Advertising: Delish Magazine, Sold Only at Walmart, Performs Remarkably Well

Instead, the magazine, Delish, did well enough with its first issue in November, according to its publisher, Hearst Magazines, that it is being expanded this year to quarterly frequency. It will publish issues dated February, May, August and November.

Delish’s performance was cited as a high point of last year in an annual review by Hearst Magazines’s parent company, the Hearst Corporation. David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, mentioned Delish twice in a letter to employees outlining plans for 2013.

As the name signals, Delish is a food magazine: the print version of a Web site, Delish.com, that Hearst operates with the MSN unit of Microsoft. (If some readers hear an echo, that is because PGOA Media, owned by Bain Capital Ventures, publishes a magazine about food called Relish, which is distributed with newspapers.)

The food category is doing better than many others in publishing as marketers of packaged foods seek to reach budget-conscious consumers who are eating at home rather than dining out. Examples include Food Network Magazine, recently introduced by Hearst as a joint venture with Scripps Networks Interactive, and Dash, a newspaper-distributed magazine and Web site in the Parade Publications division of Advance Publications.

The Meredith Corporation, which competes in the food category with magazines like Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal, has started a food Web site, Recipe.com; acquired a second, Allrecipes.com; and bought two food magazines, EatingWell and Every Day With Rachael Ray.

In addition to being part of a trend, there may be another reason Delish is in demand: it is free to any Walmart shopper who buys one of six Hearst magazines — Country Living; Good Housekeeping; House Beautiful; O, the Oprah Magazine; Redbook; or Woman’s Day — at the regular single-copy price. Delish accompanies each magazine in a plastic wrapper festooned with the words “Free!” and “For Walmart shoppers!”

Sales of the November issues of the six magazines with Delish piggybacked rose an average of 22 percent, said Michael A. Clinton, president for marketing and publishing director at Hearst Magazines in New York.

“It’s part of a larger Hearst strategy we call pop-up edit,” Mr. Clinton said, using the industry shorthand for editorial content. “Across our portfolio, we’re looking for different ways to inject value for the reader.” Other examples he gave included sections of Food Network Magazine devoted to children, men and travel, and a 40-page supplement to the April issue of Cosmopolitan that will be devoted to “Lean In,” a new book by Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook.

The first issue of Delish was 48 pages, and the second was 32 pages. Subsequent issues will be 48 to 60 pages, Mr. Clinton said. The first two issues carried advertising pages from more than two dozen blue-chip marketers, including Campbell Soup, Del Monte, Johnson Johnson, Kellogg, Kraft, McCormick, Nestlé, Procter Gamble, J. M. Smucker and Unilever.

Ads for Delish are being sold separately from ads for the six other magazines, said Carol E. Campbell, group strategic director for digital at Hearst Magazines. A typical ad page in Delish costs $18,000, she said, compared with $150,000 in Woman’s Day. About 510,000 copies of each issue of Delish are being printed; by comparison, the rate base, or circulation guaranteed to advertisers, for Woman’s Day is 3.25 million.

Walmart makes sense as a home for Delish, Ms. Campbell said, not only because it is America’s largest seller of magazines but also because Walmart shoppers visit Delish.com more than the national average.

Also, said Elizabeth Shepard, general manager for food and home and digital media at Hearst Magazines, “Walmart has been one of the most active advertisers on Delish.com,” both before and since the introduction of the print version.

Playing off the industry term “added value,” for something extra offered to consumers or advertisers, Ms. Shepard, who is also executive director and editor in chief of Delish, called the magazine “valuable value.”

There is a precedent for a magazine that can be found solely in Walmart stores. Since 2004, the Time Inc. division of Time Warner has published All You, which covers food, fashion, crafts, home decorating and so-called smart shopping, or deal-hunting. All You began with a rate base of 500,000, which, after 10 increases in eight years, now stands at 1.5 million. With a cover price of $2.99, it sells the most single copies of any monthly magazine at Walmart.

“I’m really proud of what All You has pioneered and accomplished” in reaching “mainstream American women,” said Suzanne Quint, publisher at All You in New York.

“Back in 2004, people weren’t dying to talk to a value-conscious shopper who shops at Walmart,” she said. “It’s a whole different world today.”

As Delish enters Walmart, All You is expanding beyond it. Starting with the June issue, Ms. Quint said, All You plans to “test distribution across several retailers” in addition to Walmart, which “will continue to be an important outlet for us.” (All You is also available by subscription.)

The concept of magazines available only at a single retailer dates to at least 1931, when Woman’s Day began as a menu sheet at supermarkets owned by the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/delish-magazine-sold-only-at-walmart-performs-remarkably-well.html?partner=rss&emc=rss