Girl Stuff: MXG Media adds online TV to its magalog, Web offerings for teen girls
How many ways can you push products to teens?
Manhattan Beach, CA-based MXG Media Inc. is about to find out this fall when it debuts online video programming, called MXGtv.com, linked to its Web site. The first video show, Xgirls, showcases girls doing extreme sports.
The company puts out a magalog and a Web site, both of which offer entertainment along with shopping opportunities to Generation Y girls – those between 12 and 24 years old.
The new project will do likewise. As she watches the six-minute show, a viewer may wish she owned, say, the cargo flare pants worn by someone in the video. She clicks on a shopping area at the bottom of the screen, drops the item in her shopping cart and keeps on watching.
Xgirls is an ongoing feature in the hard copy magazine. Xgirls are top extreme athletes whom MXG photographs and quotes in ever-more physically challenging (and often terrifying) situations. It sounds a bit cruel, but they make it look fun. In one issue, Daize Shayne – “ripping soul surfer” who despises heights – parachutes out of a plane. “Ahhh, I am so scared. I wish it could just be over with,” she is quoted in diary form in the magazine.
A celebrity interview show and other companies’ clips of concerts and movie trailers are on tap for MXGtv.
An agreement inked at press time with America Online, making MXG one of three teen-girl-apparel anchor areas on the portal’s site, will promote the shows. The video programming is meant to expand MXG’s brand. “Launching cool video programming for girls is to make us the primary place to watch videos online,” explains Jan Gilbreath, vice president of corporate development. “The whole idea is to bring together really compelling entertainment content with the convenience of ordering online.”
Xgirls also is intended to build magalog circulation and Web site traffic. The publication has 50,000 subscribers. An annual subscription costs $9.45; single issues are $2.95 on the newsstand. It costs nothing to visit the Web site.
Gilbreath won’t reveal the magalog’s response rate except to say, “It is higher than traditional catalog response of between 1.5% and 2%.”
The MXG hard copy features celebrity interviews in departments such as “Hot Boyz” and fashion in sections like “The Mod Squad.” About half the magalog pages resemble more catalog than magazine pages, with Gen-Y models rather than celebrities wearing the clothing.
Readers may order using a toll-free number or on the Web site. The site’s URL (www.mxgonline.com) is sprinkled liberally throughout the book. The Web site has similar content, along with ordering screens and forms to fill out with demographic data. Xgirls is advertised on the site.
