Targeting the military target - Military Lifestyle magazine

Targeting The Military Market

"Starting on a shoestring" doesn't begin to describe how Edward M. and Loretta M. Downey launched their magazine, Military Lifestyle, 20 years ago. They had only $20,000 for start-up costs, although advisers told them they would need at least $250,000.

When they put together the first issue on the kitchen table of their Chicago apartment, the Downeys knew little about the high-risk business of magazine publishing, and they knew even less about their readers--military wives.

Apart from Ed Downey's two-year stint in the Air Force in the early 1950s, they had no military background.

But they did know about advertising. Before they quit their jobs to start the magazine, both had worked for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. Loretta was a secretary, and Ed handled food accounts.

When a client expressed interest in developing a marketing program aimed at military families, Ed Downey's boss told him, "Go tell them why it makes no sense to advertise to the military; we already reach them through national advertising." Downey gave it his best shot, but he came back convinced that the client was right: The national media didn't adequately reach the military market, service newspapers focused on male readers, and there was no consumer magazine for military wives.

Having identified a publishing need, the Downeys decided to fill it with their own magazine, which they called Ladycom, military-style shorthand for "lady communications." Says Ed Downey, 58: "It was a marketing venture, pure and simple. There was no burning editorial idea behind it."

At first, says Loretta Downey, 44, "it was a real seat-of-the-pants operation." Potential backers were either afraid of investing in the publishing field, or afraid of investing in the military, or both. Everything that could go wrong did: They paid too much for printing and for office supplies, and their first office was in such a bad neighborhood that Loretta Downey was once mugged in the elevator.

The worst crisis occurred around the magazine's third anniversary, when they owed their printer $100,000. They had hoped the magazine would turn a profit after three years; instead, they were wondering what it would be like to go bankrupt. "We didn't own a house, we drove a second-hand Volkswagen," Loretta Downey recalls. "I remember waking up to ask Ed what could our creditors take, our pots and pans?" A helpful advertiser eased the crunch by paying for a year's advertising in advance.

It took five years for the magazine to turn a profit, but since then it hasn't looked back. In 1976 the Downeys moved the operation to Washington, D.C., because, Ed Downey says, "we wanted to have a higher profile in the military center of the United States." Circulation has grown steadily and now stands at 520,000; in 1988 the magazine grossed $6.5 million. With a staff of 22, it is outgrowing its plush Georgetown offices.

An important ingredient in the magazine's growth is its strong appeal to military wives. The publication is distributed free to shoppers in commissaries, the military equivalent of supermarkets. Almost everything in each issue, from service pieces to fiction to travel articles, has a military slant or addresses the special problems of military wives, who, says Loretta Downey, "are faced with constant moving, family separations, and yanking their children in and out of schools every two years."

In the early 1980s the Downeys became aware that men were reading the magazine, too. Servicemen and husbands began asking why there was no Mancom. "Today more than 10 percent of service members are women," says editor Hope Daniels. "A growing number of service spouses are men." So in 1985 Ladycom became Military Lifestyle. Men are frequently featured on the cover, and the magazine now includes articles on subjects such as family finances, computers, fitness, and sports.

In 1984, with the magazine firmly established, Ed Downey started another marketing venture, Military Audits of Market Information, which monitors sales and prices of consumer products in commissaries nationwide.

The company sells its monthly data reports to manufacturers, which use them to compare sales of competing products and plan future marketing strategies.

Military Audits, which grossed $3 million in 1988, "turned the corner in a year," says Ed Downey, "because we already had a track record in military marketing. Many of our potential clients already knew us through buying advertising in the magazine."

A third business--another magazine--is in the planning stage. The Downeys aren't yet divulging details about their new publication, but like Military Lifestyle, it will be aimed at the military marketplace.

PHOTO : When Ed and Loretta Downey, seen here in their Washington offices, realized that advertisers weren't reaching military families, they started a magazine to fill the gap.

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