Advertisments in
As three graduate students all with Bachelors degrees in Business, we decided to analyze the various advertisements contained in several issues of The New Age. Upon first review of the assignment, we wanted to focus solely on the Ruskin advertisements and their positioning in the magazines in relation to the topics of the articles. We quickly noticed that the Ruskin advertisement appeared in every other issue of Volume 1 in a similar position, mostly on the bottom right corner. We concluded that the advertisements placement was based on a particular position that the company bought out in the magazine, as opposed to positioning it next to a specific type of article.
Another one of our first ideas was to compare and contrast the advertisements in the first and the last issue of The New Age. We thought the approximate fifteen year difference would show growth and progression in advertising, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. There were quite a few advertisements in the first issue; however we were presented with a problem when we looked at the last issue. It did not contain any advertisements. We quickly jumped to the conclusion that it was probably the last issue due to the lack of financial backing of advertisers. Upon further investigation the lack of advertisements had actually spread.
After realizing this, we decided to broaden our topic, and focus on a variety of advertisements contained in the volumes. As a group we started to look through the different volumes and noticed that starting with Volume 15 in 1914, there were no advertisements. We attributed this to the fact that the magazine did not want to be “dictated” by its advertisements, and wanted to be able to print about topics that some of the advertisers would not agree with.
As opposed to advertising a product using various advertisements, the companies seemed to stick with the same advertisement throughout the various issues, including Ruskin and Hovis. In addition, their placements throughout the issues were similar. All of the Hovis advertisements printed between pages 12 and 15 for fourteen issues in Volume 1. The Ruskin advertisements followed a similar trend in positioning and layout, and appeared in every other issue of Volume 1, which leads us to assume that a financial agreement was made in advance.
Upon first review of the Hovis advertisements using the thumbnails, we thought that they used the same advertisement throughout the various issues of The New Age. At a glance, the format all looked the same. Once we began to look closer at the content of the advertisements, we saw there were three different slogans that were used. The first advertisement stated “You Eat Health When You Eat Hovis Bread”. Another advertisement stated “The Highest Standard in Food Excellence is Hovis Bread”. The third variation stated “The Biggest Loaf Not Always The BEST. Hovis is first for quality.” Although the slogans were different, there was a consistent look and feel in the advertisement. The body of the ad had a short paragraph describing the bread. There was a large amount of white space around the entire advertisement, used wisely to catch the attention of the reader.
While discussing the Hovis advertisement as a group, we all formed a similar opinion as to why there were three variations of the same advertisement in the same magazine. Using our business background, we know that it is cheaper to keep running the same advertisement over and over again, as opposed to changing it. Specifically in the 1900’s you would need to have an entirely new template made, which would be costly. Hovis advertisement also had two different slogans used on the cover of the first seven issues of The New Age. We concluded that Hovis was able to financially afford to use different advertisements because they were a large, well-established company. To support our opinion, we searched the Internet for background information (http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/). We found that Hovis originated in 1886, and is still around today in the United Kingdom. In 1895, “Sales of Hovis had exceeded 1 million loaves per week. Due to this success many small bakers were pretending their loaves were made of Hovis flour, so the public were warned of imitations. Many unlicensed dealers were taken to court to safeguard our trademark.” This information reinforced our original opinion on the popularity and significance of Hovis in the United Kingdom.
Due to the fact that we are unable to find any predetermined factors that the editor may have purposely selected placement for the advertisements, we were forced to look at other angles. We were interested in how the advertisements have changed over the years. The advertisements in The New Age rely heavily on text (copy) as opposed to graphics. Current advertisements depend heavily on branding. While comparing the two, we realized that branding was also used during The New Age era. To go back to our original thumbnail overlook, it appeared that the same ads were used due to logo branding. The Hovis name, logo, size, and font were all exactly the same throughout the campaign. This strategy could have been the foreground for Hovis’ initial success. Although branding has remained the same over the years, nowadays we depend heavily on eye-catching graphics that will grab the audiences’ attention instantly. During the World Wide Web era there is very limited time that you can catch the consumers’ attention with all the flashing graphics. The major difference between now and 1907 is color and multimedia used for advertising.
It appears that most advertisements were placed in a similar position throughout various issues because a company bought that specific placement in the magazine. Few advertisements were placed strategically by the editor due to content of articles and advertisements. In Volume 4, Number 5, page 92 there is an article titled “On Knowing One’s Place” which is about religion. Next to the article is an advertisement for “The Buddhist Review” which is a book about Buddhism, also religious in nature. Two additional advertisements appear next to the article as well, one about Monism and the other about “Rational Religion”. Although this may have been strategically placed, the general consensus is that there is not a deep correlation between the advertisements and the content in the magazine. We did notice that a consistency existed in the theme of the magazine for promoting Socialist ideologies. A good example would be in Volume 6, Number 9, page 215 where the Socialist League and the Parliament were appealing to the readers for financial assistance.
Based on information gathered from Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Age), The New Age started as a magazine based on Christian Socialist ideology. When its theme moved away from Fabianism in 1913, the Fabian society leaders formed a new journal titled “The New Statesmen” in opposition of The New Age. As an informal observation, the date 1913 correlates with the almost obvious lack of advertisement in The New Age magazine. We believe that the advertisers stopped endorsing The New Age due to their political shift in opinions.
Although The New Age survived quite a few more years after its advertising stopped, we are quick to jump to the conclusion that its political views were no longer popular amongst its people. Our opinion is based on the wide popularity of The New Statesmen that has flourished even to this day (http://www.newstatesman.com/).
In conclusion, we found that the general theme of the magazine was Socialist and we cannot attribute advertising to its downfall.
Nicholai Aarons Lori M. Grabel Klarisa K
