Jimmy Kimmel swears he has never once asked his team to land him a lick of press — except for the time when he begged for the chance to be featured on the cover of Costco Connection.
The host and comedian pleaded with his publicist to get him a feature. “His first question was, ‘Why?’” Mr. Kimmel said. “And I told him, ‘Because I love Costco.’”
Mr. Kimmel has been a Costco obsessive for so long that he remembers when it merged with Price Club, a fellow wholesaler, in 1993. He does not visit for the samples. He does not go for the deals.
“I go there for relaxation,” he said, describing the deep happiness he experiences when he comes home with 20 pounds of ground beef. “I don’t like to run out of things,” he said.
Mr. Kimmel’s publicist was baffled, as was top Costco brass. “They were very confused because typically, they’ll have Famous Amos on the cover of the magazine,” he said.
Mr. Kimmel has led his own late-night show since 2003. He has hosted the Oscars four times. GQ and Esquire have profiled him. Still, Mr. Kimmel claims, to date, no career highlight compares with his December 2009 Costco Connection cover.
“A lot of people want to be on the cover of Vogue or Rolling Stone,” he said. “For me, it’s The Costco Connection.”
A Print Powerhouse
The media business might be in free fall, but in Issaquah, Wash., the merriest band of magazine makers in America drives to Costco headquarters and sets about producing a monthly print periodical that is delivered to more households across the United States than Better Homes & Gardens, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic combined.
And it’s growing. Each month, 15.4 million copies of Costco Connection are mailed out to “executive” members, who pay double the yearly membership fee of $65 for the magazine and other perks. (Another 300,000 are distributed via Costco warehouses.) Its reach is so vast that Costco Connection is now the nation’s third largest magazine by print circulation, behind AARP: The Magazine and The AARP Bulletin.
You, perhaps, had no idea. But Oprah did. Ms. Winfrey has no shortage of press opportunities, but she has made time for Costco Connection. So have Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen, recognizing there are few more enviable placements for a person with something to sell than the cover of a publication linked to a store where nearly one-third of U.S. consumers shop.
According to Costco, Connection readers have an average household income of $179,000, and 92.6 percent of them own a home — no doubt stocked with Kirkland Signature paper towels, pounds of fish sticks and leaning towers of canned tuna. Over 94 percent of Connection readers report having confidence in the magazine’s content.
Freed from the pressures of the algorithm, Costco Connection’s benchmarks of success are a throwback to an earlier media age. There is the fleeting high of going viral, and then there is the flexed power of landing in the mailboxes of one in 20 Americans who could unsubscribe with a few simple clicks, but choose not to.
If Costco often produces a kind of religious fervor among its shoppers, the Connection is its Scripture — a covenant and a recruiting tool that this month trumpeted the abiding allure of Lego bricks and ran a feature on Costco-themed Halloween costumes.
A Broad Purview
The Costco Connection debuted in magazine form in 1997. (It dropped the “The” during a 2018 redesign.) From the start, the magazine was created to do what it does now: Keep shoppers coming back. Costco operates on a membership model. Its success depends on robust renewal rates.
The fact that over 90 percent of members re-up from one year to the next has perhaps more to do with the discount prices than the service journalism, but Peter Gruening, Costco’s senior vice president for membership, marketing and member service centers, believes the humble Connection contributes, too.
“It is informational — entertaining,” said Mr. Gruening, 57, who, after nearly three years of incessant wheedling, agreed to an interview for this article and granted rare access to Costco headquarters.
Mr. Gruening said that although he couldn’t be sure that The Connection drove people to the “executive” tier of Costco membership (though he suspects it does), he is certain those who receive it are responsive to its content. Readers tell him as much everyday.
The Connection makes its staff members’ contact information readily available both on its website and in print. Mr. Gruening’s email address is available there, as is a direct phone number and email address for Stephanie E. Ponder, the magazine’s editorial director.
When a new issue hits mailboxes, feedback pours in. After a recent issue included a single recipe as opposed to the usual collection of dishes and snacks, Mr. Gruening was inundated with irate comments from members demanding to know where the rest had gone. “One person said: ‘And the recipe was how to make a hamburger. Who doesn’t know how to make a hamburger?’”
“Message received,” Mr. Gruening said he remembered thinking. “Our members like to see recipes.”
Ms. Ponder, 55 — who started at the magazine as a reporter and has also edited Costco cookbooks — said that for as long as she has worked at Costco Connection, its audience has been “vocal.” She has ended up on the phone with readers who had notes about an issue featuring Jessica Simpson (her fashion line sells at Costco) and others who wanted to discuss the fact that the fruitcake had been relocated at their local warehouse.
Ms. Ponder never lacks for topics. The magazine is charged with covering the same assortment of items that stores sell — a selection that includes not only marinara sauce and pretzels, but also solid gold bars, prefabricated saunas, Bulgarian caviar, 72-pound wheels of cheese and coffins.
Simon Holland, a humorist who beams out the occasional Costco-related musing to his 762,000 Instagram followers, said he discovered Costco Connection after assuming it was a catalog and tossing the first 20 or so copies he received. But he eventually picked up an issue and came across a travel guide for Napa (Costco has a travel department that sells vacation packages) and a feature on sports (Costco sells dart boards and golf simulators). He liked it.
