Advertising in magazines

Lately, i have had to look at multiple magazines often for research, class, pleasure and work. One thing that i notice the most is advertisements.  The national well-known magazines do them best, mainly, of course because they can afford to do them well. The advertisements blend perfectly into the content of the magazine as if it was meant to be there. Vogue, for example, blends them perfectly into the content that part of the enjoyment of reading the magazine is looking at the advertisements. However, many magazine that are new, regional and not very well-known magazines haven't mastered this yet.

Many of them use several different sizes and arrange them as if they are part of the story. This creates confusion when reading the magazine. Advertisements help carry the entire magazine, without them a magazine will fail. New magazines must master blending the advertisements to the content without confusing the reader.

There are several way to fix this issue. The first is to offer only full page advertisements like the way Do North magazine does. This will help alleviate over powering stories by inserting small advertisements throughout the issue. Another way to fix this problem is to have a "market place" chapter where all of the advertisements go. This may not be the most attractive option but as magazines grow they will have better options.

Dieting Dude

In Cosmopolitan's July 2013 issue, Cosmo brought to light the new Dieting Dude phenomenon, a new trend of male dieters who can be picker then their female counter parts. The article reveals that now, eating disorders are at a female/male ratio of 2:1, when years ago it was 9:1. The article dives relatively deep into the issue, bringing to light the different levels in which men diet and obsess about healthy eating.

I would have loved to see a more personal story of this issue, i think it would have brought the issue even further into the public eye as a real problem. Women aren't the only ones facing eating disorders, men are battling them as well.

An unofficial term, Orthorexia, describes a new eating disorder of obsessive healthy eating. On the surface it looks healthy and looks harmless, however, if observed closely enough it can be seen that food consumes the orthorexic. Experts believe this is a large segment of the dieting dude trend.

The article suggests the reason for this change in male behavior has to do with the changing gender roles in society. Women are becoming more independent and men aren't the power players they used to be causing insecurity which manifests into concern over ones appearance.

I think that this article is really important and will lead to a movement of bringing this trend to light and helping alleviate the orthorexia issue.