One small step for a graphic designer, one giant leap towards losing any semblance of separation between editorial and advertising? Editorial professionals in the action sports community are up in arms about rumours of the newest issue of Transworld Snowboarding magazine, featuring a Ball Park Frank’s sponsored Shoot Out. An accusation of digital-altering is being voiced, namely that of a Ball Park Franks (plump when you cook ‘em!) logo being added. If true, this marks the first (known) time an action sports magazine has placed advertising on the cover. CORRECTION: This might be. The controversy has people talking and, while the news hasn’t blown up in Transworld‘s face (yet), questions are being asked throughout the action sports advertising and editorial community as to what this means for the sport, and for editorial in general. How can readers trust editorial content if it has been digitally altered? Is a magazine cover a sales or an editorial tool, or has the line between the two been all but erased?
How slippery is the slope that Transworld may have just lubed up for the rest of the action sports publishing community and its media professionals?
And perhaps the scariest question of all, is print that desperate that it needs to whore itself out in this fashion?
My personal opinion consists of this – (if it’s true, and I’ve heard from some reliable sources that it very much is) the move is complete bullshit. It undermines what’s left of print’s diminishing credibility. While it’s long been suspected that certain action sports titles were auctioning off their covers to the highest bidder, the Transworld debacle would provide irrefutable proof of this, and that small piece of evidence is going to mean massive repercussions for the industry. Advertising sales departments already exhibit huge pressure on editorial staff, and while many editors are more than willing to play the game, there is still a small segment who understand why it is ethically wrong to sell editorial space. The relationship between a magazine title and its reader is based on trust, and when that trust is so blatantly disrespected, the bond starts to disintegrate. If they’ll put a logo on the cover, will they also photoshop a rider to be higher in the air? Will they give coverage to the best riders? Or only to the athletes who’s sponsors advertise in the magazine? Part of the thrill of reading ski, snowboard, skateboard, BMX, MTB and surf magazines has always been that you knew the incredible things in the pages were true. You knew it. Now you won’t. And that’s sad.
Added Aug. 17th, 11amPST: There have been some questions regarding what the real problem is with the logo being added, and in the interest of brevity, I’ll sum up my point here – Adding the logo in post-production is immoral from a traditional editorial perspective. I care less which advertiser it is (they all pay money to be there). And yes, I am aware of the shift that is happening in media/advertising models (I do work in an ad agency). The Transworld move however, may provide a breaking point that opens the floodgate, and at that point, what are the dangers? This blog post is merely here to raise the questions, and provoke conversation. This shit may be happening, and it may be the way of the future, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this so feel free to weigh in by commenting below. Does it anger you like many of the action sports professionals I’ve spoken with? Or do you feel this is just one more step in the long march towards the inevitable amalgamation of editorial and advertising? Is Transworld the only company doing this? I doubt it. – Mike Berard
UPDATE: In the interest of ensuring I am not committing libel or slander (AKA covering my ass), I did a little research to try and find photo or video proof of the shoot and found this video capture. The image clearly shows the same container in the cover shot without the logo. Unless they painted it on in a snowstorm after this video capture, I am confident this is close enough to proof for me that the logo was added in post-production. Here is a link to the video.
Mike Berard works as a Communications Specialist for Origin Design + Communications, a Whistler-based advertising agency specializing in mountain sports and resort tourism. He is the former managing editor of Canada’s largest ski magazine, SBC Skier. For opinions in short form, follow Mike Berard on Twitter.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Glad you wrote this. I almost wrote about it as well, then got distracted, but I’ve found myself in several dinner/lunch discussions about this topic with others.
The slope is indeed slippery. And it is definitely a slope that has been evolving over the years. Vogue ran into some advertising / editorial scandals in the 1990s with Elizabeth Arden. Toyota notoriously tried to buy editorial product placement in the late 90s as well (similar to how it’s done in movies with storylines).
Today the internet is full of sponsored editorial content, so on one hand the magazines have to make some smart choices to stay alive. But the difference is that sponsored editorial content on the web is typically done as it is in print “This feature is brought to you by …” Traditionally in print, an advertorial feature has had to be disclosed “Special Advertising Section.”
While I think sponsored content is going to be a necessary evil for a monthly magazine like Transworld, they’ve done so in such a way that is indirect, and if you want to get into the technicalities of it, it actually violates the ASME Guidlines on editorial integrity (for those unfamilar the ASME is the American Society of Magazine Editors).
The ASME guidlines are pretty specific on the ethics of Magazine and Advertising relationships, and generally the larger publishing houses abide by them. They must if they want to be eligible for things like publishing awards and avoid public sanctions (which in theory could happen here).
