I never think the ads in music magazines are there to persuade "non-believers" to buy on the strength of the ad, I think they're there to tell existing fans of a new release or re-release. Sometimes (the ones with lots of critic quotes) it's to remind people "oh yeah, I read good reviews of that in several places".

So I think they're designed to trigger people who have thought about buying, or might think about buying, to actually get out the plastic (and fire up iTunes or Amazon since you no longer have to remember it until you get to the record shop)

I'm all for journalistic independence, but the strangest thing to see in music magazines, (mostly in another music magazine, let's call it "the beatles one") when there are full page ads for a album or a gig and then a couple of pages later there is review of the album only giving it one or two stars.

I can't believe that someone will choose to believe the ad over a review given by a magazine that you have bought mostly I'm guessing because you agree with what the views of the magazine are.

I don't know the ups and downs (ins and outs) of the magazine making business, but are these things hooked up before the album even goes to reviewers or is this just wishful advertising.

and noticed one for the first time in Word with the Guitar Hero piece. These are designed to appear as an article and yet they are an ad. Q used to do about 5 or 6 per edition (I say used to as I no longer subscribe and this was part of the reason).

Ads are fine with me - I know what they are and can process the information. And if an ad has 4 q stars, Mojo saying its good and then I read the Word review, I do feel that it gives me more info. Release dates are also useful as they are rarely mentioned as part of a review.

But please stop the ad that pretends to be an article. Its just not what I expect from Word.

And I like small ads. I liked the Portishead ad on the back cover a few months ago - nice and arty. Quite, y'know, pleasing to look at when you need a surface.

Put that up against The Fratellis new ad. Ew.

i liked the martha wainwright ad.

that the ad for Imelda May's album top right does enhance and add to the appeal of this website. Don't suppose I shall buy a copy mind you.

One of the functions of advertising, as I understand it (ie not very much), is to keep all us drones aware of certain products. Not just to generate immediate sales for new things but to ensure established brands remain just that. Established, that is.

A band name is a brand name you could argue. A regular banner containing the words 'Radiohead' or 'Nick Cave' or Chas and Dave' along with some relevant detail of new output, tour dates etc keeps those names at the forefront of the popular conciousness and at some point may generate a sale or two amongst the non-fan. But perhaps more importantly for the artist and the record company it keeps the name alive and validates the production of more ..er product later on.

Can't quite believe I've written such astonishing bullshit as 'the forefront of the popular conciousness' in a post to be read by strangers though. Sorry.

Without advertising revenue, magazines like Word wouldn't exist. So don't knock the advertising that appears, whether you like it or not. It's not the editorial content or policy of the publication, it's their income.

The typical exposure advertising that appears in any mag is hard to quantify in terms of actual cash returns unless it happens to be tied to a response offer. Henry Ford once said that 50% of his advertising spend was wasted. He just didn't know which 50 % it was. But he still advertised. The fact that people in this thread are commenting on different adverts proves that they are at least getting looked at. I would think the last thing our good friends want is a debate on it.

Yes, I do think some record company adverts are great. Back in the 60's I used to cut out and keep some little hand-drawn Mk1 MoodyBlues ads that appeared weekly on the chart page. I still remember Loog Oldham's Stones/Immediate tagline - "The dividing line between art & commerce". They're all little bits of history that will get pillaged by graphic designers in future decades as icons of their time.

Be grateful that record companies still spend money on magazine adverts. It keeps people in business, keeps artists happy and keeps people like us from doing any work, because we're sitting here talking bollocks on Word's website all the day long.
Courtesy of the advertising dollar.

Hey it aint all bollocks that's talked on here. Get yerself down to this Friday's disco where you will hear endless rambling drunken discussions on that old Tory slag Thatch!!! Anyway, I'm off for a jazz woodbine, oops shouldn't mention jazz on here either!!

And I did, too. Stickyback thick plastic old adverts that you could peel off local corner shop windows, a collection of 45rpm singles bags that I eventually scrapbooked for a school project, the occasional newsagents placard insert sheet, the obligatory workman's red lamp and anything else advertising-wise that took my fancy on the long walk home from a night out
I must have ruined the Beatles wallpaper that my parents put up when I was younger. I still look in the shed at home to see if a roll survived.Must be worth a bit now. As must be the wall-size Reveille poster of the Beatles in Edwardian bathing costumes. Where did that go?

