Advertisement Bombardment

In the magazine industry, there is a constant conflict between the editorial side and the business side of magazines. With the need to continue the magazine’s life, advertisements are a must, but it seems as if that are beginning to overtake the actually content of the magazine.

In a recent copy of Cosmopolitan magazine, it wasn’t until page 14 until I reached the page dubbed “From the Editor” and it wasn’t until page 29 that I reached the first article. This particular magazine focuses on fashion, boys and tips on life that every girl needs to know. Not only do the articles focus on those subjects, but the advertisements do as well. The pages are full of advertisements for clothing stores, perfumes, handbags and make-up. Throughout the entire magazine, Cosmo not only has pages of advertisements, but Cosmo advertises products within individual articles. In the magazine, there was an article on make-up tips and within each tip, there was a product listed that could help. Advertisements were everywhere and they outnumbered the magazine content by at least a 3:1 ratio. The bombardment of advertisements was impossible to avoid.

The bombardments of ads didn’t just stop at the most recent issue of Cosmopolitan; they were also taking over the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Although unlike Cosmo, the Rolling Stone did have a lot more articles. There seemed to be a trend that for ever two pages of content, there was one page of advertisements. Another difference between Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone were the types of advertisements. Because Rolling Stone serves such a wider audience, the advertisements were very generic and surprisingly not as music related as I expected. Although there were a few advertisements for new albums and headphones, most of the advertisements were for gum, cars, phones and alcohol. I would assume that many Rolling Stone readers are over the age of 21, but I know that not all are. I’ve been reading Rolling Stone since I was in high school and I never noticed until now the amount of advertisements for alcohol. With Rolling Stone it’s so hard to tell whether or not the advertisements influence the content, since the content is all focused on music. But I’m sure it’s safe to assume that many record labels and executives influence which albums get reviewed and which artists are featured.

Overall, magazines seem to be losing all of their substance and are slowly becoming a place for advertisements to pile up. I guess to many magazines, the business side is much more important than the editorial side.