A company that has a well-known character associated with its product(s) has a valuable asset. Consumer brand recognition can be instantaneous, providing crucial inroads for promotional messages. One of the best known of these "characters" is Morris the Cat, spokesfeline for Star Kist's 9 Lives line of cat food.

The company has long run offers on 9 Lives products for Morris paraphernalia (posters, calendars, etc.), and Morris even made a bid for the White House last year. As an integral part in cementing Morris' place in the hearts of cat owners everywhere, Star Kist has taken the Morris phenomenon to its next logical step: a magazine devoted to the Finicky One.

Titled, modestly enough, The Morris Report, the magazine is published four times a year and is available by subscription for $7.95. The magazine was introduced nationally in 1987 with a free standing insert in Sunday newspapers, and free copies were mailed to thousands of cat owners, whose names were obtained from 9 Lives' mailing list. In addition, the magazine was sent to over 15,000 veterinarians for placement in waiting rooms.

The idea for the magazine was brought to 9 Lives by special interest publisher Alan Weston Communications, who believed that with a strong character such as Morris, they could create a magazine around him that would fulfill two objectives for 9 Lives, says 9 Lives product manager Eric Brown.

First, it would allow them "to have an ongoing dialog and develop a one-on-one relationship with the cat owning public-which is about 30 percent of all households. Second, it provided an efficient vehicle to begin building our own in-house database," Brown says.

Having such a data base, Brown says, allows the company to deliver its promotions and communications more efficiently. To that end, each issue contains money saving coupons for 9 Lives products and a section called The Morris Mart which offers merchandise such as a Morris jigsaw puzzle to readers for cash plus proofs of purchase.

This section has gotten good response from readers, Brown says, and with the cash plus proofs concept, it's an excellent way to ensure continuity of purchase of 9 Lives products.

To make sure that readers would also respond well to the other sections, focus groups were held during the magazine's creation to find out what prospective readers would (and wouldn't) like to see in such a publication.

"They were very valuable also in helping us to find what our specific editorial content and direction ought to be," Brown says of the focus groups. "We put together a mock publication with a table of contents and we went through some of our ideas for what might be in the magazine in an on-going basis and what some of the features might be. We also got a feel for what the mix might be between entertaining versus informational articles."

The most recent issue boasts 52 cat lovin' pages of material, including a Morris centerfold, a guide to giving your cat a bath, a history of cats in the arts, and a hilarious piece, written from a cat's perspective, called "How to Run a Household." For anyone who's ever owned—or, rather, been owned by—a cat, this piece is uncanny proof that cats do the same crazy stuff all over the world. (Here's one of the best: "When you have ordered that an outdoor door be opened for you, stand half in and half out and think about various things. This is particularly important during very cold and very hot weather, and during mosquito season.")

In addition, there are several departments, including an advice column written by a veterinarian, and a host of cat tales of all kinds sent in by readers—short stories, odes, you name it. Judging by the enthusiastic tone of the reader-submitted material, The Morris Report seems to have found its niche. Brown concurs.

"Among the people that are receiving it, it has been a tremendous success. We get a large amount of favorable mail, roughly 40 percent of the editorial is actually written by subscribers."

But the company would like to see the magazine have a broader reach.

"We are considering a more comprehensive direct marketing effort, and we see The Morris Report as being an element within that overall direct marketing effort. We have to devote more time to it, to go out and market it more aggressively. The first time around, we were just trying to get it off the ground. Well, we've gotten it off the ground, now it's time to take it to the next level."