Teen titles are not having it any easier during this recession than any other magazines. Just look at the cruel (or some would say, karmic) fate of CosmoGIRL! earlier this month, or Teen People, or ELLEgirl.

So with only a few titles left, including omg, Tiger Beat(!), how can teen editors reasonably expect to compete in an industry with sagging ad sales and a increasingly disinterested audience that would rather go online than pay five bucks for the same stories they could get for free on the net?

Why, offer them what every girl wants, obviously. A store to hang out and drink smoothies in all day long. In the maaaaaaaall.

The magazine is opening a store, called the Teen Vogue Haute Spot, in the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey. But the magazine does not intend to sell merchandise.
The stores will offer free snacks, informal modeling, a perfume bar, a makeup station, charging stations for cellphones and iPods, a gift-wrapping counter and racks of clothes.

Stylists and attendants at the store will advise visitors on lipstick, shoes and outfits.

And, to the delight of retailers, they will whisk visitors to stores in the mall where they can buy the products.

So a store, owned by the Teen Vogue people, that doesn't sell anything but gives marketers a place to give away freebies to their fanbase? For as ridiculous as that sounds, it's also kind of brills. As evidenced by the fact that I sort of want to go to that Jersey mall right now.

Plus, the symbiotic relationship here is just incredible: ad pages are down, because advertisers a) don't have as much money as they used to, and b) know that they can reach a wider audience by buying space on websites. But! A chain like Haute Spot, if it takes off, is a marketing hole-in-one. Not only does it push the Teen Vogue brand back into public consciousness, but it also gives marketers a new bang for their buck: direct interface with the consumers. Consider it market research melded with the best advertising gimmick, ever.

And Teen Vogue didn't even charge the advertisers for their space in the store! Although they were pushed to buy an extra page or two in the December issue of the magazine. Really so, so brilliant. Someone just channeled Don Draper and Peggy Olsen, hardcore, and reimagined them as marketing gurus to 13-year old tweens.