The inspiration for this blog post has come from my recent visit to America and a purchase of Vogue US to read on the plane.
I'm a relatively regular reader of Vogue UK- I find the articles interesting (it's not all about affordable fashion), it's great for fashion inspiration/awareness of upcoming trends and find that the advert vs article ratio tolerable- so when in America, I lapped up the opportunity to get my hands on American Vogue, just to see if it had a similar offering.
This Vogue magazine had some considerable weight to it in comparison to the UK version and in terms of it's mass it is mostly from the amount of adverts in it! I felt I just spent half the time flicking through the magazine just to find something of interest. To demonstrate, below is a picture showing the letter from the editor (generally found near the front in most publications) which I came across on page 276 and finished around page 284 (with some more adverts in between). This publication may just be a 'one off' in terms of excessive advertising as I do not have any other comparable materials, however, even with TV shows in America you could see 3-4 adverts for a half hour show (generally one appears even after the opening credits).
From a marketing perspective it would be an interesting investigation to determine the effectiveness of this type of bombardment of advertising- it could well be a case in TV, with cable capabilities, you could skip right past them. After all The Guardian reported in 2005 that we are exposed to some 3,500 adverts per day, 95% of which are ineffective. My thoughts are, the more adverts the more I want to get away from that magazine/show- but perhaps this is just a cultural difference.
What do you think?
Sam
(Committee Treasurer)
I'm a relatively regular reader of Vogue UK- I find the articles interesting (it's not all about affordable fashion), it's great for fashion inspiration/awareness of upcoming trends and find that the advert vs article ratio tolerable- so when in America, I lapped up the opportunity to get my hands on American Vogue, just to see if it had a similar offering.
This Vogue magazine had some considerable weight to it in comparison to the UK version and in terms of it's mass it is mostly from the amount of adverts in it! I felt I just spent half the time flicking through the magazine just to find something of interest. To demonstrate, below is a picture showing the letter from the editor (generally found near the front in most publications) which I came across on page 276 and finished around page 284 (with some more adverts in between). This publication may just be a 'one off' in terms of excessive advertising as I do not have any other comparable materials, however, even with TV shows in America you could see 3-4 adverts for a half hour show (generally one appears even after the opening credits).
From a marketing perspective it would be an interesting investigation to determine the effectiveness of this type of bombardment of advertising- it could well be a case in TV, with cable capabilities, you could skip right past them. After all The Guardian reported in 2005 that we are exposed to some 3,500 adverts per day, 95% of which are ineffective. My thoughts are, the more adverts the more I want to get away from that magazine/show- but perhaps this is just a cultural difference.
What do you think?
Sam
(Committee Treasurer)