A Case for Magazine Advertisement

Why does it make sense for an advertiser to buy magazine ad space? After all, hasn’t the advent of the internet killed off the magazine industry? Why would an organization look at going in for magazine advertisements for their brands when no one reads anymore as everyone would have us believe?

Well, try and remember the last time you were at the airport or at the railway station or caught a tube. Did you notice what your fellow travellers carried with them during their journey or how they spent their time while waiting? You would have seen some of them fiddling about on their smart-phones or tablets or laptops, some of them staring blankly into space or into the television console with or without a pair of headphones plugged in, while the rest of them READ! Those who were reading either had a newspaper or a book and if you looked closely enough, you would have seen that a vast majority of them held magazines! So now do you believe that the world of magazines is dead?

Unlike newspapers, the editorial content of magazines usually adhere to a specific theme for example, political topics, gardening, motor racing, interior decoration, sports, finance and so on. Readers buy magazines which are in keeping with their areas of interest. From an advertiser’s point of view this is a gift, because an advertiser knows in advance what profile of customers read which magazine, so the time and cost of research is saved. Secondly, it is far easier to track the impact of a magazine advertisement because the buyers of the magazine are known beforehand.

Readers of magazines usually take time to go through the contents closely quite unlike the manner in which they just browse through newspapers or websites. A well-presented advertisement in a magazine does get its fair amount of eye-space and attention and it cannot be muted or flipped over with a remote, thereby making an investment in magazine ad space a prudent decision for an advertiser.

Compared to newspapers and internet content or even TV and radio shows, magazines enjoy a greater shelf-life and are read over by multiple readers thereby ensuring that the magazine advertisement has a multiple reach and hence increasing the probability of a potential buyer actually seeing the advertisement and making a decision to purchase the product being advertised. Advertising in a magazine makes it possible for the advertiser to actually track the impact of every dollar spent in running the ad.

Would you now still believe that to advertise in a magazine or buying magazine ad space is a waste of time, money and effort?

All about the Work of an Advertising Buying Agency

An advertising firm is an intense, exciting and exhilarating place to work in or even to observe and read about. The heady combination of creative passion with clear practical and realistic objectives is rarely found in any other field.

All the advertisements that you have seen today be it the ones in your morning newspaper, or the ones on the hoardings at traffic junctions and alongside roads or the jingles on the radio in your car and then the ones on the television. Each and every single one of those advertisements did not just land up there; they were created to catch your attention by an advertisement firm and then placed at the appropriate medium to reach you by an advertising buying agency.

Ok, now that’s a new term because you have heard of advertisement firms or advertising agencies but advertising buying agency is something new for you. Let’s tell you about what they are and what they do.

Once an advertisement campaign for a particular product, service or even a brand is ready, it needs to be placed in the various media for which it has been prepared. The placing of the advertisement in the various media such as newspapers, hoardings, radio, televisions, and internet and so on calls for a lot of negotiations between the owners of the media and the advertiser. It is an advertising buying agency which acts an intermediary between the media owners and the advertisers and brings them to a common ground.

An advertising buying agency serves the media owners by buying their advertising space or slots in bulk thereby saving them the time and hassle of actually going out and seeking advertisers. The media owners can focus on their core deliverable which is that of developing content for their media. For advertisers, the buying agency helps to make available the choice of media platforms at one single point and at reasonable rates, thereby saving them the trouble of multiple negotiations. In most instances, the buying agency, actually works out the entire execution of the final and most crucial leg of the advertising campaign in terms of selecting the media, deciding the timing and frequency of the campaign and finally assessing the consumer response to the advertisements.

Earlier, an advertising firm usually focused only on the actually building of advertisements as per the needs of the advertisers and an advertising buying agency took over once the advertisements were ready. Nowadays advertising buying has been integrated as a key department of advertising agencies.

Print Marketing – Still There, Strong as Ever

Did someone say that the average print magazine has run out of ink in this age of laptops, mobiles and tablets? Was someone ringing the death knell for print marketing a little too loudly? To all those raising hosannas to the gradual demise of all things physical and printed, this is a request to think again.

The figures issued by the Association of Magazine Media show a steady consistency in the readership of magazines across various genres. You do not need to worry your head about all those figures and symbols. Think about your commute to work today , if you had taken a train, shuttle or tube, chances are that you would have seen most of the commuters immersed some sort of print – magazine, newspaper or a book. Why would that be? Why are people still reading physical printed material – and why are advertisers still going in for print marketing in today’s age of all things electronic?

Maybe the answer lies in the sense of permanence and security that the physical tangibility of printed reading material provides. Maybe it is the convenience of reading something and reflecting on it at one’s own pace which gives readers a sense of control over what their mind takes in, instead of being electronically hurried along and buried amidst the clutter of information and flashing images. Maybe it is the belief that the efforts put in to research and write articles and actually publish and circulate a print magazine is far, far more credible than someone voicing his or her opinion on the internet without any verification or endorsement. At the end of it all, no matter how rapid the strides of development made, it is still an undeniable fact that to get an article, story or content out on print, certain standards of writing have to be met and a level of credibility has to be achieved. All the Media Advertising Company provides this type of services.

So why go in for print marketing, why make it a part of an advertiser’s media strategy? For starters, print still continues to be the major influencer in the minds of the consumers given the level of attentiveness that the reading of a print magazine commands, which leads to a high brand recall. Secondly, magazines, especially the special interest ones, already have their niche segment of readers. So the effort in conducting market research on the part of the advertiser is saved to a large extent - it may piggy-back on the magazines’ existing readership and reach out to the customers whom they want to approach. Finally, the reach of print magazines is still as strong as ever, as it is not just the original purchaser who reads the magazine, but friends, family and colleagues as well. Think about it, what do you do when you are waiting for a doctor or a dentist appointment or waiting in the lobby for an interview? You read a magazine, right? And how many other people waiting in the same area as you also read those same magazines? So many people view a single high-resolution printed advertisement in the magazine.

Now do you still believe that print magazines have reached the end of their road and print marketing is an obsolete activity? I am sure that reading this little post has got you thinking again.