Cover Baby

To have your baby on the cover of  Swedish parenting magazine Vi Föräldrar is the dream of many Vi Föräldrar readers. And now they will finally have a chance: Due to strong demand, Vi Föräldrar will be launching a cover contest. The contest opened on April 19 and entries can be sent in until May 30. After that, visitors to the site will be able to vote on the photos and the five babies with the most votes will be featured in a "fashion" spread in the magazine. A winner then will be chosen from among the five finalists and be featured on the cover of the September issue.

Susanne Németh, product manager for Bonnier Tidskrifter's family titles and Vi Föräldrar's former Editor-in-Chief Helena Rönnberg started the contest. The idea came from the other side of the Atlantic, from Bonnier Corporation's Babytalk, whose cover contest is a huge hit in the U.S. "The Cover Contest is consistently one of The Parenting Group's most popular editorial programs," says Susan Kane, editorial director for Parenting and Babytalk magazines. "We started the Contest 11 years ago because it's a fun way to engage readers and get them excited to be part of the magazine.  Opening the entry process to online submissions allows us to interact with the Parenting.com community, raise traffic, and increase overall visibility for the Contest."

"In the U.S., editors narrow down the entries to 8 semi-finalists, who are then flown to New York City for a professional photo shoot to determine the three finalists.  This year, the magazine has partnered with the website of the popular TV program Good Morning America, where dozens of baby photos and behind-the-scenes video clips will appear.  Visitors to the site will vote for their favorite finalist to determine the winner." says Németh. "We chose to adapt the concept to Sweden and take it down a notch. All of us who work with Vi Föräldrar in some way get a lot of requests from parents who want to have their children on the cover. So I'm convinced there's going to be huge interest in the contest here in Sweden."