Dave,
Let me play devil's advocate here.
Maybe the fact that cover ads used to be common is not an argument in favor of them. You could argue that it's a throwback to the bad old days of trade journalism, an era when perhaps trade publishers were a bit too cozy with their audience. (I admit, it's not an era I witnessed, it's just what I've heard. So I'm more than willing to be set straight on this.)
Discuss.
Martha Spizziri
Web editor
VP, Boston/New England chapter
American Society of Business Publication Editors
Ummm ... whoops! I meant to say "trade publishers were a bit too cozy with the advertisers," of course, not audience.
I agree that simply because something was done in the past doesn't necessarily make it right for the present or the future.
But the point of looking to the past in this case is that cover ads aren't something new--a sign of creeping influence of advertisers.
I'm not sure that I fully agree about the "bad old days." I think trade magazines have been unfairly painted with advertiser-related ethical issues for a long time, but thinking back to my "old days" at least--about 25 years ago--I see no real change in these ethical issues. There are as many lapses as before, and as many excellent, ethical trade magazines out there.
I think what changed was that many observers realized that ethical issues were ethical issues, regardless of whether the magazine in question was a trade magazine or a consumer magazine. (I've seen more lapses on the consumer side in the last decade than our consumer magazine brethren would care to admit.) So perhaps the perception that trade magazines were uniquely liable to lapse ethically is what changed.
But finally, I don't see advertising positioning, regardless of where it is, as a problem, if that positioning is the result of a consistent business decision (factoring in the impact on readership, for example) and isn't intended to fool readers that the advertising is in some way editorial.
Most newspaper and magazine home pages have advertising, and that doesn't cause me to believe that those ads are editorial.
I think if we hobble ourselves in print, compared to our online colleagues, we set ourselves at a needless disadvantage.
But I welcome the comments of others. Tell me what you think.
David, I caught your session at the ASBPE conference last week, and I figured I'd chime in.
One key element that appears to be missing from recent discussions on this topic: A good number of trade and B2B titles rely on controlled circulation. That is, they're distributed (usually via mail) to a strategic, niche audience, free of charge.
In these cases, advertising dollars comprise nearly all of these pubs' revenues, with reader-based circ profits being a moot point.
Granted, the more people use your product, the more advertisers want to reach them. But in cases where there's far less tangible value in using your cover to incent readers than there is in using it to attract advertisers, what's the business case against selling a cover ad?
Tony:
Thanks for the comment. I'm not sure that the controlled circulation model itself justifies cover advertising. I've long believed that controlled circ magazines need to be as aggressive with their covers as newsstand books--simply because we make it to the mailbox, or the inbox, or the desktop, courtesy of the US Postal Service, doesn't mean we've given the recipient a reason to crack open the book.
I get a lot of magazines each month--but I open the ones first that attract my attention best. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
That said, I continue to believe there's no ethical issue with cover advertising, as long as it's clearly advertising. But there are other issues that need to be addressed--is the cover of the magazine still capable of grabbing the reader's attention, enticing him or her to open the book and read it?
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