million hairstyle "try-ons" in one year, per the brand) and a shopping platform that generated $4 million in sales since launch nine months ago. InStyle also has content partnerships with MSN, CNN and Yahoo!. Despite a crush of celebrity-centric titles, its standing as a magazine power brand is undiminished.



9. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Time Inc.'s Entertainment Weekly keeps in the spotlight with a range of smart brand extensions, including the hugely successful ew.com. With more than 3.4 million unique visitors per month, the site's audience ballooned 146 percent year over year, per Nielsen Online. (Magazine Publishers of America dubbed it Web Site of the Year in the entertainment category in '06.) The site this fall spawns TV Fan, billed as "the ultimate community" for lovers of television. The brand hosts an array of high-profile events around the most important happenings in entertainment-from the Oscars, Emmys and Sundance Film Festival (of which EW has been a presenting sponsor for 17 years) to the TV networks' annual upfront presentations. It also boasts partnerships with TiVo, Hulu and Bravo, and TV tie-ins with Cinemax and TV Land. This player is a superstar when it comes to magazine brand proliferation.



10. COSMOPOLITAN
Leave it to Hearst's Cosmopolitan to grab attention. This past April, the brand staged its first-ever Bikini Bash, a photo shoot on Miami's South Beach that had 500 swimsuit-sporting fans spell out C-O-S-M-O. Last month brought StarLaunch, an American Idol-style search, via YouTube, for the next big female rock star. Also new: a branded TV channel from Corus Entertainment featuring entertainment and lifestyle programming. Its Sirius Satellite Radio channel generates more calls per hour than any besides Howard Stern's, per the magazine. The brand's Web site is on fire, with unique users up 32 percent, time spent up 171 percent and page views up a massive 236 percent, per Nielsen Online. And Cosmo Fake Calls -- which gives the woman stuck on a bad date an escape via her mobile, for 99 cents a pop -- remains one of the most ingenious magazine sidelines we've seen.




READY, SET, SIMPLE

After cranking out an array of successful sidelines-from spinoff magazines to products at Target -- 'Real Simple' sets its sights on prime time

Lucia Moses

The launch of Real Simple's weekly reality makeover show on Discovery Communications' TLC was fewer than four weeks away, and Steve Sachs, president of Time Inc.'s hugely successful women's lifestyle brand, sat screening the show with his top executives. As the clips rolled by, Sachs' attention turned to Gina, one of the show's subjects, whom its experts ambushed to find out whether she'd been following their diet and exercise tips.

"Did we find stuff she's not doing?" Sachs wondered aloud. "That, to me, is part of what is good about this."

That attention to every point, every detail isn't a surprise considering that the series called Real Simple. Real Life and premiering Oct. 18 -- is the brand's big bet that it can make it as a bona fide player in prime time.

The show is actually Real Simple's second foray into television. The magazine brand got its feet wet with a PBS show that aired for two seasons, ending in December 2007. That show -- in which editors joined other experts in providing tips associated with the title's various content areas, including organizing and cooking-was a hit with viewers and the program's sponsors, which included TIAA-CREF, The Container Store, L'Oreal and Aveeno. But on commercial-free PBS, Real Simple couldn't promote its magazine or its Web site, sell ads or integrate advertisers' products into the scripts. "We knew we had to do more commercially," Sachs says.

So two years ago, Sachs and Real Simple managing editor Kristin van Ogtrop started mulling a concept based on the brand's core mission of making life easier. The idea they settled on would recruit average American women, juggling kids, home and work, and feature a team of experts to step in and help the subjects simplify their day-to-day routines. Sachs met with TLC in July 2007, and seven months later the parties signed a deal for 15 episodes. Real Simple. Real Life counts Saturn, SC Johnson, Kraft, Sears and Aveeno as initial sponsors.

In attempting to spin off a commercially viable TV series, Real Simple is venturing into territory few publishers have tried-let alone succeeded at.

From TV Guide, whose awards show recognizing readers' television favorites ended in 2001 after three years, to Vibe, with its own lapsed music awards show, the landscape is "littered with dead corpses of magazines trying to go into television," says Andy Friendly, a veteran TV producer and consultant on the new show. In some cases, Friendly says, editors acted as producers -- and editors, he says flatly, "don't know how to do television."

For its new project, Real Simple is leaving the TV work up to the pros. Still, there are obvious risks. The show could fail to find an audience, or could end up misinterpreting the magazine's values, alienating readers and viewers. The joint Real Simple-TLC sales strategy that ties the magazine, show and Web site could fall apart. "It's hard to do," exporting a magazine to TV, Sachs acknowledges, adding, "In order to translate it well, you have to have a differentiated brand promise."

If Real Simple's successful history of ambitiously expanding the brand beyond its print origins is any indication, the new show may very well have legs. While magazine publishers continue to weather bleak conditions -- the result of a perfect storm of declining circulation, dwindling ad pages and swelling costs -- they increasingly are extending their brands to other platforms, most notably digital products.

Magazines have reaped mixed success with their sidelines, but Real Simple boasts an impressive track record. The brand has spawned a Web site, mobile products, a syndicated column distributed in more than 50 newspapers, a daily XM Satellite Radio show and a line of 28 branded products at Target stores. It's spun off themed magazines around the subjects of family, travel and weddings, as well as a stable of international print editions. In addition to traditional sales channels, Real Simple is sold through innovative partnerships with retailers including The Container Store, Pottery Barn and Fresh Direct.

Fourth quarter brings the relaunch of realsimple.com, with enhanced community features and hundreds of how-to videos and personalizable checklists (for grocery shopping, cleaning projects and the like). And the Target line will expand next year.

