As Advertising Dollars Drop, It Is Time To Consider New Advertising

Advertising revenues in magazines, mirroring the economy today, have dropped drastically compared to last year’s numbers while circulation also continues to decline. This is putting magazines in a tight situation with less money in their pocket to fund editorial content.

According to a Media Week article, McClatchy advertising sales are down almost 18 percent compared to last year’s sales. A New York Times article also recently published that magazine sales have declined a little over 6 percent. McClatchy has announced that unfortunately it will decrease its staff 10 percent to try to cut costs.

Increasing advertising money will provide better editorial content for readers and therefore increase circulation and advertising money. This is a grim time for magazines and although they are not facing as high a deficit as newspapers, magazines need to re-imagine their advertising technique(s) to include new methods to get advertiser’s messages to the reader.

There are many new marketing ideas that can be used in today’s magazine world. The most technologically savvy step would to make an advertising presence on the internet. This would include more than the typical pop-up/under and banner ads that are used in today’s marketing. The internet is not a new medium, but magazines have been reluctant to consider it a major source for advertising revenue. With print ads dropping, it is time for magazines to make the leap into the internet advertising world. Great examples of magazines that utilize online advertising would be Spin Magazine and Ebony Magazine in addition to many lesser know magazines like MC Magazine.

By creating an online pdf version of their print editions, magazines can include online advertising with their print prices. In addition, as seen in Spin Magazine, advertisers can then create special ads for the online editions. Magazines can create direct links to send readers to websites to buy advertiser’s products. A report from the Magazine Publishers of America says that people are two times more likely to go to a website of a product they liked when seen from a magazine ad. By creating an online edition of a magazine, it will allow more readers easier access to immediately shop for products advertised in the magazine. By intertwining their magazine and internet advertising alone, print magazines can increase their advertising revenues.

Cosmo has also incorporated the internet into their marketing as they have announced they will partner with YouTube to find female musicians. This marketing technique will incorporate all aspects of a magazine. It will increase advertising money, particularly music advertising, while increasing circulation or, at the very least readership and a relationship with viewers. This can also provide increased editorial content for the magazine. This is another way magazines can use the internet to increase their advertising dollars. By cross promoting with other companies they can reach an audience they may never have had or increase their presence within that audience which will bring more advertising money.

As magazines face the realities of our current economy, it is now the time for them to start looking at new ways to increase advertising revenues. As times and technology change, the magazine industry must change too. Magazines no longer paste up physical copies of every page to be produced, replacing that with desktop publication. It is now time that magazines incorporate new advertising techniques into their business model so they can continue to provide readers with material they have been promised and have come to rely on and trust.

Advertising throughout magazines

Is there to much advertising in magazines? Are magazines becoming just another tool to persuade society into materialistic needs, and are magazines now just a commercial tool for advertising companies? This question is often raised by magazines readers, however on the other hand can magazines survive without companies paying to place advertisements in the magazine.

Magazines are one of the important avenues advertisers seek to promote their goods. Advertisers are willing to pay for the attractive pages of a magazine as well as fight for prominence with in a magazine, for advertising companies recognize the power of being seen in particular magazine and on particular pages. Recognition of the wide audiences made available through magazine readership has ensured advertising companies use this tool of communication to advertise everything from woman’s razors, and the latest Gucci clothing to sports cars and holidays. However, it can be argued that Advertisements are beginning to take over the magazines content. For example, the Vogue October 2007 edition displayed purely advertisements for the first 40 pages. After these 40 pages the reader arrived at the first content page, and in the following pages every second page would display an advertisement. Throughout the whole magazine, even if there was a page that wasn’t an intended advertisement, the page would contain the brand of the clothing the model was wearing, where to get it, how much it costs and a phone number to call and order.

Thus it can be seen why many readers of magazines are frustrated and feeling that advertising is taking over magazines. Within magazines selected advertising companies, due to the power of money, have a large influence over editorial content and lay out of magazines thus, poising the question, how much of our favorite magazines is stylized with the sole intention of persuading us into a purchase a product? Clearly it can be argued that an advertising frenzy is occurring within magazines making this popular media tool a commercialized area to further sell and influence its readers.

On the other hand, it is a fact that advertising is a necessary component of a magazine production and without this the magazine will most likely fail. Within the production of a magazine there are three areas necessary to keep the magazine alive: editorial, advertising and circulation. Editorial must keep the reader interested and provide what the reader wants, circulation shows to the advertisers that the magazine has the audience they desire, and advertising provides the funds to keep the magazine alive. So, if all three work together there should not be the perception that is currently around, that magazines are becoming one of the biggest advertising tools in today’s mass media.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

It's no doubt that advertising is a competitive industry. Especially in niche magazines, there are multiple ads for the same type of product because those products appeal to the audience. But how does one advertiser stand out from the other four-hundred pages in a magazine, intriguing a reader to purchase their product?

Vanity Fair is by far my favorite magazine, so my critique is hardly a negative one of the Conde Nast publication. It's like an ice cream shop, in print --- lengthy feature stories about politics and culture, fashion spreads and the fab life of celebrities, today and yesterday --- different flavors for different taste buds, all in one place. Not only has Vanity Fair succeeded in making a sundae of editorial, but its advertising accounts for more than half the magazine. Let's just call it the cherry on top. With sprinkles.

I wouldn't be persuaded to buy two scoops of plain vanilla ice cream, unless, maybe, it was coated with sprinkles. To sell something in a market that has duplicates of duplicates of duplicates, advertisers have to offer something to the consumer that the other advertisers can't, won't, or don't offer. Often taboo to discuss, sex, subliminal or obvious, is used in advertising, to perhaps encourage readers that they, too, can look sexy or attract the opposite sex if they use the product.

The cover of the October issue validates this sales tactic. Nicole Kidman, like the headline suggests, bares all, with strawberry-stained lips, she is literally pulling open her blouse to expose perfectly contoured cleavage, accentuated by a gold necklace. Her eight-page spread, however, contains six tasteful, fully-clothed photos, in which she is referred to as a "lady." But who’s to determine that a photograph of Kidman in a tight, blue and white striped sweater isn’t sexy?

Despite the seven other sexually-suggestive advertisements in the October issue --- including Tom Ford's men's fragrance, featuring a man with an unbuttoned shirt and a woman's hand caressing his sweaty chest, and MAC makeup's sultry pin-up girl in glittery lingerie, holding a finger in her mouth --- Dolce and Gabbana's most recent campaign, featuring naked men and explicit poses, some even portraying women with scissors, has quite possibly started a whole new sexual revolution in advertising.

So, why does sex sell? Our generation, compared to our grandparents, our parents, and for some, simply our older siblings, is becoming numb to sex. We're subjected to sex on such a regular basis that it hardly occurs to us when we encounter it first hand. However, younger readers who may not have a fully developed understanding of what sex is, might be more influenced than the average twenty-something magazine reader. Sex education in junior high doesn't teach that sex isn't glamorous, and both boys and girls might develop lower self esteem, or engage in sex at younger ages, because they begin comparing themselves to the advertisements they see.