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Part Five Developing the Integrated Marketing Communications Program
Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
12. Evaluation of Print
Media
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
$202,000 in 2002. Popular positions such as the back cover cost even more. By contrast,
a full-page, four-color ad in Tennis (circulation 710,000) cost $64,000.
Like any medium, magazines must be considered not only from an absolute cost
perspective but also in terms of relative costs. Most magazines emphasize their effectiveness
in reaching specific target audiences at a low cost per thousand. Also, an
increasing number of magazines are offering demographic and geographic editions,
which helps lower their costs. Media planners generally focus on the relative costs of a
publication in reaching their target audience. However, they may recommend a magazine
with a high cost per thousand because of its ability to reach a small, specialized
market segment. Of course, advertisers with limited budgets will be interested in the
absolute costs of space in a magazine and the costs of producing quality ads for these
publications.
Limited Reach and Frequency Magazines are generally not as effective as
other media in offering reach and frequency. While nearly 90 percent of adults in the
United States read one or more consumer magazines each month, the percentage of
adults reading any individual publication tends to be much smaller, so magazines have
a thin penetration of households. For example, Reader’s Digest has the third-highest
circulation of any magazine, at 12.2 million, but this represents only 11 percent of the
106 million households in the United States.
As shown in Figure 12-3, only 37 magazines had a paid circulation over 2 million
in 2002. Thus, advertisers seeking broad reach must make media buys in a number of
magazines, which means more negotiations and transactions. For a broad-reach strategy,
magazines are used in conjunction with other media. Since most magazines are
monthly or at best weekly publications, the opportunity for building frequency
through the use of the same publication is limited. Using multiple ads in the same
issue of a publication is an inefficient way to build frequency. Most advertisers try to
achieve frequency by adding other magazines with similar audiences to the media
schedule.
Long Lead Time Another drawback of magazines is the long lead time needed
to place an ad. Most major publications have a 30- to 90-day lead time, which means
space must be purchased and the ad must be prepared well in advance of the actual
publication date. No changes in the art or copy of the ad can be made after the closing
date. This long lead time means magazine ads cannot be as timely as other media, such
as radio or newspapers, in responding to current events or changing market conditions.
Clutter and Competition While the problem of advertising clutter is generally
discussed in reference to the broadcast media, magazines also have this drawback.
The clutter problem for magazines is something of a paradox: The more successful a
magazine becomes, the more advertising pages it attracts, and this leads to greater
clutter. In fact, magazines generally gauge their success in terms of the number of
advertising pages they sell.
Magazine publishers do attempt to control the clutter problem by maintaining a reasonable
balance of editorial pages to advertising. According to the Magazine Publishers
of America, the average consumer magazine contains 45 percent advertising and
55 percent editorial. 11 However, many magazines contain ads on more than half of
their pages. This clutter makes it difficult for an advertiser to gain readers’ attention
and draw them into the ad. Thus, many print ads use strong visual images, catchy
headlines, or some of the creative techniques discussed earlier to grab the interest of
magazine readers. Some advertisers create their own custom magazines to sidestep the
advertising clutter problem as well as to have control over editorial content. A number
of companies have also been publishing their own magazines to build relationships
with their customers. For example, Farmer’s Insurance sends its customers a magazine
called The Friendly Review that contains useful articles on a variety of topics. Swedish
retailer IKEA has partnered with John Brown Contract Publishing to custom-publish a
magazine titled space. 12 space is both a showcase for IKEA merchandise and a magazine
that contains informative articles about home furnishings, modern design, and