IN LIFE, DOGS BECOME BRANDS' BEST FRIENDS

Where there is a strong logical connection between a magazine and a brand, a tie-in promotion can be a natural.

urina signed on as the sole advertiser in Life's Best Friends special magazine, which featured 70 photos of people and their pets reproduced from Life's archives. It carried a cover price of $4.95.

The magazine was offered free at store checkouts to consumers who purchased two or more 4-pound bags of five Purina pet food brands: Dog Chow, Puppy Chow, Purina Senior, Purina Hi Pro and Fit & Trim.

"People who are pet lovers love all sorts of things having to do with pets," says Tera Miller, a spokeswoman for Ralston Purina. "This is a made-to-order promotional item for our consumers."

Miller says this was the first time Purina had participated in such a specific tie-in.

"Our big goals were to add value for the retailer and drive people to the retailer," she says, but she lists other key objectives, including "to get in-store merchandising and to move product."

About 850,000 copies of Best Friends were printed for the promotion, says Mark Hintsa, marketing/franchise development director of Life.

The books were mainly distributed through retail stores, packed in freestanding shippers that could be located near checkouts or adjacent to Purina pet food displays.

Purina would not cite the number of retail outlets that carried the magazine, but Miller said it was "available in stores nationwide."

Because it is owned by Time Warner, Life was able to rely on Time Distribution Services to handle the distribution and placement of the magazine displays, a significant advantage in execution, Hintsa adds.

To kick off the promotion and drive consumers to the retail stores, Purina ran a national FSI in June with a total circulation of 48.5 million.

There was also a significant public relations effort behind the event, which scored its most notable success when the newspaper USA Today ran a story and photo on the front page of its Life section.

"That let people know it was out there," Miller says.

Life has only done one similar single-sponsor publication before this one, and that was in fall 1990, when it produced a special issue to commemorate Kellogg's Cornflakes' 85th anniversary. Called Classic Moments, it also was available free with purchase to consumers.

Hintsa said the publisher regarded such single-sponsor publications as a means of generating extra revenue for Life, and noted that such special events might at times be a way to "tap into the promotion budget" of some brand marketers.