totally great idea. keep it up.

Ditto.

keep on JAMMing

Brilliant.

We so miss content...although sometimes ads can be interesting content. Rarely to justify a few dollars expense, though.

I never had a window-shopping Cosmo girlfriend (apparently 85% of women in europe/america). They make me sad.
However, I've got a gf, and she's sexy and reads interesting stuff :D

Some women I know really enjoy looking at the ads in women's magazines...

this is a bloody brilliant idea...nice that your out there executing it...

Love it! I mean if the magazine just threw together a supplement with all the ads in it...well, maybe the mag with articles would end up being the smaller supplement!

Despite the fact that some ads in magazines can, in fact, be beautiful, content should ALWAYS be king, and if the content gets lost, a magazine can become just a big, pile of bound garbage. I have a friend who won't read a magazine if it takes more than 10 pages to get to content. Needless to say, he doen't find much to read out there.

erm... what kind of content were you expecting in Blender, People, US Weekly, and so on? They're all magazines dedicated to marketing crap at people. that's hardly the fault of the advertisements in them.

if people want better content, they might just want to go and buy a better magazine- period.

beyond that, i'm sincerely curious as to how you would personally fund a magazine. ads make sure it gets printed and make sure employees can keep their jobs.

as a last note, when someone pays for a magazine at a newsstand or store or whatever, the magazine itself doesn't get money from it- the store does.

ads aren't always also massive corporate ads. a lot of small (independent) companies get their name out there through magazine ads. i hardly doubt you're against small bussinesses.

i think this project does intend well, but i think you're missing the target. the ads aren't at fault for crappy content, the magazines themselves just aren't that topic-filled. magazines like cargo, vibe, and so on aren't just going to stop talking shop start talking politics if ads weren't an issue.

boy, that comment sure looked a lot less rambly when it had some hard returns in it.

you must see the magazines from Chile ( the country). Here there is nothing but generic magazines. I will translate your message to spanish.

of course this will push the sales of label paper - it's obvious this site is the work of the office supply impresarios

That's wicked. And way too true!

nice, have printed them already, just ready to walk up the high street to my local WHSmiths and post them in Loaded, FHM, and Maxim, possibly over the breasticles of there centrefolds. Nice work.

I thought I was the only one that felt this way!! Once I bought a mag. that was 98% ads- Um No!

Ah good Idea?
would prefer to see the energy spent in a positive way....how bout prining stickers saying this mag rocks? and after a time that sticker will become a type of validation for good mags...sure its open to explotation, (get shitty mags priniting stickers for themselves), but we livein flux....come up with a sidestep venture. pos eee tiv e teee

and the demarcation between content and advertising in the matrix we call "mass media" is????....?????

i agree... good job!

I don't get why you are bothering with these magazines. Go out and buy better magazines. There are so many out there that urgently need your support. Like RJ says in an earlier (and more eloquent post) just stop buying shit mags.

I dont think it's so much about buying better mags... It sounds to me like they are just trying to convince folks to WANT better mags and better content.

To influence the publishers, they must first influence the buyers -- and with a magazine confessing the obvious -- that might just be the trick. Good WOrk AYG.

Lets balance it out, 50% content 50% ads, to make it fair for both sides.

Y E S !!!
F*CKIN' RAD IDEA.
KEEP IT UP...

check out this new collaborative project... http://wallspankers.com

havent seen this idea (seriously); good angle; heck, this would equally work for 'news' magazines as well since most of their articles are fluff or things most people can't really relate to! I listen to NPR and the like myself.

www.iamnotacommercial.info

obviously large magazines rely on huge turnovers to keep themselves afloat. often (particularly in the fashion & dare i say it beauty industry) any number of brands are looked after by a single distribution company or are owned by one corporation. if photographic content & editorial doesn’t speak well enough of one of these brands often the distributor or corporation will threaten to pull advertising from every brand that they oversee. even if only five of their brands advertise in your magazine you can easily lose up to a quarter of your annual income. the magazine is, more often than not, forced to comply.

advertisers are now going as far as to assign themselves their own ‘discounted’ ad rates. and again, if these corporations do own more than one brand these large magazines have no choice but to adhere.

there is a simple resolve to this; stop buying magazines that are driven by advertising dollars. buy an independent magazine, buy a magazine that is culturally challenging – because more often than not, these independent magazines that do have the audacity to pursue a less commercial outcome are those that are in thousands & thousands of dollars of debt.

may i suggest buying a copy of gastronimca, doingbird, purple or purple journal?

i think that you’re intentions are wonderful, but it may be too explicit & lacking the execution & thought that it deserves. if you are unhappy with what you are presented with on the shelves & want to change the industry, do it from the inside out. start your own magazine with thoughtful content & little to no advertising.

sorry, my last post was a unstructured & full of babble... but hopefully you see what i'm getting at ?

all the best

Im not 100% clued up on the relationship between magazines, publishers and advertisers but i definately agree with JNB. Like any situation you want changed, putting a band-aid on top will only be effective if you have a simple cut/problem. Corporate, advertising and marketing driven, magazines are not a small problem. The problem is much much bigger than the solution you propose.

do you want to bring corporate magazines down?
do you just want to raise awareness about advertising in magazines?

what are you really trying to do? what is really your purpose? to stop people being greedy? because really, raising awareness can only get you so far.

and no, i dont think that doing 'anything' is good enough. we are already inundated with material for and against corporate culture to the point where we wil begin to tune out the advertising of both. do we need more?