There is a specific section on covers:
The front cover and spine are editorial space. Companies and products should appear on covers only in an editorial context and not in a way that suggests advertisement.
I guess this is something I should probably write about further, and I might, but for those of you interested in the matter, you should read the ASME guidlines and get acquainted.
http://www.magazine.org/asme/asme_guidelines/guidelines.aspx
In full disclosure. I worked for Transworld Media years ago as an editor of Ride BMX Magazine. While I have my own opinions on how they’ve done things over the years, this issue warrants a bit of lashing.
This article ran in a recent issue of Folio: magazine. It’s an interesting look at what the future of magazine advertising may hold, specifically, ads on the cover.
http://www.foliomag.com/2009/great-cover-ad-debate
Matt.
Mike – what a great issue to bring to the table. Like Jared said, the state of media is dealing with a huge hurdle to overcome – namely, the rival of free media – and needs to adpot ‘creative’ approaches to stay in business. Advertising has lost much credibility in the past few years because of the false truths they’re often associated with, and we’ve all seen the effects of the ad industry’s new-wave thinking: product placement. Ah-ha! New source of revenue.
As an active proponent of the media industry, I’ve seen a number of publications that are altering their policies on strictly-editorial messages (The recent expose on Self magazine/Kelly Clarkson’s airbrushed looks is a perfect example – totally unrelated to snow-endemic publications, but women’s mags are notorious for this. Or another site called, sheknows.com, uses sponsored feature editorial content for the majority of their articles. Or a last year’s issue of Ski magazine where Vail purchased an entire ‘fake’ cover). Sure, it encompasses an editorial tone of voice, but it comes down to one issue: media revenue. And then the questions start to arise: is this legit reporting? or is just a product-pushing informercial?
Personally, Ball Park’s ad placement has no effect on me. I won’t ever eat that processed meat shit. But I also don’t like to be subjected to meaningless content that encourages me to be a consumer. I pick and choose my means of mass media, and the winners are often the outlets without the in-your-face marketing.
Ultimately, it sucks to see the credibility of non-partisan journalism slide downhill. I think there will be an answer soon enough on how to keep the media industry afloat, but publications are losing revenue so quickly that they’ve been forced into looking for creative opportunities to keep their dollars alive. It’s truly unfortunate, but with the rise of social media and citizen journalism, I don’t see this trend dying any time soon.
Discussion in the Burton forums:
http://community.burton.com/forums/837110/ShowThread.aspx
Berard,
Honestly, only a Canadian would still cling to the idea that A) there is any separation between advertising and editorial in action sports or any other lifestyle magazine and B) that this is the first time doctoring, enhancing or placing a logo on the cover of an action sports magazine took place.
I am a former editor at an action sports magazine. The background discussion on cover choices frequently centered about who we were ‘helping’ by way of athlete and/or logo placement. Often times, we would doctor the cover photo for style purposes and – gasp – enhance or integrate an important logo. I mean, I am from the snow/skateboarding world but did you see that Vail cover on a ski mag last year? Mammoth is guaranteed a cover shot and logo if they host Superpark, etc. This issue has already come up and gone away. Transworld, if they did anything, was simply trying to keep the lights on.
American mags don’t have a socialized government propping up things like journalistic integrity and other luxuries gigantic Canadian personal/buisness income taxes afford. It is a cost, certainly, but something a generation of skate/surf/snowrats have been living with for some time.
Let’s be honest – these magazines exist to sell stuff to kids. If you require integrity, you wouldn’t be writing in action sports. You’d be working at Mother Jones, Time or The Economist. What story did you just break? Wait for the headline: ‘It’s still raining in Whistler,’ ‘Someone just got a pro model’, ‘A new cat-op is open in a backcountry location,’ or ‘Some country in Eastern Europe is really sick.’ Hard-hitting stuff to be sure.
Moving on.
I meant to also note that there are four other (endemic) brands listed on that particular cover, each with an editorial tie-in.
When I mentioned that I thought print was going to have to address sponsored content, a more agreeable (in my opinion) way to brand a cover might have been if it were the “Team Shoot Out Presented by Ball Park Franks.” It’s then a sponsored editorial, but slightly less of a gray area.
But even then a lot of questions get raised. If Red Bull wants to set up an epic scenario for a photo shoot on a branded obstacle that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, do you not use it for the cover?
The door has been opened, so there are now a lot of obscure lines.
Not to be septical but few questions :
- We may call the adding an ad only if TWS got money back. Do we have proof of any commercial relationship ?
