For most teens, the pressure to get a job can be a grind. Featuring useful information and kid-friendly personalities like MuchMusic VJ George Stroumboulopoulos, a new magazine, The Grind, it doesn’t have to be, lets students know that, as its title suggests, work doesn’t always suck.

Launched this fall, the mag provides a venue for traditional advertisers to speak to kids in a more serious way.

For instance, CIBC has an eight-page financial planning guidebook in the premiere issue.

‘The CIBC was looking for a vehicle to reach youth who were planning to do post-secondary education,’ says publisher Beverly Paton, who is also behind the educational magazine POP! and YTV Whoa!

CIBC received exclusive rights as the only bank able to advertise in the first two issues. (The Grind is currently published twice a year, in September and March.) Other opportunities for category specific advertising are available and Paton quotes the ballpark figure of $56,000 for a campaign similar to the CIBC effort.

There are 150,000 copies of the first issue in distribution; 140,000 were purchased by English school boards across Canada; the remainder were distributed in Chapters and Indigo.