Responses by Phil Curl and Wes Anson, founders/creative partners, D.Studio
Background: The campaign was created to promote the benefits of magazines to advertisers. The aim was to change the perception of magazines in the minds of advertisers by focusing on a key proposition, and encourage them to make magazines a more prominent part of their media plan.
Reasoning: Extensive research had unveiled that magazines offer great quality attention for advertisers without blowing their budgets—a winning combination that most other media platforms cannot boast—and often the same quality of attention comes at a much higher price. So, in order to turn heads, we devised the “Pay Less for More Attention” message, which read as “Pay Attention” when initially viewed. We then set out to express the virtues of magazines by using the medium itself and turning leading industry figures into cover stars on some of the country’s leading titles, including Cosmopolitan, Empire, Time Out and Grazia.
Challenges: From our side of things, it was ensuring the messages were clear and the campaign was rolled out consistently across multiple areas. From the client Magnetic’s side of things, the agency had to enlist the industry cover stars and convince some of the nation’s biggest magazine brands to run a special six-page cover wrap, which was no mean feat!
Favorite details: The whole campaign, but particularly the core campaign message “Pay Less for More Attention.” It’s strong, direct and hits the nail on the head.
Visual influences: We wanted the campaign to have a similar feel to a political campaign, so we took inspiration from those campaigns run in the United Kingdom and the United States, both past and present—particularly the old Kennedy and Nixon campaigns in the United States; they’re so strong and direct. We wanted to emulate that feel but with a modern aesthetic.
Anything new: When you’re photographing people who aren’t necessarily comfortable in front of camera and only have a limited amount of time, we had to find a way to make them feel at ease quickly. Part of this involved telling jokes. It sounds corny, but it works! So we definitely learned a few (very bad) jokes along the way!
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