In 1992, Small Business Owners Mark and Deanna Theobald were looking for a cost effective way to advertise their Burger Stop restaurant in Layton, Utah. Not finding the right solution for what they wanted, Deanna set out to make her own. In June of that year Deanna teamed up with Albertsons to do a co-op flyer. Other businesses saw the flyer and wanted in. “We realized that this really could be its own business” says Mark, “We decided to price it out to see how much it would cost to mail it out.” The flyer grew to be two sided, and then to a black and white 8 page magazine. They decided on the name Hometown Values because they wanted to encourage people to shop local, and because Utah is a values driven market (morally and economically).

Keeping the magazine relevant to the local area was very important to the Hometown Values brand, so as new areas were added, so were new localized versions of the magazine.  “The magazine definitely filled a much needed role,” says Deanna “And it works. We have clients that have advertised with us since the beginning. We used to only have kids be featured on the cover, and we recently found out that one of our clients has a family album of all the covers they did over the years.” “It is very rewarding to watch family businesses grow, and watch their kids grow within the business, and see them be successful”.  “Our success with the magazines depended on the success of our clients that were in the magazines, so we had to be fiduciaries of our clients first,” says Mark. “Even to the point that if seasonality came into play or if that month wasn’t a good month for certain types of businesses or if their offer wasn’t strong enough we would share that with them.”

In 2004 Hometown Values received several awards and recognitions for being one of the fastest-growing companies in Utah, such as being 27th in the Mountain West Venture Group list of Utah 100.  

In 2005, Hometown Values Magazine was sold to Utah Media Group and then in 2020 to the Deseret News. The magazine continued to grow and started going out monthly. Innovation based on client needs continued to play an important factor, and new product offerings in and around the magazine continued to be developed and introduced.  One of those innovations was the launch of Hometown Plus Magazine in 2017.  This mid-month magazine is published ten times a year and offers our customers not only extended reach and frequency but also limited completion from like clients.

Today, Hometown has evolved into a statewide media company. Hometown Values Magazine is Utah’s oldest and largest direct mail publication, being mailed to over 560,000 homes each month in 16 different regions, (from Logan to Santaquin).  Hometown Plus is mailed to over 130,000 homes twelve times a year and to round it out as Hometown planned for the future, we recognized the need for our brand and influence to evolve and grow, says Trent Eyre, Publisher/GM of Hometown Values Magazine.  As a result, in 2017 Hometown Values introduced a full-service advertising agency.  This new agency provides services that range from social media, email marketing, and web design, to video production and SEO/SEM, content marketing, traditional media placement, and more.  Says Eyre, “Together with Hometown Values Magazine, we now offer marketing solutions in the Utah marketplace that simply no other media or marketing company can offer.”