- What about hypothesis of a joke from the art graphist ?
- What about hypothesis of a provocative message from the editor, saying “yes we are in an advertising world. DC, Burton, Rome in cover captions, why not saussages” ?
i dont think they will photoshop a rider to be higher but ya i think its ok to mess with a photo as long as we know they are doing it. Maybe if they photoshop some hot dogs or something so we know haha they edited that in utherwise dont do it all suttle like and try to get us on subliminal advertising. I get Ride bmx magazine in every month and as far as i know they have never pulled this and concidering tws and ride bmx are made by the same company they prob never will.
Thanks Mike for posting this and for the subsequent discussions. So far, everyone here has raised valid points.
My thoughts on this aren’t clear cut as I think there are several variables that play into this equation. Is the main issue here that Transworld ran their cover with a Ball Park Franks logo on it, or is it that the logo was added after the fact in post production?
Action Sports magazines almost ALWAYS have logo placements on their covers. It’s the reason that ski and snowboard manufacturers put logos on the base of their boards. The reason Red Bull plasters logos on their athletes helmets. The reason that terrain parks put branding on their jumps. Would this even be an issue if the Ball Park Franks logo were replaced with an energy drink sticker instead?
Personally, I don’t see the logo placement to be a crime against journalistic integrity… unfortunate, but not a crime. While I think it’s tasteless that we have to be bombarded with logos everywhere we turn, I also know that it’s a necessary evil that exists in every industry.
My problem with the Ball Park logo is not the fact that it’s on the cover, but the fact that it was added in post production. Allowing digital manipulation of an image in an editorial publication is ethically immoral. If you are going to allow this, where does one draw the line?
However, this line has already been crossed… not with logo placement, but with airbrushing. The fashion and beauty industries have been airbrushing and retouching images for years… and every month there’s another controversy over which starlet’s photo was retouched for whichever magazine (I think this month it’s Kelly Clarkson for Self Magazine).
As a photographer, I can understand the desire to manipulate a photo in order to make it look as aesthetically pleasing as possible. However, are magazines really the place for that?
Yes, logo placement on editorial covers exists and has existed for years. Yes, retouching of images has occurred and will continue to occur in magazines. Does this mean that either of these occurrences is a good thing… no! But it’s reality.
The biggest tragedy here to me is that a magazine would allow post processing of an image… not to make it look better, but to insert a subliminal advertisement. What’s the price of your journalistic integrity? I guess the people at Transworld Snowboard already determined that and have sold it off.
Church and state have been boning each other for almost a decade. It sucks but it’s old news.
My god. Are some of you still stuck in 1998?
We have a generation of kids who’ve grown up with advertising and logos. The lack of reaction on the Burton forums is a prime example of this. If you grew up surrounded by as much advertising as we do now, I don’t think you’d care that much either.
This is an action sports mag we’re arguing about, a magazine whose raison d’être is to promote (the cool products in) snowboarding – this is quite a bit different from a publication like NYT whose existence is based around the reporting of facts from an attempted neutral standpoint.
If TWS had photoshopped a rider to be 6ft. higher on an air, then THAT would (and should) cause a shitstorm with kids on the forums. That, to me and many others, would be a true violation of journalistic integrity in action sports.
But selling hot dogs using the cover of a magazine aimed at snowboarding kids? I mean, fuck.
Donutz put it best -
“Let’s be honest – these magazines exist to sell stuff to kids. If you require integrity, you wouldn’t be writing in action sports. You’d be working at Mother Jones, Time or The Economist.”
We have a floundering print industry in dire need of an injection of money – aka some advertising creativity, and here everyone is bickering over stringent, ancient ASME rules that have been blasted apart by other industries years ago.
People do what they have to do to stay afloat, and if the details of rules don’t change, they will be broken.
There are only two real issues here that we should be debating on:
1. The tackiness of photoshopping a logo in post. Don’t be lazy. If you’re going to place a logo, do it in real life and have it be part of the physical set. Pasting it in afterward – especially when evidence (footage) of the shoot exists sans logo – is tasteless.
2. As Souney pointed out on twitter, and I think this should be central to our debate – were the rider and photographer paid extra for the presence of the logo? And did they even approve of having their images associated with BPS in the first place?
The rider and photographer should be duly compensated for that logo, especially a big company like BPS. And the pay should be considered on an advertisement basis, far far above the level of editorial rates.
If they haven’t seen any pay off from this, then I’d consider that the true crime here.
