Will a Full Page Ad Guarantee a Review?

Mags have to 'negotiate' with companies to get items to review. Even though the mag may be making lots of money, it never (almost never, whatever) thinks to go out and BUY a piece of equipment to review. No....too much of an expense. In what do these 'negotiations' consist? What is agreed to? One thing for d...sure...the readers' interest is nowhere to be found....

So riddle me this...

Let's suppose for a moment that those sneaky manufacturers are actually throwing not only free gear but advertising dollars at magazines in the vain hope of letting us know their products exist and are available

And let's suppose that those completely unprincipled magazine reviewers, editors and publishers are busy trading editorial coverage for free gear and advertising dollars...

Now what?

Do you support the manufacturer that you've never heard of and can't find?

Do you automatically ignore any review which carries a manufacturers ad?

Help me out here - I too desperately want to do the right thing!

I remember a number of years ago when Stereophile reviewed a Velodyne speaker. It wasn't a very good review. In the Manufacturer's Comments at the end of the issue, Velodyne made their displeasure known. They further said they would stop advertising in Stereophile for the forseeable future. This was about eight or ten years ago. I haven't noticed whether they are still holding the grudge and continue to avoid advertising there.

So there is no question that reviews and ads are correlated. However, this documented correlation is in the opposite direction to what was proposed in the thread question.

I do not have any evidence that the correlation works in the direction of an ad leading to a review. I have certainly noticed ads from certain companies appearing in magazines around the time of a review, and then tapering off a few months later. However, this is not conclusive proof that the ad lead to the review. It is equally plausible that the manufacturer is simply trying to leverage the increased awareness of their product that the review produces.

One of the basic truths in advertising is that ads are more credible when the brand or product is supported by public relations - especially in the form of third party endorsements (real or implied) such as a review.

Meaning that manufacturers know that running an ad in an issue that carries a review provides a measurable way to leverage their investment.

At the same time, as Pableson pointed out, publishers know that people read magazines to find out about the latest and greatest - this is especially true in the world of buff books (specialty or enthusiast mags)

So a model has evolved based on this "synergy" - the third leg of which are the tradeshows where each year the hot new things are discovered and the review calendar is planned for the year.

Along with hifi, I am into photography, sailing, gardening, cooking and wine and I assure you this same model is at work in all of them.