Fashion 101: Magazines and their Advertisers

I struggle to find a magazine I like. I love looking at pretty pictures, and there are many magazines that do that well, but I’m not willing to pay $15 for a magazine with pretty pictures, when $50 will get you a beautiful coffee table book. I like my magazines to have well-written information, and its hard to find fashion magazines that do this. If I can flip through a magazine and absorb most of its content in 15 minutes or less, then I consider it a poor magazine (that’s why I like Vanity Fair, it takes a good 45min to read.)

But rather than criticize and insult the editors and writers who produce substandard content, as my first Fashion 101 post, I’d like to explain why magazine staff have their hands tied, and its the big brands that control magazine content.

Magazines make their money from advertising, not cover price, and magazine advertising is very expensive, so there are only a handful of big brands who can afford it. Here’s a couple of examples of rates from media kits (this information is available to the public, just find the “advertise” or “media kit” section of a magazine’s website, usually at the bottom of the homepage.) Brands rarely pay the listed prices, but this is a good indicator.

US Vogue, 1 page, full colour, in the first quarter of the magazine: $151,000 (USD)

US Elle, 1 page, full colour, in the first quarter of the magazine: $131,000 (USD)

Flare, 1 page, full colour: $22,000 (CDN)

Even if a small brand were to be able to pay $100K for a page, you can’t exactly pay for one page a year in Vogue, you need to advertise more regularly for it to have an impact. So basically, these huge advertising sums paid by the big brands of the fashion world pay for the glossy paper, the chauffered cars, and the expense accounts of the magazines and their staff.

So how do the magazines give thanks? They feature the big brands products in their editorials. There’s a term called PR value which states that a one page feature of your brand in a magazine is worth four times the price of a one page advertisement. Its more valuable when the magazine says “this is great” then when readers see an advertisement from that brand. So that is why big brands pay the huge advertising sums. And as a result, magazines need to talk about the big brand’s products, whether they like them or not.

This figure may vary depending on a publication, but generally 90% of magazine content is advertiser’s product. Go ahead, check it out for yourself. If you see an ad for Louis Vuitton and Lancome cosmetics, its pretty much a guarantee that their products will be featured somewhere in the magazine. The magazines are forced to ensure that their advertisors products are well represented in each and every issue, even if it means featuring products that don’t fit in with a trend or story (magazines MAKE stories that fit in with the big brand’s products.)

Also, have you noticed that there are less long, interesting feature articles, and more shopping pages recently? This is because magazines are under more pressure than ever to cater to their advertisers, therefore they are including as many items of clothing or accessories as possible in each issue. The recession has meant magazines are desperate for advertising money, and are therefore filling their pages with as much product as possible, rather than text and stories.

All of this means that all the mid-sized and small brands of the world are competing for 10% of magazine content, and that’s why being a PR for a small brand is pretty tough.

Anyway, I’d like to conclude by saying that when you read a magazine and they are telling you about the “must have” bag of the season or the best new wrinkle cream is, keep in mind that the writers are probably being forced to feature the brands that advertise in their publication. But I am definitely not saying you should all stop buying magazines, because we all want to see that new Louis Vuitton or Prada bag anyway, regardless of whether they paid to be there or not.

Further reading: Business of Fashion has written a very interesting article about how online magazines are now trying to capitalize on shopable content. Read it here.

By the way, this is Searching for Style’s 300th post! Thanks to all my readers for their support.

Read other Fashion 101 posts:

Fashion 101: Where do Fashion Trends Come From?

Fashion 101: Designers with Two Jobs

Fashion 101: How Haute Couture Works