If you want to understand a magazine, read its advertisements.
Here’s the example from my favourite weekend indulgence, the brilliant UK edition of “The Week”. When I read it, for that hour on a Saturday breakfast, I inhabit a new persona. Its voice addresses me as a member of an English middle class with all its best virtues on display - humour combined with seriousness; responsibility without self-aggrandisement; common sense and clarity that doesn’t for that reason dumb down; and lots of entertainment. And addressed as that person, I feel that’s who I am - that’s what an audience does, and that’s where the power of the Voice comes from: by convincing you are something, you become it just a little more.
So when I pick up the postal cellophane wrap, I am about to enter an identity. Only the advertisement on the back cover shows. It’s for Patek Philippe. A watch I’m neither ever likely to desire or to afford. But if you do desire one, or even have one, you’ll associate your desire and the persona you’re about to enter. It’s Pavlovian, really. The salivation at the indulgence to come is associated with the bell that is the advertisement for an expensive watch. Patek Philippe is making itself part of the landscape of aspiration of the English middle class.
The next advertisement is on the inside front page, a double spread for Breitling, another watch I have no time for. I’ve spent a moment on the cover. The saliva is rising. The bell has gone. But a new conditioning signal gets interposed between the anticipation and the satisfaction. It’s the “Super Avenger II”, with lots of dials and a chunky, action-man look. “Yes, of course,” I can almost hear my temporary persona whispering, “that’s also part of who I am. I’ll need it for when I take the pre-war by-plane out for a spin over green hedgerows and Cotswold villages later in the afternoon”.
For the next 6 pages, the Voice takes over. The Voice briefs - interspersed with just a few jokes - and makes me feel that I’m ready to rule the world. Serious business; I’m a responsible national and global citizen with my role to play. It’s important I be informed about all this; not only would I not want to be disturbed by anyone hawking me their wares, but no one would seriously want to set up shop in the vicinity of such weighty matters - I’m in Whitehall, not Whiteleys.
The next advertisement comes with the first piece of naked entertainment. It’s opposite the celebrities page and offers me investment management services. After the tribulations of our world, I’m offered the theatre of the personal to relieve my troubled mind. A pretty good moment for an investment management pitch - my savings are also all about the theatre of the personal, and the vicissitudes of the world, with all its worries, are a receding yet still present memory.
On it goes. Try it yourself - the advertisements and the contents of a well-designed magazine exist in a complete symbiosis. Read the two together for a complete understanding not only of how the Voice proclaims, but also how it whispers... Read more:
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