Rogers Media is expanding its line of so-called “mom brands” – a group that includes Today’s Parent, Chatelaine and Cityline – through a new custom publishing venture with Walmart Canada.
Rogers Media’s Content Solutions group won the contract to publish the multi-platform magazine Walmart Live Better in an RFP issued earlier this year. Walmart and its agency partners JWT Toronto and Mindshare Canada developed both the concept and strategy for the publication.
The mom-focused publication will amplify Walmart’s brand promise “Save money, live better” with Rogers-created content spanning four key pillars: food, home, health and beauty and fashion.
“We’re creating a vehicle to really extend that brand promise of live better, and a magazine with deep content is the way to do it,” said Jacqueline Loch, vice-president of Rogers’ Content Solutions group. “It’s a believable, credible way to get engagement with consumers.”
Live Better will be published six times a year beginning in April, with issues timed to coincide with key sales periods such as the holidays and the back-to-school period. The retailer will distribute one million copies of Live Better at its Walmart supercentres throughout English Canada, with plans to add a French edition before the end of 2013.
Rogers will also produce an iPad version of the publication, while content will also be housed on a dedicated microsite accessible through Walmart.ca. They will be augmented by a weekly e-newsletter, monthly e-blast and social media presence.
Rogers is also selling third-party advertising for the publication, with a full-page ad in the magazine selling for $27,000 and a static ad in the iPad edition selling for $5,400.
Each issue of Live Better will also feature single-sponsor opportunities (labeled as promotions) that will enable advertisers to showcase products in what a media kit for the product calls a “contextually relevant” environment. The opportunities will be “closely aligned” in style and content with the rest of the magazine.
Rogers presented the magazine to what Loch described as a “select group” of Walmart vendors last week, and is now presenting to agencies and clients.
Custom content has become a growth area for Rogers Media, which currently produces Connected and Connected for Business for its sister division Rogers Cable, as well as the Canadian Tire publication Driver, the Air Miles publication Inspired Living as well as a series of publications for the Ford Motor Company of Canada and video content for clients such as L’Oreal Canada.
Rogers won nine awards at the Custom Content Council’s annual Pearl Awards in New York last month, while the Content Solutions group is seeing year-over-year growth in the double digits. “It’s a growing category and we’re seeing chief marketing officers diverting as much as 25% of their marketing budgets to custom content now,” said Loch.
While Rogers was originally responding to RFPs that aligned with its core competencies, the robust growth of custom content has led the company to chase down more business, said Loch. The group is currently pitching for a “huge” piece of business that will be awarded in March.
