Relish Magazine Launches with Top Circulation in US
Very few magazines launch with a premier issue that has the highest circulation in its category, but the new monthly food magazine, Relish did just that on February 1, with circulation figures over 6.8 million. That makes it the highest circulating publication in the category of food magazines that accept advertising, with Cooking Light coming in a distant second with 1,746,000.
That said, let it be known that there is a catch to these phenominal numbers: this magazine is actuallly a monthly newspaper insert, along the lines of Parade Magazine, which appears weekly in Sunday newspapers across the country. So it is essentially getting its circulation figures by piggybacking on the circulations over three hundred daily newspapers, not through newsstand sales or individual consumer subscriptions.
When examined in that light, the circulation figures are not nearly as impressive as they first appear. Neither is the news that the magazine’s editorial team were prepared to sell editorial copy to advertisers, thus blurring the line between what is an ad, and what is a legitimate piece of food journalism.
In other words, if you read an article in Relish where the writers and editors are rating various products or suggesting that consumers purchase them, one cannot know if the opinion is genuine, or if it was bought and paid for by an advertising representative for those products. That is a fine way to build up reader and consumer confidence in a publication.
According to AdAge.com, (you have to log to read the article–login is Barbara Fisher, password is paperpalate) Publishing Group of America, the publishers of Relish,was hoping to sell product placement and mentions in editorial content of various name brand products, in addition to selling more traditional advertisements. However, even though the magazine ended up with a total distribution in excess of 6.8 million–800,000 more than predicted, there were no takers in this ethically-challenged advertising scheme.
However, there were plenty of companies buying traditional ads: Weight Watchers, Dell and Campbell Soup were among them. Campbell, however, said in July that they were exploring the ad/editorial option, provided that it was “seamless and reached an attractive enough audience.”
Dick Porter, the President and CEO of Publishing Group of America doesn’t seem to be aware that such “seamless” blending of editorial content and advertising copy is considered to be a breach of ethics by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Their editorial guidelines clearly state, “Advertisers should not pay to place their products in editorial pages nor should they demand placement in return for advertising. Editorial pages may display and credit products and tell readers where to buy them, as long as those pages are solely under editorial control.” In reference to the plan, he is quoted in AdAge as saying, “It is still on the table.”
While Porter may be ignorant of the eimplications of this questionable editorial policy creates, one would think that Relish’s editor, Jill Melton might be familiar with the ethics of the American Society of Magazine Editors, as she was an editor at Cooking Light for fifteen years.
I suspect that at her former place of employment, Melton wasn’t engaged in selling product placement in her editorial pages; I wonder why she is fine with the practice now?
Sounds like they need to have the words “Paid Content” or Advertisement stamped on every page.
I no longer relish reading the monthly magazine.
I wonder if its successful placement in all those newspapers at once has to do with how it is funded. Maybe the newspapers are getting paid like with a newspaper ad insert, or maybe they are getting it for free.
This blurs the line between corporate supplied articles and pix for me.