“I’ve been kind of into it ever since,” Mr. Holland said. The magazine charms him for the same reason that Costco is his favorite store: Who knows what a person might find in there?
Mr. Holland, 46, subscribed to Sports Illustrated well into his 30s. He grew up on paper-and-ink magazines, he said, and the state of the current newsstand depresses him.
“You buy a magazine at a store, and it’s, like, $37, and it’s got four articles in there,” he said. “I mean, it’s not good.” Besides Costco Connection, he receives only The New Yorker at home. “I like being able to read just a little snippet of something and then put it down and come back later,” he continued.
It’s All About the Shoppers
Many articles in Costco Connection feature members of the club — the better to enhance the sense of pride and belonging that Costco aims to foster. Paula Skaggs and David Liebenson appeared in one recent issue, after getting engaged at their local Chicago-area warehouse in November 2023. (Mr. Liebenson coordinated the proposal with the customer service team, thanking “Debbie in Membership” in particular for her help.)
After celebrating with Costco’s signature food court combo of a hot dog and soda, Ms. Skaggs, a writer, shared the news and was told in no uncertain terms by several of her loved ones that she “had to get this in Costco Connection,” Ms. Skaggs recalled. She emailed the magazine and heard back a few months later that the piece would run in the September issue.
“We were thrilled,” Ms. Skaggs said, likening the glamour of the feature to an appearance in a glossier title. “It felt like our very own Devil Wears Prada.”
News of the couple’s nuptials reached Susan Korn, designer of the label Susan Alexandra. In a photo with the piece, Ms. Skaggs can be seen holding one of Ms. Korn’s bags.
Ms. Korn wondered whether she should trumpet the placement, given that Costco trades in discounts and Ms. Korn is protective of the luster of her line. “You never want to associate your brand with being on sale,” she explained. “But then I was like: ‘Wait, this is incredible. Costco is probably the most beloved brand in the entire world.’”
Ms. Korn posted a photo of the magazine on Instagram. Soon, she said she was fielding emails from relatives, friends and “people in the suburbs” who had received the issue at home. Most of them had never seemed interested in the more exclusive press Ms. Korn secured.
“The goal I have as a designer is to be far-reaching and to touch people outside of the New York bubble,” she said. “Now knowing what I know, I’m like, ‘Can we get ad space?’” (She cannot. Kathi Tipper-Holgersen, The Connection’s publishing advertising manager, explained that advertisers must be Costco suppliers.)
“I think we have gotten more congratulations about being in Costco Connection than we have on the actual wedding,” Ms. Skaggs said.
A Stable Job in Journalism
Over the summer, with the September issue long closed, Ms. Ponder held one of her regular production meetings on Zoom (to accommodate The Connection’s British and Canadian teams). During the meeting, she tracked progress on half a dozen coming issues of the magazine and solicited updates on articles on topics including plantar fasciitis, candy jewelry, butternut squash recipes and Theraflu.
She would later pass approved text up through a chain of readers until it reached the desk of Ron M. Vachris, who was named Costco’s third-ever chief executive in January. Mr. Vachris is now responsible for almost 900 warehouses worldwide and the over 300,000 people who work across them. Still, he would make time for plantar fasciitis: There isn’t a word in Costco Connection that he does not sign off on.
In the meantime, Ms. Ponder invited Chris Rusnak, a graphic designer, to share wildlife photos he had taken the previous weekend and wished the team a good Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day, National Avocado Day and National Mutt Day.
That spirit of enthusiasm and optimism is something Steven Lait is still getting used to. A refugee from the newspaper trenches, Mr. Lait was a cartoonist at The Oakland Tribune, in California, for almost two decades before he relocated to Washington and was stunned to discover the existence of “an actual publishing department that’s got funding,” he said. He was hired as a graphic designer for The Connection in 2011, which means he is “just getting over being the new person,” he said.
He means this. There is now one newer hire — a single staff member who joined the team since Mr. Lait did. When people leave, it’s usually to retire.
Mr. Lait is an exception for his experience outside of Costco. Several of his co-workers started where Mr. Vachris did, on the warehouse floor, as forklift operators and baggers. “There was so much tumultuousness about jobs in newspapers,” Mr. Lait said. “Being here at a place like this — it’s stable. It’s just so nice.”
But even the sturdiest institutions must adapt with the times. The Connection is treasured, but the cost of producing it is rising. Paper is more expensive. Postage is not cheap.
“We have no plans to discontinue the magazine,” Mr. Gruening said. “But we would like to expand digital and grow that circulation.” He has at least converted Dorothy Strakele, 66, who works as the magazine’s digital coordinator and who sees herself as an ambassador for the wonders of the internet, pushing her co-workers to provide compelling visual content to run with their stories.
“I’m like, ‘Give me a video, I need a video,’” Ms. Strakele said. Mr. Gruening noted that The Connection has a more navigable website than it used to and puts much of its content online for free (although readership is modest compared with its overwhelming print circulation).
Digital ambitions aside, Connection originalists still savor it in its printed form. Mr. Kimmel lamented that ever since he was awarded a lifetime executive membership, his own subscription to Costco Connection seems to have lapsed. Might a reporter be able to put in a good work with the circulation desk? “I would like to be on the mailing list again,” Mr. Kimmel said. He needed them to know: “One of your most enthusiastic customers would like to get his magazine.”
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