• Mediaweek, Tuesday, April 14, 2009 11 AM

Subscribers to Wenner Media's Us Weekly will be greeted by an ad that looks like a cover atop the April 20 issue. It is part of a five-page ad package that Us sold to promote HBO's film "Grey Gardens". The cover is meant to resemble a 1940s-era issue of Us Weekly and features "Grey Gardens" stars Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. It's the latest salvo in a battle over ads on magazine covers. Such ads blur the line between advertising and editorial and raise the ire of the The American Society of Magazine Editors.

So far, false covers are rare among consumer magazines. The Us Weekly buy includes inside and back cover ads and are a mix of pages designed to resemble the mag as well as traditional ads promoting the film. The real cover, featuring Lindsay Lohan, follows the mock cover.

Us Weekly tries to differentiate its false cover from its real one by putting the word "advertisement" across the top of its mock cover and making the logo and fonts different from the actual cover. "We were very clear by the creative treatment... There was no effort to betray or manipulate the reader," says publisher Vicci Lasdon Rose.

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