Meredith Publishing’s (NYSE - MDP) Better Homes and Gardens SIP is the first publishing company to use an innovative new magazine cover research method designed to “catch the eye” of the consumer.

Research indicates that 80 percent of consumer magazines’ newsstand sales are determined by what is on the cover. The decision-making process at the point-of-purchase (the newsstand) is short. The average potential reader spends only three to five seconds scanning a magazine cover before deciding to buy. When it comes to newsstand and in-store sales time is money.

NameQuest’s Online Ideal Magazine Cover™ (patent pending) is the first and only research methodology that engages the consumer directly in the custom creation of the ideal magazine cover. Utilizing the most advanced Internet-based expertise, publishing companies now have available essential person-brand interactivity in the development of an “eye-catching” magazine cover.

The method for conducting the interactive Ideal Magazine Cover research is to use the “drag and drop” cursor function to build the perfectly designed magazine cover by stacking various pre-selected elements until the final magazine cover design is completed.

Respondents are selected from a pool of consumers and are provided with qualified access to the NameQuest Online website. Each respondent begins the process by first selecting the most “eye-catching” cover photography.

The respondent then selects main story lines and secondary story subjects by dragging and dropping on to the selected cover photo. The final result is that the respondent constructs the ideal magazine cover. Data generated from this methodology include purchase intent ratings and consumer impressions of the cover photography or art and the story line content.

Meredith Corporation, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, is one of America's leading media and marketing companies. Meredith businesses center on magazine and book publishing, television broadcasting, interactive media and integrated marketing. The group creates and markets magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies’ Home Journal, Country Home and more than 165 issues of Special Interest Publications.

NameQuest (www.namequest.com) is a global brand research and development company. Find out more about person-brand relationships in a new book due out later this year. "Loving The Brand - How Brand-Person Chemistry Ignites Profits for Companies and Their Customers" by John P Hoeppner, President of NameQuest, Inc. and Andrea Markowitz, Ph.D., Organizational Consultant.

Downloadable image available - contact NameQuest.