Ad positioning: the awful truth

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 1996 by Josh Gordon

Like lemmings dashing toward the cliffs, the positioning requests tumble over your desk. "Far-forward, right-hand page!" they cry. But through the frenzy, has anyone ever stopped to ask, "Why a right-hand page?"

Research on this subject is very clear: If you take into account the margin of error research always has, it can be proved conclusively that right-hand pages are not read more than left-hand pages. And right-hand pages do not pull more leads than left-hand pages. In study after study, by research company after research company, the difference in effectiveness between a left- and right-hand page, if it exists at all, has been shown to be statistically insignificant.

But advertising is a big investment whose impact is hard to measure. Remember the retailer John Wanamaker, who said that half of all his advertising was wasted - he just couldn't figure out which half? Into this uneasy equation slips the phenomenon of ad positioning. Here is a tangible element that the client or agency can control. Although in many cases positioning has zero impact on the effectiveness of the advertising, it can have tremendous impact on the feelings buyers have about their ad expenditures. Ad positioning creates the illusion that your clients are more in control of the process of communicating to their customers than they really are.

Of course, there is solid documentation that some positions do perform better than others, and selling them is logical because they do increase the effectiveness of your client's ad. But where this is not true, there are emotional hooks you can use to give your clients a sense of control. Let's take a look at some examples of both.

Positioning. The logical sell

The cover: There is consensus among researchers that cover positions attract more readership. The back cover is easy to understand; half the time a publication is flopped down, it lands ad-side up. The inside front cover also gets higher marks than run-of-book probably because it is the first ad readers see. Research proves that the table of contents (frequently the first stop for many readers) is a true premium position, as is the inside back cover, which also consistently scores way above average in readership.

A fixed position: When I worked for a publication research company, I saw dozens of "through-the-book" scores go across my desk. When you see a lot of documentation about how people read magazines, you make an interesting discovery: Readers are extremely sensitive to editorial - and hardly sensitive at all to page numbers. Although I can't mention names, I remember seeing several news publications with weak editorial that had significant fall-off in readership after the first third of the book. Newsmagazines with stronger editorial held up right through to the last page. I also saw several journals with strong editorial that started out reasonably wen, but had readership scores consistently go up after the first 10 or 15 pages - where the "real" editorial began.

What's the lesson? Though farther forward is better more often than not, the real wins in ad positioning are specific to your magazine and the strength of its editorial. If you want to sell positioning effectively, know your magazine and your advertiser and find a position where the two have a reason for being together.

Positioning: The emotional sell

Sell a sense of control. If your client is a control freak, positions should be a part of your presentation. The ultimate high for a control freak is to open your magazine and see his ad exactly where he told you it should be. For this kind of client, there is no better emotional sell.

Sell a piece of your book. If you have a magazine that has a real presence in your industry or category, giving your clients consistent positions makes them feel they are buying a piece of that presence. When you sell, talk about aligning them with the industry leader and positioning them to best advantage for their prospects.

"Brand" a page. I once called on a client who told me that he would buy ad space in my book only if he could have the "Alpha" position. (Alpha was the name of the company which I have changed to protect the innocent.) The name of this position was known only at his company - but his company was the one buying the space.

Here is another example of branding: Many advertisers watch their competition more closely than they watch their customers. An advertiser runs an ad on page five for years, and then pulls it off Suddenly, that advertiser's direct competition snaps up page five as if it were a winning lottery ticket. Page five has now been identified, or branded, with that advertiser.

Sell a political solution. On those accounts where a lot of people are involved in the media-buying process, it can be difficult to get everyone in agreement. A consistent position can be a political statement they can all rally around. "What do we get for our advertising dollar?" a bottom-line manager asks the ad manager. "We have page five of the leading publication in the field,, somehow sounds substantial. It is a tangible signal that can be seen by anyone in the media-buying organization It means something.