I agree that putting ads on the cover is a slippery slope but I do feel that Transworld did a good job to avoid going down the wrong road. Well it does seems as if the added afterwards I think they did it in a tasteful way. They made the logo fairly discreet. It doesn’t stand out and it’s not like they just dropped the logo on there, they worked it into the photo. I think the black and white helps make it less noticeable and also it’s even kind of hard to read. Probably half the people who read it wouldn’t even notice it. Also despite the clip of it not being on there earlier. It may have just been a vinyl sticker or something they popped on there right before the shoot.
As long as they don’t do anything to the actual trick part of the photo I think it’s fine. Ads are everywhere and growing by the day. There is little hope to try and avoid advertising so just be happy that they didn’t plaster a big color Ball Park logo overtop of the whole front of the container.
Awesome commentary from everyone (even Donutz and his strange attempt to attach my nationality to the discussion).
There have been some questions regarding what the real problem is with the logo being added after the fact, and in the interest of brevity, I’ll sum up my point here – Adding the logo in post-production is immoral from a traditional editorial perspective. I care less which advertiser it is (they all pay money to be there) and I am aware of the shift that is happening in media/advertising. This move however, may provide a breaking point that opens the floodgate, and at that point, what are the dangers? This blog post is merely here to raise the questions, and provoke conversation. This shit may be happening, and it may be the way of the future, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about.
Lots of good points.
I think something that may have been missed, is that BPF may have insisted on the logo placement. The position of BPF may have been, no logo, no ads in the issue.
Even if the position of TW was that were trying provide added value to an advertiser, I would be sympathetic to their cause.
I’ve worked in several magazines, inside and outside of action sports, and convincing advertisers to commit is horrendous. Advertisers will pay web developers immense amounts of money to build flash applications or web interactive tools, but will stutter at the cost of advertising in print, which pales in comparison.
In the last couple of years, magazines I have been involved in have greatly let lines fade. From editorial written by advertisers, to allowing advertisers final proof on editorial, to allowing advertisers to remove competitors from editorial. Our position simply was, the magazine was so close to folding, we had little other options. In a world of budgets, and key performance indicators, perhaps TW needed BPF, and was willing to do what-ever it takes to keep them.
Its kinda like when a girl strips through college, ya know, you gotta sell yourself a bit to get to the end goal! Not the best ethical forefront, but, sometimes it’s the best of the available options.
Very interesting to read through all the discussion this is causing. Thanks for the insight hadn’t heard about this.
I’m stoked on this. Now i’m one step closer to being able to erase brand-names and logos off the bottoms of boards in all my favourite shots , and replace them with logos of the companies that pay me off with free shit and cash-filled envelopes. We can start something called the Magazine Mafia where it’s pay to play.
Being serious though, i’m not really surprised at this. Every other aspect of these product-driven magazines are super advertiser-driven (sadly) so really it was only a matter of time right? I agree the photographer and athlete should be paid more because all of a sudden they’re shooting an ad. But will they be? i doubt it.
Integrity wise, this is a step in the wrong direction, but that seems to be the direction most everything else is going. Money talks.
As far as photo manipulation- with programs like Lightroom and photoshop adding pop/saturation/contrast/old photo, etc to every photo we see, is it not just a matter of time until some editor says, “This shot would be so much sicker if the rider was just a little bit more separated from that tree-line. Keep her the same height, just a little to the left.”
what about running mirror images of shots because the subject looks better on the other side of the spread?
Ideally everything would be pure but i’m pretty sure those days are long gone. Unfortunately, it seems we work for the advertisers nowadays, not for the readers.
On the other hand, it also depends on the context. Cover Manipulation can also illustrate a point, like when Vice Magazine ran a fake shot of a guy gapping the Grand Canyon on a BMX (Volume 13 no 2) they called it the “Verdad Issue” and almost everything inside the issue was fake as well. (there is a look at that cover here
http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2009/01/melbourne—mag.html
In conclusion, Photo manipulation on the cover is totally okay when you are selling a pack of lies but for the rest of us…oh wait…shit.
