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A Magazine by Any Other Name?

by ldelaney

I wanted to share this recent email from a reader--and my response.

DEAR LISA: Thank you for inviting input in your May issue. I'm looking at your picture and you look like a 20 or 30something. I'm going to guess that you are far enough away from the demographic target of your magazine that you probably can't relate to the feeling that your reader would have being marketed to by a magazine called Spry.

I am 55. I could like the information and articles in your magazine as they pertain to being healthy in "body, mind and spirit at any age." However, indulging in a magazine or website called "Spry" makes me feel old. It makes me feel I am being talked down to.

Would you ever call a 30something "spry?" No. Why not. Because "spry" is used to refer to an OLD person who is active and quick on their feet still. That's great for an old person who truly embraces that they are "an old person." However, at 55, I don't want to think of myself as an OLD person. I don't want to think that I am at an age in which YOU would call my activity level "spry." In fact, I know NOW that I am not going to want to be called "spry" when I am 65 years old.

Do you get it? Anybody who you can call "spry" you are already identifying as "old."

Just curious, at what age would YOU like to be called spry?

You need to change the name of your magazine. I think your target audience is beginning with me and I am very turned off.

DEAR READER: Thanks so much for your note, and I am glad you like the magazine.

I understand your beef with the word spry. The definition of the word itself doesn't say anything about age, but you're right about the way it's been used historically--to describe the 80-year-old who can still make it up the stairs. There are great things about the word--it speaks to our whole being, our attitudes rather than simply our weight or cholesterol numbers. It covers the inspiration piece that's so important when we're trying to get people to change the way they live for the better.

Part of what I'm trying to do is to re-define the word spry. To communicate that you can be spry--or not--in your 30s as well as in your 80s. That's one of the reasons we feature women in their 30s and 40s as much as women in their 50s or 60s. I know plenty of women younger than me who I wouldn't call spry--and (despite the favorable lighting in my editor's photo) I am 48, to be 49 in November.

There are lots of challenges in creating a magazine--the most difficult for middle-child-me being that I can't please everyone. So unfortunately, I can't change the name, for lots of reasons (one of which is ... most of the ones I'd want are taken!). I hope you keep reading, regardless. --Lisa D

What do you all think about the name Spry? Are you turned off too?

first appeared: 5/15/2009