Cover "pouch" newest wrinkle in making most of covers for magazine ad sales

House Beautiful, a major U.S. shelter magazine, features a "pouch" behind (or sandwiched inside) the front cover for its September issue. It is but the latest attempt by magazine publishers to find a way to strike a balance between maintaining the integrity of editorial covers while finding creative ways to engage advertisers.

According to a story in the New York Times the pouch contains a card which, on one side, has a chart to help homeowners choose colours for decorating. On the other side is an advertisement for Glidden Paints.

Kate Kelly Smith, vice president and publisher of House Beautiful, part of the Hearst Magazines division of the Hearst Corporation in New York, said the pouch — which appears on the cover of the annual fall color issue — was designed to meet [American Society of Magazine Editors] guidelines.

“We were very careful,” Ms. Kelly Smith said, that it be “an editorial cover” because “everything at House Beautiful begins with an editorial lens.”

Stephen Drucker, editor in chief at House Beautiful, agreed with her, saying that “none of the real estate on the cover is anything but editorial.”

“The advertiser had no knowledge about what the content” of the pouch would be, he added, other than it would be part of “a color issue.”

Mr. Drucker described himself as “particularly enthusiastic” about the idea, a first for House Beautiful, because “we editors have to make magazines exciting again, and this is a great demonstration of how to do that.”

In the past year, there have been several examples of attempts by magazines to come up with creative use of covers -- some of them less successful than others in keeping the "church and state" separation of advertising and editorial.

[photo by Philip Friedman / Studio D]

Related and recent posts:

• It's subtle, but Popular Science sells its cover
• ASME calls two magazines on the carpet for ad encroachment on covers
• ESPN magazine takes "flapvertising" another step
• Ads creep onto magazine covers
• "Flapvertising" debuts at Esquire
• Ad encroachment on magazine covers comes in many different forms