All the while, the 2 million-circ print edition remains one of the reigning women's lifestyle magazines. Its 2,090 ad pages last year (per Mediaweek Monitor) ranked it second only to Hearst's O, the Oprah Magazine in the category. But the soft economy has eaten into that success this year. Through October, ad pages are down 15.4 percent to 1,399 versus last year, chiefly due to declines in the all-important categories of food and home products. Still, it has brought in a roster of new accounts this year, including Skyy Vodka, The North Face and GE Appliances.

Sachs rose through the consumer-marketing ranks before becoming publisher of Real Simple in 2005, his first publisher's post. (He was promoted to president this past February.) That background makes him an unusual choice for publisher, one might think, by not having come up through the sales ranks. Then again, the success of the brand -- with its famous affinity among its die-hard fans -- clearly owes much to the inordinate amount of time Sachs spends thinking about Real Simple's audience and what they have on their minds.

Sachs says he learned much from his boss, Time Inc. chairman and CEO Ann Moore, who oversaw the launch of Real Simple as president of the People Group. "Her philosophy was, start with the consumer, build a great product for the consumer and everything else will follow," Sachs recalls. "Everything goes through our brand filters. If it doesn't fit in it, we don't do it."

Sachs says he also relies on nontraditional research, checking in with what he calls his "little kitchen cabinet" of friends and relatives who also happen to be the brand's target audience.

"He understands the consumer's needs and really gets the type of research that needs to be done," says Stephanie George, evp at Time Inc., who has oversight for Real Simple.

George remembers Sachs convincing Target to display the magazine alongside its branded products. (As a result, over the last two years, the magazine's pockets at the retail chain have swelled from 3,400 to 10,500.) "He learned a lot more about what their business platform was like," George says. "We were able to improve our relationship with Target based on all that." Sachs' wonkiness has made fans of buyers, too. "You ask a question and you're going to get a 50-page deck with an answer," says Robin Steinberg, svp, director of print investment and activation at MediaVest. "He really gives you the why's. He does his homework."

While it may seem Real Simple never met a brand extension it didn't like, Sachs is, in fact, ruthless about rejecting ideas that don't fit the brand.

Its products must first answer the needs of the consumer, and must be different from anything else out there. (Proposed lines of pet food, sheets and house paint didn't make the cut.) This is a brand, after all, that is serious about its mission of helping women make their hectic lives less crazed. Sachs is equally adamant that ads must mesh with the brand. Bill Bell, group media strategy director at Lowe New York, recalls Real Simple rejecting an ad because it featured a celebrity who didn't complement the magazine's message. "They're protective of the brand," says Bell. "They were willing to walk away from an ad if it doesn't match up with their objectives."

While the old PBS show essentially copied the look and feel of Real Simple magazine -- with its spare design, understated color scheme and stark photos of napkin rings, tangled Christmas lights and stacks of laundry -- Sachs and van Ogtrop knew that approach wouldn't work with a commercial program. "I'm not saying you can't make 'calm and quiet' successful," van Ogtrop says. "But consumers come to the magazine for a certain emotional benefit. TV doesn't generally work that way. We knew we had to approach our TV show with a different filter."

The Real Simple team worked alongside Friendly and TV consultant David Stanley for two years on everything from the business model to set design. The brand worked with TLC to select producers, guests and the host, while keeping its "everywoman" message top of mind. Kit Hoover, from MTV's Road Rules and ESPN2's Cold Pizza, was tapped as host. As a busy working mom of three, she also happens to be the brand's perfect target. "We really wanted to find a host who could relate to the lives of the women we were meeting," says van Ogtrop.

Equally important was picking subjects whose lives would be relatable. "It's not the woman on life support who has five kids," says van Ogtrop. (Feel-good programming along the lines of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition it's not.) Instead, producers chose women like Gina, who wolfs down cake for breakfast while running a successful handbag business, and Cheryl, a harried mother of two. "It kind of makes you cry because, I think, I relate to the women," says van Ogtrop, who, with three children aged 18 months, 10 years and 13 years, is herself right in Real Simple's sweet spot.

Equal nurture went into the business plan. Kevin White, Real Simple's publisher, knew the cross-platform model had its potential problems, considering the disparate sales cultures across various media. "It's a hard model," he admits. Yet, he found common ground with his TLC counterpart, John Barry, senior vp, ad sales, Eastern region. "John and I basically talked four times a day," says White. They insisted advertisers buy across all elements -- print, TV and online. The response wowed them, with some 70 advertisers requesting the RFP.

Steinberg, whose client Kraft wound up as a sponsor, says she took a chance on an unproven show because "we felt that they gave us enough information to make us feel confident enough to take the risk. And we really believe in the brand."

Corporate parent Time Warner is committing its considerable resources, reducing the risk, Stanley says. Still, Sachs, van Ogtrop and team have their work cut out for them. The in-book section tied to the show is produced long before airdate. Product integration must be true to the show and the magazine brand. And advertisers are being required to commit big money to a multiplatform buy. "It's doing the thing everyone says they want to do, but in practice are afraid to do," Stanley says.

But as Sachs points out, the show is built on a foundation of deep research and innovative ways of doing business. "Real Simple has been known for doing new things and figuring out different models. There's a lot of great lifestyle content on the air. The good news about Real Simple is that our brand promise of beautiful, practical solutions to make life easier and the way we deliver on that, nobody does that exactly on TV."

Moses is senior editor covering magazines for Mediaweek.