Magazine Publishers of America
Thanks to our Advertisers
Thanks to our Sponsors
Ladies’ Home Journal Launches Ambitious “Do Good” Initiative
By Tony Case for MPA
With altruism always in fashion—but especially during these challenging times, when so many need a helping hand— Meredith’s stalwart women’s service brand Ladies’ Home Journal (LHJ) is launching the “Do Good” initiative, to recognize women and companies that are making a difference.
First introduced in the March 2009 issue of LHJ, the program—which includes in-book editorial and advertising elements, a web channel and the “Do Good” Stamp, an insignia that recognizes brands and companies committed to philanthropy—will be rolling out over the next several months. LHJ has partnered with the television network We on the initiative.
As the magazine’s VP/publisher Julie Pinkwater points out, “Do Good” is very much “in the DNA” of LHJ, which introduced the column “Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman” way back in 1941—and to this day still publishes the column and uses its title as the brand’s tagline.
LHJ senior VP/editor-in-chief Sally Lee stresses that “Do Good” has its roots in editorial, in fact. “There is a growing awareness among all magazine editors that their readership is wanting for deeper spiritual values,” she says. “There was a backlash against consumerism even before this recession hit. People were already saying: Is that all there is?”
LHJ launched the editorial component of the “Do Good” project with a recent profile of three friends in Delaware who created a community garden that’s become a popular gathering spot for kids who maintain it as well as help out with other neighborhood-improvement projects. LHJ says each issue of the magazine will feature stories about ordinary women doing charitable deeds that can be replicated in neighborhoods around the country.
Besides in-book content, another important element of the project is the “Do Good” Channel on the web, which includes features such as social-networking, event-planning and volunteer-matching tools, discussion boards and editorial pieces. LHJ also designed a “Do Good” widget, which readers can use to sign up for a doing-good challenge every day via the web channel as well as Facebook and Twitter. Says Lee, “The online component is critical. Our readers can take the inspiration they get from the magazine and go out and do [these things] in their own lives. With the web and through our partnerships, we can give them a means to act and a means to connect.”
In another key part of the undertaking, LHJ will award the “Do Good” Stamp to brands that can use the insignia on their packaging and in their marketing and promotions to raise awareness of their philanthropic involvement. To be awarded the Stamp, companies must first apply for review by an independent advisory panel. Applications will be considered on a quarterly basis, with LHJ recognizing chosen companies via in-book advertorials throughout the year.
Pinkwater stresses that a company does not have to be an LHJ advertiser in order to be considered for the Stamp. Nor, the publisher adds, does she herself sit on the advisory board. “We are keeping it very pure,” Pinkwater says.
LHJ also will recognize those companies that are doing good via in-book editorial pieces. Some of those singled out thus far on the magazine’s edit pages include Avon, Aveeno and State Farm.
In another benefit for the edit side, the “Do Good” initiative provides LHJ with a deeper, more personal connection to the celebrities it profiles in every issue, Lee suggests—including actress Drew Barrymore, who shared with LHJ readers about her work helping to combat world hunger, and model Heidi Klum, who spoke of her affiliation with the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women campaign.
“Our readers are interested in those things,” says Lee. “At some point, they don’t want to hear about somebody’s divorce or their struggles with bulimia or their sordid affairs—they want good news, happy news with a positive focus. In this age when a lot of celebrity magazines are giving us that kind of stuff—whether we want it or not—we want to be positive. And I think that will serve us well.”
