• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 12, 2006

Two years after an exclusive single sponsorship of an issue of The New Yorker magazine generated a row in publishing circles and on Madison Avenue, another national magazine this week will publish an issue featuring a single sponsor. All the ads in the June 16 edition of The Week will be part of a single, artfully shot black-and-white photo spread featuring the stars of HBO's critically acclaimed Western drama "Deadwood." The ads, shot by famed photographer Albert Watson, who known for his iconic celebrity portraits, and the exclusive nature of the buy, are an effort to break through ad clutter and get noticed, said Carolyn Kremins, publisher of The Week, told MediaDailyNews. "Every advertiser is trying to be heard, and there's so much clutter that it's so difficult to break through. So it's a great opportunity for an advertiser to own the audience for a week."

While The Week, a spunky newsweekly published by British journalism magnate Felix Dennis, may not be regarded with the same editorial propriety as the stately New Yorker, the stunt is likely to reopen sores in editorial circles, which are still debating the ethics of things like single sponsorships, and branded editorial content.

Although many in the publishing industry saw no problem with The New Yorker's decision to devote all the advertising in its Aug. 22, 2004 edition to hip retail marketer Target, the move sparked endless debates within and harsh criticism from the American Society of Magazine Editors. In the aftermath of that stunt, ASME, the editorial peer and watchdog division of the Magazine Publishers of America, issued revised guidelines governing the separation of advertising and editorial content in consumer magazines during the American Magazine Conference last fall.

HBO only had to purchase 12 ad pages--"a mixture of spreads and pages," according to Kremins. She noted that this low-clutter approach is an extension of the magazine's generally content-heavy approach: "By design we actually have an optimal ad environment, meaning it's concise not only in editorial pages but also in advertising. It's a really great platform for HBO to tell the story without clobbering people with it."

Asked whether that issue of The Week would have any editorial content about the new HBO series, Kremins was emphatic: "Absolutely not... and if it is, it's by coincidence. We have a very strong line between our editorial and our advertising." In the not-too-distant past, the board of the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) has raised concerns about similar issue-wide magazine ad buys, including the August 22, 2005 issue of the New Yorker, which was sponsored exclusively by Target and earned an ASME admonishment.

The June 16th issue will represent a first for both HBO and The Week. HBO has also contracted for 100 taxi top ads for the show with the words "As seen in The Week" as part of the promotion.