Sunday, June 12, 2005

Three Strikes and Your Out

At 11pm, what would somebody be doing be at a Border’s Bookstore. Call it having no life…

While browsing restlessly through the magazine section, I couldn’t help, but notice the glossy array of glamorous bridal mags. Each with their own distinct style and personality with the goal of helping prospective brides plan their weddings. That’s about 5 - 10% of the entire magazine, while the remainder is a barrage of ads. These ads are of wedding gowns, more gowns, and more gowns. Looking over these mags becomes a dizzying experience of one endless gown ad after the other with an occasional “break” of a different ad from a jewelrer, invitation, or gift registry.

I beg to find some quality content, but to my chagrin, the line becomes even more blurry when landing on the “as-featured” or “what’s hot” section, since most of the names of advertisers are also visibly featured on these sections deemed as editor’s picks. Should bridal mags be the only ones guilty of pushing ads/content/ads to their readers?

It’s difficult to claim that bridal mags are guilty of pushing endless ads to their readers because one can say that fashion mags appear to be just the same, as well. Dissect any other magazine from a different genre, and perhaps you’d get the same result. What are the editors thinking? They're thinking bottom line, bottom line, and bottom line.

Reaching a saturation point – after “reading” three mags is all I can take…

Time to go home and get some quality information from TV!

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