case study: Online Magazine

CHALLENGE: Develop, design and operate a targeted online magazine which can secure a significant community of readers in the 18-to-34 demographic, widespread media recognition and major advertisers.

IMPLEMENTATION: Having published online magazines since 1993, we simply mulled our professional experience reaching the 18-to-34 market with our personal experience as the 18-to-34 year-old market, and then opted for a surefire editorial stategy: Give the people what they/we want. On September 1, 1995 we launched Crisp - an online magazine as funky in its arts as it was functional in its activism. Positive, proactive and interactive, Crisp enabled 18-to-34 year-olds to not only experience their contemporaries but actually get free creative and connective from them, including established entrepreneurs, activists, under35 editors from all the major publishing houses and under35 A&R reps from all the major record labels. To finalize our connection with our readers, we let our strong, inherently irreverent-yet-accessible design and editorial voices run rampant, making it clear to our online community of peers that Crisp wasn't just our day job - it was our daily lives.

Click on the following links for design screen shots from Crisp:
* Cover featuring Sari Locker
* Cover featuring Amy Carle
* Top Contents page

Click on the following links for content samples from Crisp's different sections:
* Sari Locker feature
* Q-and-A Sex column
* The first-ever Online Presidential Youth Debate
* Content blurbs from a wide array of Crisp's features and fixtures

RESULTS: In less than a year, Crisp's content and design attracted a monthly rate of over 300,000 unique visitors and 2.1 million impressions, with third-party surveys showing 92 percent of our readership in the 18-to-34 demographic. Which in turn attracted - and often exceeded the expectations of - many major advertisers including BMW, Ziff-Davis and Citibank. Ziff-Davis enjoyed nearly double its guaranteed target number of banner impressions and, after Crisp overdelivered for BMW's campaign, media planner Cory Treffiletti stated that for BMW's 318ti coupe promotion they were "targeting a young affluent audience and Crisp has shown that it can effectively reach that demographic." Crisp's exceptional content and design were also recognized and commended in over 75 media venues, from CNN, MSNBC and Advertising Age to Vibe online, Details and even Triple J - Australia's national youth and arts radio station reaching 2.5 million listeners. (See specific content-and-design praise in our press clips.) For their work publishing Crisp, Strong Bat's principals were awarded Top 7 Web Publishers In The World by Virtual City (a Newsweek publication), featured in the much-vaunted book, International Who's Who in Information Technology, and would go on to write the acclaimed book, Online Markets for Writers (Henry Holt & Company, June 2000), the first-ever guide to writing for online magazines.