The cheapest, most disgusting fags money could buy, probably made from old carpets. They had a massive gold Sov on their roadside adverts, along with all the bs about the "brand". I found a copy of said advertisement abandoned, presumably, by the chappie with the long brush and the bucket of sticky slop, when he'd had enough one Friday afternoon. So I nicked the sheet of paper, about eight foot square, with the huge gold Sov on it, and stuck it up on the living room wall in my flat. Looked fair dinkum against the yellow walls.

That's the only time in my life when advertising has been of any use to me at all.

As those promotional pieces go, it was a pretty good one. I loved the pics of the staff playing the game. I think Mr Hepworth's was the best, laid back and distinguised.

The worst of these kind were in Q last time I looked. The kind done by Orange, Samsung et al, with titles like "amazing developments in music this century", then linking the list to their amazing new development, a phone. That really is an insult to the intelligence, and did actually put me off the magazine.

Erm *raises hand meekly* I quite like them...

Let me justify myself for a moment. If they are done well and embraced by the actual editorial staff of a magazine (not shunted out to a cheapo freelance), done honestly in the spirit and tone of the mag AND the product is relevant to the magazine/readers, well, it's just more editorial to read; even if it is with a slightly more suspicious eye.

So, from this perspective the advertiser is paying directly for more reading for me to enjoy.

When I hate them: farmed out to a freelance, lazily tied into a standard feature; "20 Brilliant New Bands You MUST Hear!" with no discernable relevance to product. You know the drill; New Bands - New Phone...brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. That's when the stench of an advertiser getting too involved and not trusting the magazine to know it's own readers becomes a little overpowering.

But Guitar Rock Band Hero thingy? That was a good piece and a good thing. So, er, there..

I didn't notice that the Rock Band piece was an advert. But I agree that it was the sort of thing you would normally rave about, and felt like a normal article. Perhaps I am naive but if you are only plugging things you genuinely believe in I have no problems with that. You didn't get paid for devoting pages to how brilliant i-pods and the Wire are, did you? The problem would only come if you start promoting stuff you don't believe in. Please don't.

I've got no problem with clearly marked music-based adverts appearing in music magazines. It's when you get car adverts that annoy me, just a waste a paper, ink and shelf-space given that they thicken up everything you buy. Still, I don't really begrudge as I know it's something of a necessary evil.

I am dissapointed to read that the guitar hero "feature" was a paid advert, but fortunately I've zero interest in buying the game or it's console. I clearly "don't get it", but I'm happy enough with guitars that have strings on them.

Uncut Magazine used to do something very suspicious. Whenever their cds featured an exclusive recording made for soley for Uncut, the act in question would always receive "album of the month" around the same time. Draw your own conclusions. It's this kind of thing that perhaps makes some of us upset by seemingly hidden advertising. Involvement of the publications writers themselves can lead to a least the impression of a conflict of interest.

Am I the only one who finds some of the smaller ads useful? The ones for smaller labels and lesser-known acts.

I thought this was simply a new feature in the magazine.

Last month there was Andrew Harrison's genuine article(?) about Guitar Hero and obviously somebody had the bright idea to channel this enthusiasm.

Agree the "advertorial" was well written and look forward to next month when an old people's home is visited for the Guitar Hero - Status Quo special edition.

Guitar Hero has sold millions and will sell millions more - it is a phenomenally successful product. Does anyone really believe that if even 5 percent of Word readership bought it following the ad that it would even make a mark on the success or otherwise of the product? I doubt that there is even 5 percent of word readers who didnt know what it was and where to buy one from so the promotion seems a little irrelevant to me.

Getting back to the point of the thread ie. record company advertising. yes I completely see the point of it and have bought material because of the ads - albums that spring to mind are Mavis Staples - Never turn back, Chess Moves and the Senor Coconut albums although these last purchases were a mistake.
the record labels are just as likely to get it right as the reviewers. i bought both the bon Iver album and The Fleet Foxes album because of sterling reviews. Fleet Foxes was completely merited as the album is brilliant beyond expectation. Bon Iver is good but didnt warrant a 5 star review to my ears.

I hate unrelated ads (i.e hair gel, cars, etc) in `our` magazine but appreciate they are necessary to the whole process. It has to be said though that in the cold light of day the whole magazine is one big ad vying for our attention in different ways and at different points. Didn`t read the `Guitar Hero` thing cos` I ain`t really into it, from what I read above I am disapointed that the magazine is slipping into `Q` territory but at least they tried to keep the font and all that the same therefore giving the piece some kind of context to the publication in which it appeared.