The effectiveness of magazines is much underestimated, as a recent report from the Radio Centre ‘Re-evaluating media’ underlined. An aggregate of all the media scores in this study shows that the gap between evidence and perception is the starkest for magazines.

Narrowing this perception gap is an important challenge facing the magazine industry. Our own effectiveness work has demonstrated the power of magazine when it comes to long and short terms effects including, brand equity, customer acquisition and activation. We are keen to tackle this perception challenge. This report serves to answer the question ‘why should advertisers and agencies invest in magazines?’ 

In today’s media landscape attention is hugely important. Attention to advertising matters more than it ever has. There are more times and places where we can capture the consumers’ attention, yet numerous studies show attention to advertising is declining. Why? Because attention is a finite resource and we are in danger of over exploiting it. 

When it comes to attention to advertising, it seems the more attention we try to squeeze out of consumers, the more they find ways to defend against it. Digital detox, banner blindness and adblocking are all symptoms of an advertising ecosystem that is overloaded. In our rush to embrace all the new ways we can reach the consumer, to continually mine and measure this using the new tools of digitalisation and data, we have focused too heavily on eyeballs.

Not all reach is equal, and now is the time to consider quality attention. Quality attention matters. The neuroscience evidence shows that advertising that is encoded into memory is a predictor of future behavior.  We need to start to prioritise environments where ad avoidance is low. These spaces where advertising is welcome provide a underappreciated value.

Magazines provide high quality attention that is immersive and focused, more importantly attention to their advertising is one of the highest. This is because they provide a positive content and advertising experience, a relevant context that enhances receptivity to advertising and a highly trusted environment. With magazines, advertising is not rejected, but seen as a positive part of the experience. 

What’s more this high-quality attention doesn’t need to be expensive. 

Analysis of CPT’s for commonly planned and bought audiences show that magazines are exceptional value.

The report is broken down into five chapters:

1. MAGAZINES WORK
2. ATTENTION MATTERS
3. POSITIVE
4. RELEVANT
5. TRUSTED

We’ve broken these five chapters into five individual decks that can be viewed and downloaded individually at payattention.media