PPA ‘Magazines Are Magic’ Conference: Afternoon

Speakers at yesterday’s PPA Conference highlighted what they thought made magazines the best medium for advertisers.

Rupert Miles, of BBC Magazines, pointed out that though the number of magazine titles is increasing rapidly the growth is matched by increasing readership. This is in contrast to other mediums: though viewers now have the choice of up to around seventy channels this does not mean that they ‘consume’ more. Similarly, in terms of radio, although there has been a plethora of new stations listenership has in fact declined.

Mr Miles believes that the growing success of magazines and magazine ads (Kelloggs, Kenco and McDonalds are all increasing their share of magazine ads) is due primarily to ‘distinction’ – the fact that a title distinguishes its readers and targets a particular audience much more selectively than any other medium.

Simon Marquis, from Marketing, took this concept a stage further and suggested that what makes magazine ‘magic’ is that magazines are a type of ‘relationship marketing’ – where “good ads slipstream into the editor’s tone of voice” and become part of what the magazine represents and so part of what attracts the readership.

Kenneth McCarren, of Bozell (New York), illustrated the power of magazine ads by talking about the campaign in the US to promote milk. This became famous for the myriad of stars sporting a ‘milk moustache’ and generated mass coverage on radio, tv and in the newspapers. He believed that magazines offer the following benefits:

• optimum placement
• continuous delivery
• editorial support
• added value (such as brochures and leaflets)

In terms of the stars featured in the ads, benefits include the fact that models are more comfortable being photographed than filmed and the medium is also much cheaper than tv.

One of the more specialised sessions in the afternoon focused on classified advertising on the Internet. Speakers were Anne Jamieson (Price Jamieson), Chris Samuel (Bernard Hodes Advertising) and Mike Rowley (IPC Magazines). Their talk focused on the importance of taking the editorial and brand power of an ad to the Internet whilst at the same time making the ad different to what is already in print. It was also pointed out that an ad on the Internet should be seen as an extension of a brand and not the annihilation of it.