• by Michael Shields , December 1, 2004

'Tis the season for elaborate magazine inserts.

While flipping through a slew of holiday-themed December issues of popular magazines, readers are encountering more and more advertising that goes well beyond the basic page four-color bleed. It appears that publishers, hoping to compete with TV and the Internet, are offering advertisers the means to run catalog excerpts, pull-out coupons, and ads that literally jump off the page if prompted.

Several women's magazines are attempting to help advertisers capture those in the holiday shopping mindset in a unique way. For example, Real Simple is carrying a heavy-stock, four-page spread from the Gap featuring eight "presents" that readers can "open" to reveal potential gift ideas.

Also, the magazine's December issue has a mini-catalog from Eddie Bauer and a Citibank ad with peel- away holiday stickers. Along the same lines, the latest All You carries an ad for the release of the Elf DVD that offers readers cut-out gift tags.

December's Shop Etc. is particularly loaded with pull-out and pull-apart ads. Besides the Citibank piece, there are mini-catalogs from Land's End and Macy's, plus an elaborate four-page Advent calendar from Estee Lauder where readers can peel back a small square each day of the month to reveal a different Lauder product, with daily prizes available on the web.

It seems that advertisers and media buyers are asking magazines, "What else can you give me besides a page?"

"We are being asked that question a lot," said Lori Rhodes, Shop Etc.'s executive marketing director. While many of the above-listed advertisers come armed with their own ideas for standout print executions, Rhodes and her team helped create the Estee Lauder program exclusively for Shop Etc..

"Whatever holiday you celebrate, usually you receive gifts in December," said Rhodes. "[With these ads] you are connecting with a shopper in a way that a full page will not. It very much differentiates us."

"It's print road blocking," said Mike Neiss, executive vice president of media at Lowe Worldwide. "[These ads] create a natural bookmark--the magazine falls open to these ads. You can't help but run into them."

The preponderance of these types of insertions of late suggests an effort from publishers to be more accountable and more impactful with their advertising offerings.

"We are measuring the effect of PR as much as sales," said Rhodes. "The days are gone when you can just sell a great idea."

"It's all about clutter busting," added Neiss. "Advertisers are looking for, 'how can you make my advertising proprietary?'"

While these ads dangle the impact of TV, they also seem to be taking a page from the Internet's playbook. Both the Shop Etc. calendar and the Gap 'presents' offer a level of reader interactivity that is less common in print.

"It's face time," said Neiss. "If you can stop consumers in their tracks..."

Of course, these types of executions cannot be pulled off at the last minute. "The lead time is longer," said Rhodes. "You have to order special paper, have to make sure we can bind them in."

And they are not cheap. While rates for these types of programs are not published, some estimate that the costs of one such ad might enter into the neighborhood of a few million dollars, given that advertisers likely have to shell out for both space and production.

Lowe's Neiss believes that in the past there may have been more resistance among publishers to allow advertisers this type of freedom. "Publishers used to balk at this," he said. "[For readers,] it's very disruptive. Too many of these may degrade the reading experience."

While that may be true, it appears that the trend is spreading, and not just among women's titles. In magazines like Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly, Miller has been running a pull-out "playbook" that provides a list of "Beer Penalties" to correspond with its humorous TV campaign. Even the latest Fortune contains a pull-out brochure from Jeep with peel-off stickers.

"I think you are going to see a lot more of this," said Neiss, who predicts that auto manufacturers and even business-to-business advertisers will be expanding such efforts.

"It's not just for the holidays," said Rhodes, who says that Shop Etc. will pursue more programs like the Estee Lauder calendar. "But you have to have a good idea. Some people really get it, and some people are more traditional."