Besides learning that I'm in love with 30 Rock and/or Tina Fey, I also realized something unique about fashion magazines. You actually want to look at the ads. That's pretty much the POINT of fashion magazines. Sure, there's always an interview with a fashionable star, and there's always a few beauty tips and "good buy" kinds of pieces, but for the most part, its ads, and you look at every single page. I started thinking about how brands could use this to their advantage. Of course, there are some things that they'd have to keep in mind.
First, as with any "community" you decide to join, you have to understand their ways. Ads in fashion magazines are always:
-beautiful,
-simple (not a lot of words, etc),
-and emotional.
They don't hard sell you, they just bring you into that moment. Word-heavy, rational benefit kinds of ads stick out like a sore thumb.
Second, there has to be a brand fit. Cheez-its will never be a strong fit in a fashion magazine. They just won't. But Apple, with their focus on sleek design, might. The same goes for BMW.
Third, the ad has to be beautiful in it's own right. You can't just imitate the way fashion brands design their ads. You can't put Cheez-its in the hands of a woman wearing a beautiful avant-garde dress--it will instead look like a parody. You have to find a way to make your product beautiful the same way clothing brands showcase their products.
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2 comments:
yes, and no. While I agree most of the time you want your product to align with the medium, there are those occasions where it makes perfect sense to throw box of Cheese-its in front of fashion wanna bees and say, "you'll still look good in that $1,500, size 4 Calvin Klein dress if it has a little orange smear on the shoulder."
-The Thin Man
On this one, I have to disagree with you. Paging through a fashion magazine borders on fantasy--that you can wear these things, that a piece like that isn't out of your league, that this is how the world looks. Anything that breaks up that fantasy is unwelcome. In this case, breaking through the "clutter" won't help you. Fashion magazines aren't a place for realism, for humor, for cheez its. It's a place for fantasizing about what a beautiful life you could have.
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