• Wall Street Journal, Monday, April 24, 2006 11:31 AM

Philips Electronics and magazine publishing giant Time Inc. have forged a new deal that illustrates two major trends in marketing.  One is that advertisers are being more creative than ever in their ongoing search for new ways to attract the attention of distracted consumers.  The other is that media companies like Time Inc., are more open than ever before to new advertising ideas that previously might have been considered a breach of the church-and-state divider that traditionally separates advertising from editorial content.  In this deal, Philips has arranged for the table of contents to be placed on the very first page of four leading Time Inc., titles and for Philips to place an ad directly across from it, on a flap on the inside front cover. Proximity to the table of contents is always a desirable place for an advertiser, and Philips is paying Time Warner $5 million for the privilege in four magazines--Time, Fortune, People and Business 2.0. The deal took months to complete, mostly because Time Inc. was concerned about mandating that editors lay out their magazines in a certain way.  Top editors usually balk at that kind of advertising-driven request, but in this case they apparently agreed.

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