Saltwater GIRL - organic growth

Saltwater GIRL, one of South Africa's most popular teen female titles, has experienced the sort of circulation boom that was previously thought impossible in South Africa's fickle youth publishing industry. With a circulation growth of 582% in three years, the Durban-based magazine has to be one of the great success stories of the South African publishing industry this millennium.

And yet it isn't the circulation growth itself that the magazine's publishers, Atoll Media, are excited about, but rather the fact that the readership growth has been constant and organic.

"A 582% circulation growth in three years is an incredible statistic," says Atoll Media's managing director Craig Sims, "but it hides the real value of the Saltwater GIRL magazine readership base. The circulation tells the story of a readership that has grown not by flooding the market, but rather by measured and sustained increases over a period of time."

Saltwater GIRL says to the teenage girl that she doesn't have to sacrifice her femininity to do cool things, and young women all over South Africa embrace this philosophy. The magazine has tapped into a changing mindset and the result has seen a phenomenal increase in the magazine's popularity, which has manifested itself in consistent circulation growth.

"When Saltwater GIRL was first launched we recognised the demand for a whole new lifestyle magazine, one that delivers aspirational, teen-specific content in a unique and refreshingly positive way," says editor, Lari Brown.

While the magazine's organic growth is due to Saltwater GIRL's unconventional approach, the magazine's real value lies in the nature of the relationship between the reader and Saltwater GIRL - a relationship where trust and loyalty usurp fleeting curiosity and makes sales far more predictable and reliable.

"The significance to our advertising partners is that our consumer profile is based on real demand and not just the transient curiosity that characterises the burst strategies common to most high profile magazine launches," says Associate Publisher John McCarthy. "We know that our readers really want the magazine for its content and that they consume its contents cover to cover. This represents a more valuable environment for the advertiser."