• by Larry Dobrow , May 2, 2004

Callers to the New York headquarters of American Profile are greeted by a chipper voice that describes the weekly title as "the magazine for and about the millions of Americans that cherish hometown life." And while any number of publications that celebrate small-town living make similar boasts-- usually with strings swelling in the background--American Profile makes the description seem less cliché than mission statement.

For one, the weekly publication is distributed almost exclusively in community newspapers, some with a circulation as small as 3,000. And it doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel editorially: content is largely confined to staples like recipes and health information, and each issue profiles what the mag's media kit calls "one of America's great hometowns."

But rather than cowering at the altar of Wal-Mart, American Profile does whatever it can to get inside the retail giant's head, going so far as to station a de facto spy in Bentonville. The weekly publication believes that as Wal-Mart goes, so too does small-town America. The reason for this is simple: most of the 1,100 newspapers that distribute American Profile serve rural areas, meaning that Wal-Mart is the retail venue of choice for most of its readers' needs. "If you live in a small town, you go there every weekend. It becomes an event," says Publisher Tracey Altman.

What American Profile's Bentonville agent (director of retail programs Chuck Priest) does is attempt to wrest information about promotional schedules and other programs from the notoriously secretive retailer. "Chuck goes on calls with us and speaks about Wal-Mart's retail link and how they evaluate sales," Altman explains. "Agencies are really interested in that type of insider angle. He's somebody who's lived and breathed in that Wal-Mart environment."

Striving to become one of Wal-Mart Nation's favorite editorial voices makes a ton of sense for American Profile. Most media, after all, skews toward more populous regions--so if the publication can establish itself as a valuable resource for so-called "C" and "D" counties, it could get advertisers' attention quickly.

Altman calls these counties "the final frontier" for American marketers, although she acknowledges some resistance to her enthusiasm about them. "I sometimes get 'we don't target C and D markets,'" she notes. "Well, if Wal-Mart's important to you, you should. Often they're the only game in town."

As it is, the magazine has grown its circulation from 1.1 million to 6.2 million since Altman's arrival from American Media Inc. in 2000. According to the Publishers Information Bureau, ad revenue jumped 28 percent in 2003, from $59.3 million to $75.9 million. Ad pages were up slightly less than 4 percent, but that probably has as much to do with American Profile's policies as anything else: the publication only accepts nine pages of advertising per issue. The theory is that by limiting inventory in a vaguely upfront-ish manner, the ads will stand out more than they otherwise might.

"This month I had a health advertiser who wanted to get in, but I was sold out and they were way past close," Altman says. "Any other magazine might add a couple of pages, but that's not how we do things."

Advertisers have responded--to a certain extent. Take the April 18-24 issue: for every national marketer or brand (Sears, CBS, Kimberly-Clark's Depend), there's a direct-response ad for tchotchkes like a "Born-to-Bowl Faithful Fuzzy." While other recent issues are dotted with names like Hewlett-Packard and Astra-Zeneca, American Profile doesn't have as many auto ads as one might expect from a publication targeting rural readers; AP's sales minions will likely accumulate their share of frequent-flier miles in the months ahead if they call on Detroit as much as Altman would like.

Although about 70 percent of the publication's readers are women, American Profile has done well by such male-skewing apparel marketers as Wrangler, which launched a Wal-Mart exclusive line last year. "They had a mostly male target, but they don't feel that our female impressions are a waste. With our readers, generally the females are the purchasers of male clothes," Altman notes. Not surprisingly, she has placed Levi-Strauss (which is also launching a signature Wal-Mart brand) atop the list of accounts she'd like to break, ranking it alongside Ford's F-150 and F-350 truck series and General Mills.

As for the future, American Profile will strive to create more programs like the recently launched Clip 'n Save, a rare magazine coupon vehicle.

Since its debut last fall, the program has lured Nestlé, ConAgra, and GlaxoSmithKline. "Since we're the only insert in most of these newspapers, our readers are coupon-starved," Altman says. American Profile also has multimedia aspirations, with a cookbook of reader recipes already on the shelves and a partnership planned with Fox News.

"There are lots of different directions we could go in," she continues. "Our content just connects, which is why we've been able to add newspapers as fast as we have. But you never want to get too far away from your strengths. We'll proceed carefully."