Essay, Research Paper: Advertising - Editorials

Advertising is a very profitable and precise business. Every person involved with the advertising business must be in touch with all of the publics likes and dislikes. That one aspect of advertising makes the profession so extremely difficult. Advertising was originally intended to inform the public of what was available to them by creating a more educated society. It was discovered that the more knowledge possessed by people, the more they shop and purchase products. Therefore advertising became one of the most powerful links between the producers and the consumers.
Many magazines use “advertorials” to entice readers to purchase their magazines. An “adertorial” is an advertisement created to copy the appearance of a feature article. This is one of the most commonly used tactics by magazine editors to convince you to buy their magazine. Another tactic used by some magazines is “complementary copy” or “supportive editorial atmosphere”. This means that editors of specialty magazines, like Motor Trend or Teen, will run editorials on products and credit certain companies with praise in order to pursued them to advertise in their magazines. The problem with this form of acquiring ads is that not everyone can get away with it. If a “main stream” magazine like, Business Week or U.S. News, ran praise on automobiles and later credited Chevy in particular to get their ads, there would probably be a scandal or even a criminal investigation. It is overlooked in the fashion magazines and considered normal business because most of the public regards women’s magazines as catalogs for cosmetics anyway.
Some magazines hold back what they print due to pressure placed upon them by advertising companies. If an advertisement by GM is run in Muscle Car Magazine and they have an editorial knocking General Motor’s muscle cars, they probably won’t print it, because GM may threaten to pull their ads. This is how advertisers have a certain amount of control over what we, as the public, read. This method of business practice, in a way, exploits us as consumers. If Ford doesn’t want to advertise in a magazine that General Motor’s does, that magazine will print articles that discredit Ford but not articles that discredit GM. This, basically, dictates what we think of different companies. Unknowingly we accept articles that tarnish the image of some companies, but we never think about the articles that the magazine decided, for whatever reason, not to print. This has a great impact on our culture.


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