This document analyzes magazine advertising techniques and provides examples. It discusses how magazines rely heavily on advertising funding. Smaller magazines in particular devote a large percentage of their pages to ads. The document then examines two magazine ads, noting design elements like simple layouts, use of album artwork, and inclusion of release details and label information. Both ads effectively communicate what is being advertised through visual and textual elements.

1. Magazine Advert Research

2. Magazines use advertising for funding- generally the more adverts in a magazine the more reliant it is on this backing. Some of the less major magazines for example “The Jazz Rag” has very little funding , only a few pages printed in colour and far more space in the magazine devoted to adverts (perhaps not overall due to it’s small size) but a far greater percent of the pages consist of advertising. On average 50-80% of magazine funding is done by magazines. Advertising in magazines as well as all other forms of traditional media is on the decrease- This is due to the rise in online advertisement which is becoming increasing the popular with the rise in usage of the internet. Here I have included a page from ‘The Jazz Rag’ which has 4 adverts on. The adverts are all relevant to the genre of music the magazine focuses on.

3. Here is an example of a magazine advert, it states clearly what it is advertising; a CD and download as well as the limited edition CD/DVD release, Vinyl and Picture Disc. This shows a very common convention of al bums being released in a wide variety of forms and across different media. This is shown by the words “The album Out now” then a list of the different versions The layout for the advert is very simple, black background with band name and release at the top, with the Album picture shown. Showing a photo of the release is a almost vital convention of advertisements as it makes it easy for someone who has seen an advert to recognise the product. This is impractical when something is being released on several formats with slightly different shaped packaging. So just showing an enlarged copy of the album artwork that would be shared across all versions of the release. The only other information given is the band and labels website addresses, record label logo and small print and some small print with the producer and photographer mentioned. The effect created by having all simple font in relatively small letters white on black emphasises the text, despite being small it stands out by being bright in comparison to the rest of the advert. This is amplified by the lack of activity in the photograph, this will make the audience want to read the text to explain the scene. The font used is that used in the band’s logo-this has been done to push the already established logo into the advert and make it more recognisable to fans, whilst representing the band in the same way they usually are.

4. Here I have looked at two different magazine adverts. They both have a simple design which includes the album artwork in the image, this is so the album will be easy to recognise from the advert, clearly showing what it is advertising. They both then have text with the album name and band name in quite large letters, along with the release date. They both also include the record label logo towards the bottom of the text and quotes from reviews and the website addresses for the band and label. The first days of spring advert also states it is a Film and album and in simple text separated by commas the release formats, i.e. CD, Download, Deluxe edition CD/DVD and also some information about a upcoming tour of the band. The Jamie T advert does not even mention it is an album, relying on the artists reputation and also the placement of the advert (In ‘Q’ a music magazine) it expects the audience to know that it is an album advert.

5. Here is my sketch for my magazine advert. I’ve kept the design simple and based it around the cover image that I used for my DVD digipack. I want the large image to be black and white with the side of the page with text and the logo on to just be black. I also want to show the CD and digipack covers on the advert aswell to re-enforce the image, these will be on the black half of the page with light shown behind them to make them more visable.