Do you ever wonder why the magazine you are reading has advertisements that seem to be meant just for you ? There are certain demographics that advertising companies want to advertise to and they have so much data for each magazine to see who is reading what. For example, every magazine has a certain language or way of wording the news that the magazine is trying to spread. They cater to the audience they find to be the most interested in their magazine so they can attract more of the people who already like their content. The head of the magazine companies use age, ethnicity, and income to see who is their main audience and what products they want to advertise to them. Some examples of magazines that have polar opposite demographics are XXL magazine, which is more of a rap news magazine and Rolling Stone, which is more of a rock and roll magazine. These magazines have many similarities and differences that will be compared and contrasted below as it relates to the reader’s demographics as well as what is advertised in each magazine based on the age of the audience, the ethnicity of the audience, and the income of the audience.
The age of the audience is a very important factor for advertisers because there is a certain age group, which is seventeen year olds to twenty-three year olds, where if they buy a product and like it then they will stay loyal to that product for a majority of their life. This is known as the golden age and these are the people that magazine companies and advertisers want to tailor their product to. Almost a quarter of Rolling Stone’s audience is in this age group so advertisers see this and want to start putting ads in these magazines to sell as much product as possible to this young audience with a lot of disposable income. Some advertisements that can be seen in Rolling Stone magazine include a trailer for the new Black Widow superhero movie coming out as well as an ad for the new Apple AirPods. Just like in Rolling Stone magazine, XXL also has a majority of their audience in the eighteen to twenty-nine range. Within the XXL magazine there are a lot of advertisements for Target and one ad for Beats Earbuds. Both of these companies know that the main people who shop in their stores and buy their products are the same age as the people consuming the media in these magazines. One thing that is very different about these magazines is the ethnicity of who is reading which magazine.
The ethnicity of people who read each magazine are almost polar opposites. Rolling Stone’s main audience is almost seventy-five percent white, while XXL magazine is sixty-seven percent African-American. Having these two different audiences means the magazine needs to fill the magazine with content that will keep their main audience interested. For example, XXL magazine contains almost exclusively African-American artists and the new music that they are releasing soon or updates with what is going on in an artist’s life. One really big event that XXL hosts is the XXL Freshman List. During this event, XXL gathers all the new up and coming artists and has them freestyle to a beat which is recorded and posted to YouTube. This is always a fun event because some people who listen to music only listen to what they know and what they have always listened to, but the XXL Freshman List gives people a chance to hear some of the new artists that are about to make it big in the rap game and witness how much talent they really have. On the contrary, Rolling Stone is mainly a news magazine with a little bit of rock and roll sprinkled in. Much of Rolling Stone is just current events going on in the world and lists of best movies of the year. There is not really references to current music tied to it like there is with XXL. One aspect that stands out though is that the majority of faces in Rolling Stone are all white because that is who their target audience is and who they are selling this magazine to. It does not look like Rolling Stone has any promotions to see the new rock and roll bands like XXL does. This could hurt them in the long run because they are going to have a difficult time getting new people to read and look at their magazine which will also damage their advertisers’ revenues. The income of the audience also plays a big role in what advertisements are placed in the magazines.
Household income plays an important role in whether a company decides to spend the money to put an ad in a magazine or not. This is because with more household income there will most likely be more disposable income that readers can spend on their products. Rolling Stone magazine’s audience has a median household income of $66,440 which is a substantial amount more than XXL which is $47,007. More expensive companies will be drawn to Rolling Stone because their audience has more income than XXL. In both magazines there really is not any difference in the way the text is laid out; The language of the content is different though, because in XXL all the news titles seem to really try to hook people in to read them while in Rolling Stone it seems as if the only thing the publishers really try to get people to look at is the music. Advertisers would want to spend more with XXL since their news topics are a bit broader and more interesting. Since Rolling Stone’s audience is a little older and has a little bit more money I saw bigger companies advertise in Rolling Stone magazine. For example, I saw a Volkswagen ad as well as an Xfinity ad while on the other hand XXL had ads for a movie and Beats headphones which are not as big as a car company or cable company.
XXL and Rolling Stone have a certain age group, ethnicity, and income that their advertisers study to make decisions on where to place ads when magazines have similar and different content within. Advertisers look for a certain demographic to advertise to and that is why they use the media kits for these magazines to find out what to advertise and when. Since XXL and Rolling Stone have moderately different audiences this is why there is a difference in the ads that are shown within the magazines. What advertisers look for is that golden age of people with a healthy amount of disposable income to buy their product so they will become loyal members of that company and keep buying their product. While looking at these media kits for each magazine, it is clear to see the reasoning behind why the ads that pop up in each magazine do.
XXL Magazine: https://www.xxlmag.com/freshman
Rolling StoneMagazine:https://www.rollingstone.com
