Father of the brides

When Cesar "Chet" Espino was conceptualizing a new magazine in 1996, little did he know that in that year he would become a father to two babies: His third child Catherine and his first business venture Baby magazine. "Well, my wife didn’t know I had two babies in mind," he jokes. Both babies are doing very well today, thank you. Catherine is now four and the magazine has survived major economic and political crises – virtually unscathed while two similar-concept publications have folded up.

Married to fellow journalist Margie Quimpo-Espino, whom he met when they were both reporters at the Inquirer, Chet has fathered two more babies since then: Weddings, a magazine dedicated to brides, which was launched last week; and Shopwise, which his company is doing for the Rustan’s Group.

A feat really for a company that had a staff of three to begin with ("which everybody said was no way to begin a magazine"), or somebody who had no interest in business for the longest time, who knew everything about the written word but was totally clueless about spreadsheets, and who had three titles at his own magazine: publisher, editor-in-chief and sometimes messenger.

Then again, if there was one thing Chet knew, it was how to be a good father and how difficult it was to be a new one. (Thus was born the magazine’s slogan: "Babies don’t come with a manual.") There was no local magazine for parents, which he found ironic given the population boom in the country. "When Margie and I were having our first baby, we started researching on the subject but we couldn’t find local material; all the books and magazines on babies were imported and western. There’s a very big difference between the two perspectives. In the health department, it’s basically the same with a few differences like the focus – western countries’ concerns are different from Asians and Filipinos in particular. But on the child rearing aspect and discipline issues, the magazines just didn’t apply to us."

As soon as he realized there was this market waiting to be tapped, Chet couldn’t get the idea of publishing a magazine out of his mind. One day, while waiting at his brother’s office (where his staff would soon be "squatting") his brother said, "Why don’t you just do it?"

And so he did it. "We were naïve when we started. Margie and I, we’ve always been journalists and we didn’t know anything about business, marketing or advertising. We were not prepared for that. Basically, we had a product that sold itself. We encountered advertisers who said they had been looking around for a baby magazine. We had an advertiser base that was very enthusiastic about the magazine."

Chet put in 12-hour workdays between his day job and his maiden issue. "Ironically, now that we had our own business, we were spending less time with the two kids, Mark and Patricia. My work before did not require me to spend eight hours in the office, Margie was a reporter so her time was also flexible. The kids had gotten used to both of us or at least one of us being around all the time. When we started Baby magazine, there’d be times we’d come home at one in the morning, we’d wake up early in the morning to see them off to school and wouldn’t see them until the following day. That was the only time my son would call us crying. They couldn’t understand why all of a sudden both of us were not there."

The modest run of 15,000 issues hardly sold in the first month but by the third month, the magazine was flying off the shelves with orders for back issues from parents. "The letters they sent us were so motivating."

Now called Marathon Publishing Company, they have set their sights on bigger things. Weddings is the beginning of an expansion project for the next five years. "It gets to a point in business when you either grow or go down," Chet says. "You cannot stay where you are. Costs are going up, you have to maintain a certain growth rate. Now we know where we’re going, we know what to do."

With this third magazine, Chet has not lost sight of the company’s goals: "The strength we’re putting into Marathon Publishing is the core strength we’ve always had: Pure, good journalism."

If you’re a bride-to-be, take heart. "The value proposition is that with Weddings, it’s all the magazine you’ll need."

Edited by Ivy Lisa F. Mendoza, Weddings is the "story of romance." It aims to put romance back into the picture – make it more like a story-book event than a stress fest – as much as it is a source book of information to help couples.

Ivy says, "The magazine is not just for brides who are on the lookout for designers, wedding planners, and cake and floral artists. It’s also for brides who cannot afford to hire these people and want to be involved in the preparations as much as possible. We’ll be covering all the bases from Makati to Divisoria for supplies, contacts and suggestions. Even brides who are not having a church wedding will find the magazine useful with the articles on relationships, how to deal with in-laws and how to furnish one’s first home."

Fashion editor and award-winning designer Frederick Peralta tackles the fashion section in the same manner. "We’re going to have designers who are not featured in other magazines or newspapers," he says. "There’s politics in journalism. Designers who are close to the editors are the only ones who are featured. What about the rest? I look at the magazine as a medium for designers – from the big ones to the up-and-coming – to display their creations." Frederick says as far as information is concerned, Weddings will be complete, from shoemakers to suppliers of laces and fabrics. He knows every detail of a wedding preparation since 90 percent of his clientele is composed of brides and grooms-to-be.

"Nowadays the brides know what they’re doing, it’s no longer their mothers running the show. At this point, we’re looking at Weddings to be their local bible."

The second issue will feature on the cover designers Pitoy Moreno, Joe Salazar, Nollie Hans, Ben Farrales and Frederick Peralta – in black, even Pitoy who supposedly never wears black – and their creations.

The groom-to-be is not left out of the picture either. Aside from fashion spreads for him, he will find articles useful and entertaining. The editorial, of course, has some constant features such as the wedding planner, FAQs on legal issues and wedding etiquette, a column by wedding planner Rita Neri, and sections on beauty, sex and relationships. You will also find useful suggestions for honeymoon destinations and reception venues.

Look for the back-page essay on everything related to weddings and relationships. The maiden issue of Weddings, featuring Aga Muhlach and Charlene Gonzalez on the cover, pokes fun at the always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride-syndrome. Village Voice editor Susan de Guzman writes in "Bridesmaid Angst": "Imagine having to wear that itchy piece of fluff that emphasizes all your wrong curves (but sorry, you have to wear what the other girls – who just happen to be svelte – are wearing or else you’ll ruin the total look)…But I do take each ‘assignment’ seriously. When I was a candle sponsor, I practiced how to strike the match in one go a zillion times…When you’re told that if you don’t light the candle on the first try, the newlyweds will have bad luck, what can you do?"

So why a magazine for brides when Chet Espino is a health buff whose passion is long-distance running? "The trend in publishing globally is niche marketing. Even newspapers and televisions, and advertisers are doing niche marketing. Gone is the shot-gun approach. It’s no longer one big market; it’s very segmented now and has a very big value proposition for advertisers. In effect, the publication screens the market for the advertisers because they have the target readers."

"The industry is very young, it’s still evolving and growing as a sub-industry of print. How business should be played – there’s no set rules."

Marathon Publishing plans to come up with two new magazine titles for the next five years. Within the year, they will be coming up with a new lifestyle magazine. "The lifestyle and fashion magazines we have today are aspirational in nature and there’s room for that," Chet Espino says. "But there’s also room for the kind of magazine we’re coming up with, which will be inspirational in nature. That’s also taking off from the times. The way superstars are being lionized – hindi ganoon ang karamihan ng tao eh. We’re after things that can impact on our own lives, how we can learn instead of gloat over something we cannot have."

And the other magazines? Perhaps a health magazine, says Chet. The guy’s passions lies in running. Last year, he ran in the 42-kilometer LA marathon and finished in five hours, belonging to the upper third bracket of 23,000 participants. "Under the worst running condition in the history of the marathon; we were wearing raincoats!"

"Long-distance running or any sport for that matter has a very profound philosophical aspect," he says. "It’s about endurance, continuous training, discipline, going the distance. It’s about going the extra mile."