After getting a shaky start as the technology matured and advertisers tried to figure out this new medium, online advertising has finally become a significant force in consumer and business marketing. Companies in a wide variety of industries are shifting some of the advertising budgets from traditional media such as television and magazines to the increasing selection of advertising possibilities online-and more than a few companies now advertise almost exclusively online. That's fine for companies that sell advertising time and space for websites and blogs, but your job involves selling advertising in print magazines that are worried about losing market share to online publishers.
Online advertising has two major advantages that you can't really compete with: interactivity and the ability to precisely target individual audience members. On the other hand, you have several advantages going for you, including the ability to produce high-color photography, the physical presence of print (such as when a magazine sits on a table in a doctor's waiting room), portability, guaranteed circulation numbers, and close reader relationships that go back years or decades in many cases.
Your task: You work as an advertising sales specialist for the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, which publishes more than 150 magazines around the world. Write a brief persuasive message about the benefits of magazine advertising; the statement will be posted on the individual websites of Time Inc.'s numerous magazines, so you can't narrow in on any single publication. Also, Time Inc. coordinates its print publications with an extensive online presence (including thousands of paid online advertisements), so you can't bash online advertising, either.39