Men’s mag turns nameplate into ad real estate
It’s the type of magazine ad that’s sure to cause a flap among old-school editorial types worried about advertisers encroaching on the editorial environment.
The September issue of Sharp – a men’s lifestyle publication produced by Toronto’s Contempo Media – features an ad for BMW that uses a pair of cover-mounted flaps to incorporate the luxury automaker’s message into both its logo and elsewhere on its cover.
When readers lift a small flap at the top the cover, the Sharp name is transformed into “Shape,” while a flap at the bottom of the cover reveals the words “the future” accompanied by an image of BMW’s instantly recognizable front grille. When the magazine is opened, readers are greeted by a double-page spread featuring an image of a BMW concept car accompanied by the words “By creating it.”
Sharp publisher (and Contempo Media co-founder) John McGouran said that the cover execution arose from a query by BMW’s media agency, Media Experts, seeking a publisher willing to work with the agency and client on what he describes as “interesting executions.”
“We thought this was a great idea, pretty neat for our magazine, and certainly a brand like BMW fits well with what we’re doing,” McGouran told Marketing. The execution required extensive internal discussion regarding Sharp’s editorial integrity, said McGouran, but there was consensus among staff to proceed with the ad.
“We thought the integrity of the magazine was still there and this was an innovative way for one of our advertising partners to [deliver its] message,” he said, noting that Sharp would be “selective” in implementing future advertising concepts that blur the line between where editorial space ends and advertiser space begins.
“If we feel that it’s an execution that works for the magazine and the advertiser, there’s no reason why we wouldn’t do it, but we’re going to assess them on a case-by-case basis,” said McGouran. “I don’t think there’s going to be a hard and fast rule; that’s why these things are called unique executions.”
The BMW execution – which commanded a premium price that McGouran described only as “substantially more” than a comparable ad placement, such as the outside back cover – is not only good for Sharp, he said, but the magazine industry in general.
“There’s a lot of media choices out there right now, and I think magazines have been a certain way for a long time and the advertising community is looking for different ways to connect with whatever the medium’s audience is,” he said. “I don’t think we can just sit back and expect to have what worked in the 1980s and ‘90s to necessarily work in today’s game.”
But Lynn Cunningham, an associate professor at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism in Toronto, said she was “shocked and appalled” by the ad, and said it is a “clear contravention” of guidelines regarding advertising-editorial separation originally drafted by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors and revised last year by a committee struck by Magazines Canada.
The guideline regarding covers, for instance, states that “no advertisement may be promoted on the cover of the magazine or included in the editorial table of contents, unless it involves an editorially directed contest, promotion or sponsored one-off editorial extra,” while the section regarding logos states “The magazine’s name or logo should not appear in advertisements, unless the advertisements are for the magazine and/or its promotions (or the advertised product has previously received an editorial award or review from the magazine).”
“That is a guideline, and we chose to interpret it a different way,” said McGouran, who said that reaction to the ad from the magazine’s audience and the advertising community has been overwhelmingly positive.
“That line might be a little blurred, but that all comes down to whose rules and regulations those are,” he said. “Ultimately we’re going to do what works best for Sharp and our audience and advertising partners.”
But Cunningham, who once colourfully described advertiser incursion into editorial space as “the devil’s work,” said that such executions could ultimately undermine the delicate relationship between publishers and readers.
“The most valuable thing you have as a publisher is the trust of your readers,” she said. “If you start messing with that it’s going to come and bite you in the ass.” Some publishers, she warned, aren’t just at the top of a slippery slope, but are “halfway down.”
Cunningham’s hope is for editors and publishers – particularly what she described as “the grand old publisher” category – to decry such tactics and perhaps cause their counterparts to rethink their approach.