Imagine you’re sitting in the waiting room bored out of your mind at the doctor’s office or waiting in line at the barber shop and you look around. You notice a stack of magazines on the table next to you and you grab one from the stack, just to distract yourself. Even though they say “don’t judge a book by its cover”, you probably pick up the magazine with the cover photo and title that’s most appealing to you and your interests. At least, that’s what I do. That’s exactly what these publication companies want you to do. They target you through a number of different ways, your age, race, geographic location, and most importantly, interests.
Running a magazine company this day in age can be challenging because we live in such a digital world, especially with everything being available online today. I reviewed two print publications; Rolling Stone Magazine and XXL Magazine. These are two very different magazines with entirely different audiences but the most important thing is to know your audience and these two magazine companies do. The two magazines I am going to be talking about in this article are directed towards totally different audiences, therefore they attract completely different advertisers and readers.
The first magazine I read was Rolling Stone. This magazine has been in publication for over fifty years, since Jann Wenner founded it in 1967, and is mostly directed toward white males, aged 18-34. The median age of readers is 35.3. One thing I picked up on while reading was the advertisers use of language to try to seem hip or cool to their younger readers. An example of this was New Belgium beer company calling their Hemperor beer, “The dankest ale in the world”, which immediately made me a fan. However, due to the fact I am not 21, and also have Celiac disease I can’t drink it. I’m not really an avid magazine reader, or even an avid reader at all, but I did notice that there were way more ads than articles, which seemed strange to me. The articles in this publication include favorite songs right now (mostly rock and roll), Live Reinvention of U2, CD’s being replaced with vinyl, Celebrities alcoholic beverage lines, upcoming tv and Netflix shows, Politics (which, for the record, was slanted way left), covergirl Camila Cabello, Tom Wolfe, and a story of a 23 year old inmate’s wrongful murder.
The second magazine I read was XXL, a publication that has existed for a little over twenty year and is mainly geared towards 18-29 year old African American males, even though they have readers of every race and gender. XXL is a hip-hop magazine. A full page ad is estimated at around $21,260. The advertisements in this edition of XXL feature sportswear, expensive/fashionable clothing, and television shows. The articles in this magazine include background stories about the XXL Freshman Class of 2018, past XXL Freshman and their accomplishments, and some of the hottest songs in hip-hop right now.
Even though these two publications are inherently different, they have some very similar qualities. For example, both magazines are staples of the music industry, and are top tier in their respective categories. Another characteristic they share, they have the same challenges. Competing for attention in the age of technology. Both have to convince advertisers to buy space in their magazines and are forced to constantly reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant in a digital world. promote their sites at the bottom of each of their pages. And of course, they are both music publications.
One thing that is very different with XXL and Rolling Stone is their following. Rolling Stone has a much larger fan base and following than XXL, mostly due to the fact that they’ve been around for thirty years longer. With such a large following, Rolling Stone can demand a lot from advertisers, charging $233,270 for a full page ad, while the rate for XXL is just $21,260. Not only are the prices of the advertisements vastly different, the ads themselves are as well. In Rolling Stone, most of the publication is ads about high-end cars, bourbon, tobacco products and e-cigarettes. In XXL, however, the ads are more for high-end clothing, sportswear, and much less frequent.
From this experience I was actually able to learn more from the Rolling Stone magazine than the XXL one, due to the fact that I generally listen to hip-hop music. The only information I had ever learned about rock & roll was from either my dad, uncles, or the hit video game, Guitar Hero, and it was pretty cool to learn more about it. Another thing I learned was, even though a magazine or publication may be directed towards a certain ethnic group or demographic, it doesn’t mean they’re the only ones that can read it.
Camila Cabello on the June 14-28, 2018 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine
The 2018 XXL Freshman Class
Works Cited
Rolling Stone Media Kit 2016. Rolling Stone, 2016, www.srds.com/mediakits/rollingstone/Rolling%20Stone%20Media%20Kit%202016.pdf .
Wright, Eleanor. XXL Media Kit by Eleanor Wright – Infogram. Infogram: Create Infographics, Reports and Maps, 2018, infogram.com/xxl-media-kit-1gx3pw4xv007mgr.