It seems to me that you are really fighting advertising with advertising and marketing with marketing. This is much bigger issue than advertising in magazines. Look at what is really the issue. What drives the need to advertise? You aim for anything less and you have wasted your time. I dont really have a substantial answer or plan, but i am pretty sure that is where we should be focused.

Money talks, so give to those who are ALREADY refusing to put advertising content in their magazines, and encourage other people to do the same.

In repsonse to a previous post, in defense of the generic magazine stunt, I felt the need to respond to the following since Ive come across this before elsewhere.

"It seems to me that you are really fighting advertising with advertising and marketing with marketing."

First, people fight like things with the like. Meaning- if you are sued you do not have an accountant represent you; if you are attacked by an invading army you do not charge with a brigade of ice cream vendors. You fight 'fire with fire'.
Otherwise, since the communication of anything , including a belief or idea, in any form, including 'word of mouth', can be construed as marketing or advertising, then I guess the only option for people with areyougeneric's beliefs would be to basically not say anything and remain quiet. I am sure some people would like that (not implying the previous poster would).

So areyourgeneric.org, Adbusters and the like, dont ever feel like you are becoming what you dislike; if anything, your are neutralizing the process.

Hmmm...this is cool. I hate magazines that are packed with ads. But at the same time, I know how important advertising is, since working on magazines is part of my job.

"more often than not, these independent magazines that do have the audacity to pursue a less commercial outcome are those that are in thousands & thousands of dollars of debt."

...because they don't have advertising. It's the big conundrum: unless you're funded by a private organization or individual, or you charge an arm and a leg per issue, you need avertising to stay in business. A lot of people assume that magazines make more money off of subscriptions and shelf sales, but that's not the case. Some magazines consistently LOSE money on subscriptions.

"start your own magazine with thoughtful content & little to no advertising."

So much easier said than done...where would one get the money for printing? Distribution? To pay writers? An editor? Designers? Illustrators? As nice as it sounds to build and publish a smart, fresh magazine as a pro-bono project, magazines are HARD work. And hardly anyone likes to bust their butt for free!

I think the smarter approach would be to find a way to encourage publishers and ad salespeople to raise their rates and be more selective about advertisers - but how to do that, other than writing letters and working for the magazines themselves - is another issue entirely.

arghhargharhgrah arhg argh, i'm going to eat you!!!!!!

in response to george.
fighting advertising with advertising & marketing with marketing can function effectively if done thoughtfully & purposefully ie; jenny holzer, joeseph kosuth, barbara kruger (& sometimes adbusters). but, i believe that a lot of ‘jamming’ utilises a medium that is so saturated with nonsense that it’s integral for the work to have a clearer purpose. the intent of this work is great, but it uses a transgressive form of marketing (which can read like self promotion) that quickly invalidates itself.

"start your own magazine with thoughtful content & little to no advertising." >"So much easier said than done...where would one get the money for printing? Distribution? To pay writers? An editor? Designers? Illustrators?"

that is what is implied with that statement. if ‘are you generic’ have the gall to attack their peers, i think that it is important for them to have at least some understanding of the depth of the problem they are dealing with. to start a magazine is hard, to keep one going while retaining integrity is harder.

"I think the smarter approach would be to find a way to encourage publishers and ad salespeople to raise their rates and be more selective about advertisers."

i think that a few independent magazines are realising that if they have a very good product, companies will want to buy their way in. whether or not the ad rates are any more expensive than anyone else, is another question.

i would like to know what the real purpose of this 'jamm' is/was. what are you trying to achieve? who are you attempting to speak to?

though, in saying all of this, other than the aforementioned solution C M & i proposed, i have nothing.

I LOVE THIS SITE SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!
I handed out shh cards
I almost got into a fight once but it was worth it
LOVE THE SITE!

I miss content too. Most of the time I find the ads more interesting than the rest of it.

the problem is not with advertisers, magazines, publishers, etc. the problem is with the consumers. they are complascent. they see nothing wrong with advertising and do not recognize the function of ads within their own life and society at large.

does this campaign really deter ads or hurt the magazine? no. the magazine still got their money and the ad will still get seen in some other media or venue.

but that's ok. the point here is to reach the consumer, the only place where real change is possible. and I think this jam has that potential. the message could say more or be more challenging, imho, but it at least it has a presence and it disrupts the expectations of the consumer.

simply rad.

OF course, ads in the media are a complete scam, and that is unfortunate. However, the content of many of these magazines we see as examples is horrible. They refect the ads and promote a false lifesyle that is unabtainable by anybody who does not want to live some sort of weird, shallow, fantasy life. Fuck the ads, but also the mags.