Magazine Advertising

Magazines published in the latter half of the nineteenth century were targeted towards special interest audiences and carried very little advertising. Most magazines of this time were either literary, or religious in content. Before the advent of radio, magazines were an important advertising medium for many businesses.

Magazines are considered as the most specialized of all the advertising media. The magazine industry has often been described as “survival of the discriminating.” The number of magazines has increased steadily to serve the educational, informational, entertainment and other specialized needs of consumers, business and industry.

Availability of a wide variety of magazines makes them quite an appealing medium to a very large number of advertisers. Magazine advertising is equally popular among large and small companies. Their higl1 interest readers are usually willing to pay a premium for the magazines.

As pointed out earlier, the role of magazines is different in the media plan of an advertiser. Magazines allow the presentation of detailed ad messages along with beautiful reproduction of photographs, graphics and colors. Magazines are comparatively a more high-involvement form of print medium than newspapers, as they are read in a leisurely manner and are not dumped or thrown after reading as happens in case of newspapers.

Magazines can be classified in various ways but the most important classification can be in terms of their editorial appeal or the type of readership they attract.