Comments on: Madvertzines: Ads vs Content http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/ What's Next? Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:09:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Frank Jania http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/comment-page-1/#comment-21022 Frank Jania Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:49:22 +0000 http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/#comment-21022 I used to have an addiction like Darren, but I've been weaning myself off of the hard stuff for a while now. Sometimes work gets so busy that piles of magazines start on my living room table and it starts to look ludicrous. I have a small pile now, including a couple of back issues of Wired. I took a sample of all of the magazines on my table and came up with this: <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/" rel="nofollow">Business 2.0</a>: 46 pages of ads in 116 total pages (No longer in print) <a href="http://businessweek.com/" rel="nofollow">BusinessWeek</a>: 37 / 117 <a href="http://www.out.com/" rel="nofollow">Out</a>: 55 / 130 <a href="http://men.style.com/details/" rel="nofollow">Details</a>: 62 / 158 (This one came for free with some other subscription I got. I would never buy Details on purpose :-) I used to have an addiction like Darren, but I’ve been weaning myself off of the hard stuff for a while now.

Sometimes work gets so busy that piles of magazines start on my living room table and it starts to look ludicrous.

I have a small pile now, including a couple of back issues of Wired. I took a sample of all of the magazines on my table and came up with this:

Business 2.0: 46 pages of ads in 116 total pages (No longer in print)
BusinessWeek: 37 / 117
Out: 55 / 130
Details: 62 / 158 (This one came for free with some other subscription I got. I would never buy Details on purpose :-)

]]> By: Ian Betteridge http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/comment-page-1/#comment-20286 Ian Betteridge Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:40:43 +0000 http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/#comment-20286 Back in the days when I worked on MacUser, we had a ed:ad ratio of roughly 70:30, so 70% editorial content. However, if you surveyed readers and asked them roughly what percentage of the magazine was ads, they'd invariably say over 50%. In fact, very few magazines - even the big thick women's mags - ever go over 50%, and most are below that. We also asked them what they'd be prepared to pay for the magazine if it had no ads, and the answer was about £5 (this was back in the day when it cost £3.50 or so). The problem was that, if you removed the advertising entirely, the actual cost of an issue would have been around £10 - which of course meant that no one would buy it! Back in the days when I worked on MacUser, we had a ed:ad ratio of roughly 70:30, so 70% editorial content. However, if you surveyed readers and asked them roughly what percentage of the magazine was ads, they’d invariably say over 50%. In fact, very few magazines – even the big thick women’s mags – ever go over 50%, and most are below that.

We also asked them what they’d be prepared to pay for the magazine if it had no ads, and the answer was about £5 (this was back in the day when it cost £3.50 or so). The problem was that, if you removed the advertising entirely, the actual cost of an issue would have been around £10 – which of course meant that no one would buy it!

]]> By: Darren http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/comment-page-1/#comment-20285 Darren Sun, 18 Nov 2007 09:40:35 +0000 http://rooreynolds.com/2007/11/17/wheres-the-content-madvertzines/#comment-20285 Magazines are one of my guilty pleasures, I've cut down but I'm still buying 5 or 6 a week. I'm thinking the Argos book wins on ad content. :-) I do get Wired and I actually like the ads in there as they're for things you don't see advertised here, or that you can't buy, or that are advertised differently in America. I also read somewhere that someone reckoned you could measure the current financial state of the tech industry by the thickness of Wired. It did get very thin in the early 2000s. I don't really mind ads, even Women's magazines that have a lot of them are all nice and glossy and beautifully produced. The thing I really don't like are the leaflets they put inside that fall out all the time and occasionally when they have a really thick piece of card for an ad page, or a free sample of something, it means the magazine doesn't hold itself open if you put it on the table to read while you're eating. Magazines are one of my guilty pleasures, I’ve cut down but I’m still buying 5 or 6 a week.

I’m thinking the Argos book wins on ad content. :-)

I do get Wired and I actually like the ads in there as they’re for things you don’t see advertised here, or that you can’t buy, or that are advertised differently in America. I also read somewhere that someone reckoned you could measure the current financial state of the tech industry by the thickness of Wired. It did get very thin in the early 2000s.

I don’t really mind ads, even Women’s magazines that have a lot of them are all nice and glossy and beautifully produced. The thing I really don’t like are the leaflets they put inside that fall out all the time and occasionally when they have a really thick piece of card for an ad page, or a free sample of something, it means the magazine doesn’t hold itself open if you put it on the table to read while you’re eating.

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