Ads make a top read in our favourite mags

I found Andrew Ingram’s piece on creativity in radio advertising (MW last week) an interesting read.

I appreciate that the ongoing game of “my media is better than your media” is hard to avoid, but I would like to make the following points – beside the fact that convergence is the way forward.

We all know that advertising avoidance is a bugbear for all marketers, particularly as consumers today have unprecedented control over their own media intake. Consequently, the consumer needs to be at the heart of any advertising message, and engagement, not “inattentiveness”, must be the watchword of any activity.

A recent survey, carried out by Starcom US, asked magazine readers to pull out ten pages that best exhibited the essence of the title they were reading. One third of the pages the respondents pulled were advertisements. So, far from brands being “ignored in… magazines”, it appears they are more likely to be seen as an integral part of the magazine experience and therefore more appealing to the consumer.

The ongoing evolution and diversification of consumer magazines, which continues to grow existing sectors and create new ones, has created an environment where consumers can select a publication which closely mirrors their own tastes and attitudes, and marketers can use this to tailor specific messages to certain key audiences with precision. No other traditional media channel allows consumers the power to choose just when, where, how many times and how long to view the advertising.

Consumer magazines are the ultimate permission-based medium. But, then again, perhaps I would say that.

Phil Cutts

Director of marketing

PPA Marketing

London WC2