Brand and deliver

A new publishing alliance, announced today, aims to produce magazines based on branded products and characters.

With attention firmly focused on the ethics of marketing to children in the wake of last month's Commons health select committee report on obesity, you could be forgiven for thinking a new publishing venture designed to get advertisers closer to kids is, at best, ill-timed. But an alliance between Europe's leading children's magazine publisher Egmont and contract publisher Publicis Blueprint - part of advertising agency Publicis and the UK's fourth largest contract publisher which produces titles for a range of advertisers including HP and Nestlé - promises "a new way to establish meaningful dialogue with children and parents" that will stand or fall on doing the right thing, both parties insist.

The new publishing venture, Right For Kids, will create magazines around advertisers' products, brand characters or associated interests and distribute these direct to children, either via a brand owner's distribution network, such as in-store or on-pack, by post, or on the newsstand. The aim is to tap into one of the UK's most lucrative consumer markets - according to one estimate, British seven to 14 year-olds wield a staggering £3.7bn annual spending power. The good news for Egmont and Publicis is that it's a relatively untapped opportunity as most of the children's magazine titles that already exist have been created around TV characters or toy brands.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk