'All You' Brings Value Deals from Wal-Mart to the Web

Since its inception in 2004, Time Inc.'s All You magazine has been distributed at Wal-Mart stores and via subscription, offering consumers money-saving tips. This week, the magazine is relaunching its site to better serve its audience during a recession. Consumers visiting the site will get exclusive coupon offers, a Web video series and "Style for Less" tips. With more Americans moving to budget-friendly shopping, this was the right time for a relaunch, said All You associate publisher Suzanne Quint. Brands such as Carvel Ice Cream, Arm & Hammer and Snapple have signed on as sponsors, offering the exclusive coupons on the site. Heinz’s Smart Ones is the site’s launch sponsor. Quint chatted with Brandweek about All You's new site and how it hopes to reach women—the magazine's target—online. Excerpts from that conversation are below.Brandweek: You’re re-launching AllYou.com as a value destination on Monday. But the magazine is already geared towards value-oriented readers. How is this different? Suzanne Quint: Our strategy is to be the go-to site for value-driven consumers online. The essence of what we’re doing is consistent: Women are looking for great value and that’s been our focus since we launched All You magazine five years ago. But this gives us an opportunity to bring it to her in a different way and to activate a lot of the money saving messages we have online. Women use the online site differently than they use the magazine.BW: How so?SQ: People go online for information and solutions to help make their lives easier and in our case, to help them save money. For example, if you want to make something for dinner tonight that doesn’t break the bank, you can go to the new AllYou.com web site. All of our recipes are budget friendly. The vast majority of them are under $3 a serving. You can search our recipes and know you are going to get something affordable for dinner that night.Online will reach people beyond what we reach in the magazine and offer us the opportunity to provide them with content and tips and coupons on a daily basis.BW: What’s new or different about the site? How’s it different from the other value-oriented consumer titles out there?SQ: What makes the site unique is it’s going to marry the trusted, money-saving content with exclusive, high value coupons on products that women actually use in their daily lives. There are a lot of coupons and deal sites online. In fact, for the month of May, it was the fastest growing category of sites online, according to comScore. However, there is no place online that marries cost cutting, shopping smart and money saving tips with actual online coupons. At least, not all together. And I would argue that there is no major web site that focuses on money saving tips and marries the trusted [editorial] content with daily deals and coupons. That’s the essence of [the site relaunch]. It’s something that hasn’t been done before. It’s something we know the consumer is very interested in using as a mom.We’re also very excited about the recipes that are featured on our site. Every recipe on this site has a cost-per-serving [feature] on it. That is unique because women can feel confident that when they check out at the register in the supermarket, if they’re using our recipes, their bill isn’t going to be a big, unwelcome surprise.BW: Tell us about this web video series, “Supermarket Smarts,” that you’re launching (12 videos altogether, with future episodes).SQ: It’s called “Supermarket Smarts.” It does talk about cooking with inexpensive [ingredients], but it’s more than that. It talks about how to store things for value, how to save them, how to use them in different ways. For example, we know that eggs are a low-cost food, but did you know you can freeze eggs? If you are like me and when ordering through FreshDirect you hit 11 instead of one, what are you going to do with 11, instead of one dozen eggs? One of our “Supermarket Smarts” tips of the week will show you how you can actually freeze eggs.BW: Wait, so you can really freeze an egg?SQ: [Laughs.] You scramble them!BW: And you’re also offering “exclusive” coupons that readers can’t get anywhere else. Why so?SQ: Couponing has been on the decline for the last 16 years. It’s back up for the first time [because of the recession], and coupon redemption was up 10 percent last year. Online couponing redemption was up 141 percent. Online couponing has exploded. The trend is certainly due to a change in consumer behavior and people becoming more value driven. [And so, this notion of “exclusive coupons”] really is huge to the consumer. All You is known as a great destination for coupons and value, so we want to bring that to life. And, in the area of style, we’re focusing on “style for less,” and this is something we’ve had virtually none of [online]. Women don’t have to spend a lot to be beautiful. Nor do you have to be a size two to be beautiful. We offer great budget and beauty tips and we’re showcasing products from store that women actually shop at.BW: Who’s your target consumer for the site relaunch?SQ: We reach a value-driven consumer who has a propensity to shop at Wal-Mart because she’s looking for great value, but that doesn’t preclude her from shopping at other places. BW: Has the magazine every done anything like this before since its inception?SQ: As a brand, we are only five years old. We’ve been focused on the magazine for many years, but with the consumer interest in value and money savings skyrocketing, this is really the right time to do this.BW: How are you getting the word out to readers?SQ: We are using all of our resources within Time Inc. with All You and our sister magazines and sites to publicize this launch. We’ll have print ads in Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, Southern Living, Cooking Light and others. They’ll tell the consumer what this site relaunch is about, how it’s distinct and relevant. They’re benefit-driven ads.Over the last number of years, we’ve also built a list of 300 money-saving bloggers out there and this has grown quite organically to a group of people who write about All You on their blogs and all the great money saving tips we offer. We’re working with them more and more and we’re working with one money-saving blogger in particular to host a Twitter party on July 17.BW: What new opportunities does the All You site relaunch offer to brands?SQ: Coupons are at the forefront of people’s minds these days, but this is really a unique opportunity to marry their brand message in a trusted editorial environment. Not only is it trusted, but it provides them the opportunity to align with synergistic content. So if you are a marketer who’s focused on back-to-school, we have back-to-school content on the site, but it’s not just about back-to-school, it’s about back-to-school on a budget. So it allows marketers the opportunity to align with trusted, synergistic content and then to have the consumer activate right there on the spot with the [abundance of] exclusive, online coupons.BW: With value being the talk of the town these days, do you think it’s enough to catch consumers’ eyes?SQ: Value and money saving has been part of our core DNA since we launched in 2004, so we’re not just jumping on the trend of the moment. This is who we are and this is who the consumer knows us to be. Other titles are also slapping value onto their magazines and web sites. Even Vogue had a huge cover line that talked about “Value Conscious Chic.” Everyone is jumping on this bandwagon. But that’s very different from what we do. All You [breathes] money savings in everything we do, ranging from our fashion stories online—when women shop for summer shorts, it’s always going to be from retailers that she actually shops at, at prices she can afford. And, similar with our food content. We talked about how it’s not price per serving, but how to store food longer. It is the DNA of our brand.

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'All You' Brings Value Deals from Wal-Mart to the Web

Elaine Wong

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