Redwood subsdiary rolls out Procter & Gamble custom pub Rouge

Women's magazines that rely on health and beauty advertising will be paying close attention to a new custom magazine that comes from one of their biggest advertisers.

Rouge, a custom beauty magazine designed for Procter & Gamble Co. by Javelin, a unit of Redwood Custom Communications of Toronto, is being rolled out to somewhere between 6 and 7 million U.S. households across the United States. This follows a test in various markets in the U.S. and Canada. The quarterly, aimed at "beauty involved females", contains coupons for brands like Pantene, Olay and Crest and the editorial content is health- and beauty-focussed.

P & G expects the circulation to reach 11 million households by mid-October 2010 -- 7 million in the U.S. and 4 million in Canada, according to a story in Brandweek. The magazine goes to new prospects who the company has identified both as those who request the magazine through various means and those who've shown an interest in beauty as a subject by their subscriptions to other magazine or through beauty-related internet sites.

In its research, P&G—which is known for extensive, consumer-oriented testing—found that 80 percent of readers found Rouge to be comparable to fashion titles such as Marie Claire and Allure in “quality and design.” More than 72 percent of those reading the magazine expressed an interest in receiving it on a regular basis.