Feet
Donutz, thank you for making it clear. It is good to know the rational of the editor of an action sports magazine. All those years I thought they were written by people who actually enjoyed the sports and had some integrity. You should really move on. No, really.
the bummer here is that shifty brands like Ballpark sit on the sidelines and can, if this situation is indeed true, pick and choose where to associate their brand. I remember on the east coast skate scene in the late 80′s when small brands like Fred Smith’s Jobless and left coast’s Skate Rags had to support (not just financially) the right events and riders to get in the right place (mag covers) at the right time. Bummer now that any shifty brand USA can buy it’s way into a great shot and have a half million (circ #’s?) impressions even though they have no investment in the sport. That’s where Transworld screwed up. If the rider’s endemic sponsor called and ponied it wouldn’t hurt as badly. I don’t mind Electric sunglass logo showing up in post as much as a ‘nitrate ridden, fatten up the kids’ brand that CLEARLY only happened for a check. It’s easier to swallow a marketing manager’s call to an editor saying “hey, our team rider screwed up and didn’t have our logo on the board” then what has happened here. But the endemics would never do that. Not cool Transworld. You have ruined it and this will hurt both of us for some time, guaranteed.
do you consider this issue is just depending on the morality of the media? Isn’t it the role of the advertisers to contribute to preserve the integrity of the press and not request any type of disguised advertising? As brands, our success will come from our authenticity, and our authenticity will highly depend on our transparency. Let’s not consider the readers as stupid people. Respect is key!
I think Jared Souney made the most salient point over at http://www.jaredsouney.com/2009/08/the-transworld-snow-cover-debate/ — the photog should be compensated for having sold an image that is no longer pure edit, and therefore worth a whole lot more than what pure edit usually commands. All the teeth-gnashing about editorial integrity and church and state is a decade late and wasn’t worth it a decade ago for all the well-reasoned explanations already posted here.
I’d bet that the TWS sales folks never even considered the photog in their negotiations with Ballpark, and that’s the real crime. a non-endemic like Ballpark would have had to pay thousands for that shot if they’d gone about acquiring it in the traditional manner. Because the sales guys are now controlling some real estate on that cover, the photog winds up with the same crappy buyout he’d receive normally, and Ballpark gets insane placement for a song.
i can’t believe this is a real discussion.
1) there is no ad on “editorial” content. it is an ad on a dumpster in a picture that makes up the cover. the cover is not editorial content, it is a cover. you can put all kinds of shit on a cover. it isn’t an editorial or even an article that is skewed based on a paid relationship. it is a picture on the cover. that’s it.
2) if the ad was simply slapped on another part of the cover to not appear as if it were on the dumpster, would it matter? no. does it matter that it is on the dumpster? no.
3) if you don’t like it, don’t buy the mag; but don’t say that this is compromising a trusted relationship between reader and independent editorial content. in fact, there is no such thing as “independent editorial content”, because by its own definition editorial content is purely opinionated. this is the same as vanity fair or some other mag airbrushing pictures. is it stupid? sure. but that’s about it.
start complaining if all the articles say that the only way to become a good snowboarder is if you eat ballpark franks.
How should this not be a discussion????
It’s compromising because most readers assume the content they are viewing is legitimate and the content of what they’re seeing hasn’t been altered in any way.
Magazines “should” be comparable to newspapers. The whole principle or reason of even having a paper or magazine is journalism, unbiased by advertisers opinions. Newspapers would be rioted and burned down if it was ever known they were basing their stories, content and photos based on advertisers. Granted they are most likely to die from other causes.
“Independent editorial content” while opinionated is supposed to be free of advertisers influence. What good does a resort or snowboard review do when they writer is paid off to give glowing reviews and not give their honest uninfluenced opinion?
As for for if the ad was slapped on to not appear as part of the image I can guarantee that every single person that saw the logo would ask why the fuck there was a hot dog logo on the cover….
would it matter if they photoshopped out the container altogether and made it a huge hot dog? Of course it would.
IF they actually made a 30′ long hotdog for the shoot do you think it would have made the cover? Of course it wouldn’t.
Regardless, Transworld’s brand, and its covers, stood for the sign of the times, the current state of progression and most importantly a quick, one shot glance at the art of the sport. It just pissed on its own brand, which is the worst part.
Now if only you could see Orbitz logos etched in the tree trunks of National Geographic covers!
In order to back up TWS, we decided to implement the Ball Park logo too.
http://www.fluofun.com
Just a small step adding to the diminishing face of print magazines. What a joke.
I can’t believe it happened, but does not suprise me in any way.
The photo is from an event that had a sponsor, its not like its a randomly submitted shot. Most Snowboard events and contests like X Games, Dew Tour, etc are plastered with Sponsors Logos. There’s a reason you don’t see those photos on Magazine Covers, they look like crap and all creative Photographers hate shooting at them
Sorry Kenny, can you clarify please – Are you saying it’s from an event so it’s OK to photoshop a sponsor logo onto the image? Or are you just saying it looks bad?
I’m not surprise to see that Trasworld add advertising into content.
Several magazine on paper and online do it.
But it is not a good way and It should be indicated.
good bye
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