Ocean Drive magazine asks shoppers to sit back, relax Ocean Drive will open branded lounges at two area shopping malls, Dadeland and Boca Town Center, as a new marketing strategy

Ocean Drive magazine to open branded lounges at malls

Weary shoppers at Dadeland Mall and Boca Town Center will soon have a cozy corner to put up their feet and leaf through a magazine -- Ocean Drive magazine, to be precise.

Ocean Drive and mall owner Simon Property Group have teamed up to launch branded lounges -- Ocean Drive Espanol at the Kendall mall in September and Ocean Drive in Boca Raton in October. The lounges will be furnished with specially designed couches, armchairs, coffee tables -- and a big display rack filled with magazines that patrons will be free to take with them or read on site.

"It's a unique way of getting magazines to people," said Jerry Powers, president and publisher of Ocean Drive.

The move is the latest for a company that has focused relentlessly on branding, expanding over a decade to push into new markets for magazines and "lifestyle" products. Four months ago, it rolled out similarly branded lounges in two Atlanta malls for Ocean Drive's sister publication, Atlanta Peach.

The lounges, which opened in April, have almost doubled Atlanta Peach's distribution, from 25,000 to 40,000 copies a month, and also function as a branding tool.

'LIKE BILLBOARDS'

"We resupply every day with a couple hundred copies," Powers said. "Plus, people are passing by the lounges -- they're like billboards."

For the malls, the lounges are an added amenity for patrons and they're proving popular as places for shoppers to take a break or wait for spouses, said Jeff Pierce, vice president of mall marketing for Atlanta-based Simon Property Group.

"It has truly exceeded our expectations," he said. 'We have not found one magazine lying on the floor or on a chair -- that clearly means people love the product. We've had other magazines come in and say, 'What would it take to get in there.' "

But Ocean Drive's deal with Simon locks out other magazines from being marketed in the same way in the malls.

EXPOSURE BENEFITS

Steve Cohn, who tracks the magazine publishing as editor-in-chief of the Media Industry Newsletter, said he knew of no similar deal in the business. Even though the magazine is being given away, the added exposure should benefit advertisers, he noted.

"For their purposes, it might be just as valuable for the advertiser," Cohn said.

At Dadeland, the lounges will be located outside Nordstrom's and Saks Fifth Avenue, while at Boca Town Center, they will be outside Saks and Neiman Marcus.

Ocean Drive has a current distribution of 70,000; Ocean Drive Espanol 45,000.

Both Pierce and Powers said they will expand the concept in other cities where both parties have interests and could broaden the lounge to offer other services and products.

Meanwhile, Powers is gearing up to launch a new luxury glossy magazine in Chicago in March. "We see it as wide open for us from the high-end luxury market."