After my trip to Barnes and Nobles, I became curious about how magazines choose who to feature on the cover of their magazine. I thought that maybe this could help explain the discrepancy between the actual racial make-up of the U.S. and the races of people on magazine covers. I know that editors need to make magazine covers alluring and intriguing in order for people to buy the issue. On Forbes.com,I found a list of celebrity's deemed " Most Valuable". In 2008, they analyzed the six most popular celebrity magazines: People, Star, US Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style and OK and found which celebrities sell the most copies. They found that the 10 most valuable celebrities were:
1) Angelina Jolie
2)Jennifer Aniston
3)Heath Ledger
4)Jamie Lynn Spears
5)Nicole Richie
6)Jessica Simpson
7)Suri Cruise (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's daughter)
8)Shiloh Jolie Pitt ( Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's daughter)
9)Heidi Montag
10)Owen Wilson
I understand that this is a limited sample, because Forbes only looked at six different magazines. However, 90% of the "most valuable" celebrities on the Forbes list are white. The only exception is Nicole Richie who is multiracial. This could potentially explain why I found that celebrity magazines were the least racially diverse ( in terms of the races of the people on their covers). Is the celebrity magazine readership primarily white? Are celebrity magazine editors marketing towards white readers?
I found an interesting paper online entitled: Printed in "Black" and "White": Effect of Readers Race on Magazine Advertising Rates that helped answer some of my questions. The author of this paper looked at how the racial composition of a magazine's readership affects their advertising rates. They focused on 78 mainstream magazines ( magazines that are not targeted to a particular racial group). They found that how much advertisers are willing to pay for advertising space in a magazine is dependent upon the race of the people who read the magazine. According to the paper, advertisers have access to the racial demographics of each magazine. In fact, they found that a 1% increase in minority readership of a magazine caused a $1202.70 decrease in advertising prices. But a 1% increase in white readership causes a $1202.69 increase. In other words, they found that if a "mainstream" magazine markets towards non-white readers, their revenue will fall. This shows that advertisers are more focused on the racial composition of the readership rather than the sheer number of readers.This really surprised me because I assumed that advertisers would simply be interested in how many readers the magazine had. The difference in advertising prices could explain why certain magazines feature a disproportional percentage of white people on their covers. The author of the paper proposes a solution at the end of her work: that the advertisers should not be able to see the racial demographics of magazine's readerships.
What do you think about her solution? Do you think that the advertising prices based on the minority readership of a magazine are fair?
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First before letting you know my opinion, I would like to read this article about race and advertising revenue. I am a little skeptical on how it is conducted. I would like to know if there are other articles that support its findings: that as minority readership increases, advertising prices fall. I wonder if there is a link between ad readership and a company’s profits. For instance, are minorities less susceptible to advertising, hence less likely to buy what a company is trying to sell? Or are companies just being overtly racist?
ReplyDeleteBut to your question, I don't think we should interfere with a company’s prerogatives. A company has to make money--that's why they are created. If they believe that adverstising to minorities decreases profits, and hence wants to decrease their advertisement towards minorities, that is their choice. Since they are spending the money on advertisement willingly and expect to get as much out of their advertising as possible, they have the right to know who is going to be viewing their ad, so they can make a choice to see if it is worthwhile to advertise or not. Companies want to target a certain audience. If a company like New York Life, a life insurance company, places its ads on magazines such as Seventeen, it would be detrimental to their profits. Seventeen doesn't have readership that will most likely buy life insurance. A company that is advertising in a magazine or in a any media outlet, has a right to know who their ads are going to reach.
The ad cost difference I noted in your article is only $0.01 to the different targeted race. I wonder if this is a good enough statistic for magazines to make such decision to expose the white artists as oppose to the others.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, Hollywood has always been easier for the white artists. I remember an interview during the Grammy awards, where Zoe Saldana ( actress of Avatar) talked about her rejection to a film due to her race. The director decided to go for the 'conventional' way. Perhaps, studying the racial demographics of celebrities in Hollywood could give you more depths in your study.
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ReplyDeleteSi Jie, That is actually not what I said in my post. The difference is actually a lot greater. "In fact, they found that a 1% increase in minority readership of a magazine caused a $1202.70 DECREASE in advertising prices. But a 1% increase in white readership causes a $1202.69 INCREASE." I never would have posted anything about a 1 cent difference. Does that change your opinion about the validity of the findings?
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Sam: a company's got to do what it's got to do, in order to profit. I would be curious to know what the reasons for a decrease in profit might be. Why are minorities less likely to purchase certain magazines? Also, I couldn't help to notice than only two men are on that list, which points out to another factor in determining "the most valuable" celebrity. In general, my feeling is that newspaper companies, and media overall, do their best to suit their target audience, thus making most profit. Picking apart all their tools and figuring out their purpose would be very interesting. But, in the end, the main reason wold be to satisfy the most frequent and loyal reader. One could ask: why not attempt to reach out to the rest, or to the minorities? Not profitable?
ReplyDeleteIn response to Sladja's question, I would bet that there are niche markets for minority-focused newspapers. These markets are likely filled by magazines already devoted to their readerships--and the cost-benefit for a major magazine trying to break into these niches probably doesn't pan out.
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to see the various consumer motivations for purchasing magazines. I feel like the particular celebrity might be more important than the race of the person on the cover in determining impulse buys. I wonder as well the extent to which these magazines rely on impulse buys (i.e., whether or not the cover even matters). I bet there's a pretty strong loyalty component to the readership of many of these magazines, which takes the cover issue out of the picture...but I'd be curious to see some less speculative data on the issue.