Advertorials: a second look - special advertising sections of magazines - column

Advertorials: A second look

In its "Guidelines for Special Advertising Sections," the American Society of Magazine Editors notes that the word "advertorial" should not be used to describe such material. But, as everyone knows, the word is commonly used in magazine publishing offices to describe a themed section written primarily as an aid to selling the advertising in it.

Advertorial may be to magazines what junk bonds are to Wall Street: a term of revealing candor that suggests an element of risk. The public's trust is involved. With magazines, there is the risk that an immediate gain in ad pages generated by advertorial sections may be offset by the reader's perception of a ruse, giving rise to an objection about the inclusion of such material. In this case, an important profit component of the magazine--the subscription renewal rate, for example--could be negatively affected.

Then there is the editor. I can't recall ever meeting a magazine editor who hasn't expressed concern about the existence of advertorial sections in his magazine. To many editors, "advertorial" suggests the venality in publishing we most fear: a final tacky confluence of editorial and advertising in which the two become indistinguishable, the last fibers of publishing integrity dissolved.

The reality, of course, is something less awful. Advertorials today usually range from mindless promotional column filler to paid new product and travel guide information that often serves the reader extremely well.

Still, unlike publishers who may foster them, editors tend to see "special advertising sections" as a publishing pollutant. Where--and how--did they originate?

Owner, publisher and editor

Publishers, titles and power may partly account for the origination of the special advertising section.

In the present publishing era, more and more magazines have come under corporate ownership. Groups of magazines are managed as properties. Executives are "accountable for the performance of their magazines." The owner may be represented by a little-known board of directors or the impresario of a multinational corporation.

In this scenario, major advertisers might feel that they have been distanced from the key people in magazine publishing. Agencies and their clients find it insufficient, at times, to talk merely to a magazine ad director or a group publishing vice president. "Where is the publisher?" they ask. Where is the person who has authority over the magazine's overall editorial thrust, circulation and advertising strategies? But at many magazine companies today, there may no longer be a publisher in the classic sense of a Luce or a Curtis.

Given the advertiser's normal desire to talk to a real chief Pooh-Bah, magazine managements began bestowing the title of Publisher on the person most frequently in contact with the advertiser: the magazine's ad director. This practice works well enough until the advertiser comes to realize that the "publisher" he's talking with is not an emperor, but merely his old friend the ad director in new clothes. And it turns out he doesn't exert much control over what goes into his book.

Circumventing the problem

Against this background, the publisher/ad director encounters an advertiser who seemingly is prepared to buy space in the magazine, but is reluctant to do so because, "the magazine doesn't run much in its editorial columns about our industry, or the kinds of products or services we market."

Of course, the editor may have sound reasons for not publishing such material. Measured reader response, newsstand sales and subscriber renewals--or more likely his highly attuned editorial viscera--may tell him it won't appeal strongly to readers.

Meanwhile, since the "publisher" doesn't have the direct authority to compel the editor to run the information, he is powerless to satisfy the advertiser--his title notwithstanding.

Against this background, it's not hard to perceive what a short leap of logic it took for today's magazine "publisher" to create a print vehicle that would enable him to bypass the editor and create the "editorial" the advertiser says he wants in the magazine.

In recent years, advertorial sections have attracted millions of dollars of revenue to magazine publishers. Most of them believe this has been additional revenue that wouldn't have come in as run-of-book ad pages. And because all the pages--text and ads--are labeled as advertising and counted by Publishers Information Bureau, they contribute to an inflated image of ad linage--numbers that help portray a strong magazine.

Still, questions about the long-term value of special ad sections persist.

I doubt it will do much good for this writer merely to add another voice to the chorus that has deplored the advertorial for its often deliberate (protestations to the contrary) confusion of message and marketing. Quite possibly, the way to critique the advertorial is to examine whether it serves the ultimate profitability of magazine publishing. There are questions to ask: . To what extent does the marketing energy devoted to selling ads and preparing text for special sections subtract from the supposedly central effort of convincing advertisers that the magazine, as edited, is correctly positioned for their commercial messages? . Advertisers normally want their ads adjacent to editorial material that attracts high readership. When they elect to buy into a "special advertising section," advertisers presumably think the "editorial content" of the section is read at least as well as the rest of the magazine, as edited by the editors. But if it is, why shouldn't the material appear alongside the magazine's regular editorial pages in the first place? Conversely, if the advertorial text isn't read as avidly as the rest of the magazine, why would advertisers want to be positioned next to it? . How much of the text in advertorial sections genuinely serves the reader and the reader's purpose for reading the magazine? If it is useful, how is the advertorial any different from the editorial in the magazine? and why would we need an ASME stricture that editors of a magazine not work directly on advertorial sections--to say nothing of the stricture that special advertising sections should "avoid potential conflicts or overlaps with editorial content"? . How much of the text in advertorial sections is perceived by the reader as pap, but nevertheless part of the total editorial package being bought? And to what extent does this lower the reader's respect for the magazine? . In setting the ad:edit page ratio for an issue, how much weight does the publisher give to advertorial sections in allocating the number of pages the editors will get? Do all the advertorial pages count as ad pages, with an offsetting number of editorial pages elsewhere in the magazine? Not likely. Do the ad pages alone count as ads? Or none of the above? How does the reader perceive the overall balance of magazines occasionally dominated by advertorial sections? . What effect does all the above have on circulation--particularly the critical subscription renewal rates of magazines? Why is it that many circulation people join with editors in questioning the long-range effect of advertorial sections on magazine profitability?

Circulation expert Wendell Forbes, for instance, urges a strong alliance of editors and circulators to stave off special advertising sections, which he finds "an abomination. I just thumb over those pages and ignore them."

Adds Forbes, "We need to prove again and again that economic success is possible without resorting to gimmicks like advertorials."

Some historical perspective

In his 1957 book Magazines in the Twentieth Century, Theodore Peterson surveyed the history of magazine publishing since 1900 and concluded that after more than 50 years, "publisher and advertiser alike" would agree on one thing: "The advertiser's money is wasted if his ads aren't believed. To be believed, his ads must be in a publication that readers trust. And if advertisers start to have a say-so about editorial content, then it's not going to be long before readers find out and lose respect for the magazine."

The separation of church and state has continued to serve publishers well over the years, even as a practical business philosophy. Briefly stated: Publishers should attempt to hire the best writers, photographers, artists and editors, and then not interfere with their work of creating magazines to attract readers.

A corollary to this philosophy is that giving away creative control of a magazine, or a part of it, to a third party means losing the skills, of the editor in attracting readers. And if readers walk away from the book, advertising pages will ultimately follow.

Such is the root of the dispute over special advertising sections--if not for advertising people, at least for editors and for circulators and publishing bean counters. Is there genuine long-term profit in creating special advertising sections? Do long-term negative perceptions of this form of magazine marketing outweigh short-term revenue and ad page gains?

My view is that traditional forces at work in magazine economics will ultimately take care of the issue. The cost of space in magazines--made up of editorial, separations, paper, printing and postage--is high. If the advertiser isn't directly paying for it, or if what's taking up the space doesn't contribute directly to creating subscription or newsstand revenue, then pressures eventually mount to remove it.

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