From The New York Times:
Trade organizations for the newspaper and magazine industries plan to introduce elaborate and expensive campaigns that tackle a daunting task, persuading marketers and agencies to think better of print as an ad medium. Both are suffering from sluggish growth as they face off against the Internet, e-mail marketing and other, newer rivals.
The focal point of the magazine campaign will be ads for eight brands and products like Altoids, sold by Kraft Foods; Cover Girl, made by Procter & Gamble; the Infiniti car line, sold by Nissan Motor; and J. C. Penney. The ads are slyly designed to look as if they have been ripped from the magazines in which they appear. Text next to the torn-out ads makes the point that magazines engage readers with “ideas that live beyond the page.”
The mock torn-out ads will also appear in the thousands of free copies that agencies receive of more than 30 magazines, including BusinessWeek, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Fortune, Maxim, Men’s Health, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and Woman’s Day.
Reminding media professionals that consumers rip ads out of magazines “is very visceral,” said Nina B. Link, president and chief executive at the magazine association in New York. “They get it immediately.”
“We want to show that magazines are where consumers are going to engage in the advertising,” she added, “and that engagement leads to action.”
On the interweb, one needn’t rip a page. One may print the page, unless it’s built in Flash. But the point is well taken, nonetheless. There will always be value in the tactile media experience.
