MAGAZINES GIVES TARGET A HEALTHY LOOK

CHAPIN CLARK

MINNEAPOLIS -- Target Stores here has published the first of three scheduled 1998 issues of a custom magazine aimed at identifying the retailer as a source of health care and information.

The free magazine, Target the Family Health, is an offshoot of Target the Family, a custom magazine the retailer has been offering since 1992. Both publications are produced by Gruner Jahr USA Publishing, New York, which publishes such consumer magazines as Parents, McCall's, YM and Family Circle.

"It's an opportunity [for Target] to create something new for their customers, and to encourage them to shop more and to spend more in their stores," said Doug MacKay, Gruner Jahr's director of custom publishing and the publisher of Target the Family Health.

The magazines, MacKay said, are a way to show customers "why it's better to shop with one particular retailer than another." Target officials declined to comment.

MacKay said the company is now in negotiations with a few "very strong regional supermarket chains" to produce similar magazines.

"The interest level [among supermarkets] is very high, and the funding available through vendors is a very desirable option," he said.

In Target stores now, the inaugural issue of Target the Family Health is 32 pages and features articles on asthma, children's immunizations, the female menstrual cycle and family health histories. The content, MacKay said, is prepared expressly for Target by the staff of Parents -- the Parents logo is on the cover as well -- a magazine with a circulation of 2.8 million.

One page of Target the Family Health features a department entitled "Ask Your Pharmacist," a question-and-answer piece written by a Target pharmacist.