Supplement makes its debut in Midwest suburban weeklies p.

By: Mark Fitzgerald

CELEBRATE! MIDWEST WANTS to be the Parade or USA Weekend of suburban weeklies.
Celebrate! Midwest is a 24-page, full-color supplement that made its debut Feb. 1 as an insert in nearly 500 audited non-daily newspapers that reach 3 million households in 12 Midwestern states.
Like Parade or USA Weekend, Celebrate runs to family-oriented soft news and features.
The debut issue featured a column by Tipper Gore, wife of the vice president, about combating explicit sex and violence in popular media.
Other articles included a roundup on presidential museums located in the Midwest and a feature about a greeting card illustrator.
Unlike the Sunday supplements, however, Celebrate is printed on a slicker, heavier stock and bound with a staple. It is printed by an R.R. Donnelly plant in Des Moines.
The first issue of Celebrate reached almost every major Midwest metropolitan area from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Fargo, N.D.
Among the major weekly and community newspaper chains inserting Celebrate are the Suburban Journals of St. Louis; This Week Publications in Columbus, Ohio; Sun Newspapers in suburban Kansas City; Adams Publishing, Hometown Newspapers and Observer & Eccentric Newspapers in suburban Detroit; Pioneer Press and Press Publications in suburban Chicago; and Enterprise Newspapers in suburban Milwaukee.
Celebrate! Midwest general manager Loren Belkin said 75% of the distribution represents paid circulation.
Some 95% of participating papers are independently audited, added publisher Susan J. Montgomery.
Participating groups and newspapers were selected individually, Montgomery said.
"We didn't want to go with just RDRS [Readership Data and Reporting Service] figures. We went to look at markets individually and we picked the paper individually."
"First we had to be sure they were mechanically compatible," Montgomery added. "We called every newspaper group around the Midwest and went through them media kit by media kit."
As a result, Montgomery said, there is no distribution overlap inside markets.
"We published a prototype in August and once I started talking to [individual publishers] they realized this was a value-added enhancement to their newspaper. It's another piece of the package they have to market," she said.
"This is their answer to Parade," Montgomery said.
J.J. Blonien, publisher of the Enterprise Newspapers in suburban Milwaukee, said the supplement was very successful in a test in four of his papers last summer.
"Response was absolutely fantastic and, from a publisher's point of view, it doesn't cost you anything, plus you do get distribution costs. And the reader gets a fairly good editorial product," Blonien said.
"It is taking the Parade or Sunday supplement idea," Blonien added, "and, instead of offering an urban, declining audience, you're going for a suburban, growing audience with great demographics."
Among charter advertisers are the Saturn automobiles, which took the back cover; Columbia House, which stitched in a cardboard order form; and NordicTrak, the exercise equipment maker.
Celebrate! Midwest is the first publication of Montgomery Media Inc., which is based in Milwaukee.