Glossie Recessionomics

It seems magazines and advertisers need to get creative to ensure their survival and have been pulling out all the stops to try to improve their numbers, and it sure doesn't involve press trips to Aspen or lunches at Le Cirque.   Cover lines on the front of a magazine are stressed over and perfected, polled and tested, before the glossie even goes to print to capture the reader's interest.  It was only inevitable that the adverts would skip the middle man and just appear on the cover... 

Case in point- ESPN Magazine.  Powerade apparently decided that the inside front cover was just not good enough and at this point the mag would probably stop at nothing to improve its numbers.  The front cover reads "You wouldn't want an incomplete cover" ... open the flap and read "Then don't settle for an incomplete drink".  Genius.   Tiger wouldnt settle, Federer wouldn't, I mean neither would I, I say as I walk out of Universal News flipping through the mag with a Powerade in hand.   

                

Will tampering with the usual standard cover draw more readers and more dollars in?  In the past few weeks Derek Lam and Zac Posen have unveiled ad campaigns even during these tough times.  Maybe they have taken cues from Timothy Geithner and decided to follow the stimulus model of pumping more money into their biz in order to stay alive.  Or maybe they need to pimp out a Vogue cover with a fold out fur lined advert.  

Esquire has also followed suit with a mix and match cover because one cover model just won't cut it these days.  

  

 Here's to creativity

xoxo,

SG

(photos complements of adage.com)